Meditation makes us healthier

“Studies in recent years have shown that on Mondays at 9:00 a.m. more heart attacks occur than at any other time and days of the week. The people least prone to suffer a fatal heart attack are those who show a high level of satisfaction with their work.

So, we’re starting to realize that the option plays an important role in this case. Although heart attacks are supposed to occur randomly, it still appears that at least some are controlled by the people who have suffered them. Some people who hate their job express their feeling on Monday mornings, thus inducing a heart attack on their own, while those people who like their job do not.

In conventional medicine there is no known mechanism for inducing a heart attack by yourself using your mind. From the Ayurvedic perspective, the heart is a copy of the same impulses that occupy the mind, including the disappointments, fears and frustrations of the mind.

Any dissatisfaction manifests itself physically, because all our thoughts turn into chemical compounds. When we are happy, the chemical compounds in the brain circulate throughout the body, transmitting this state to each cell. When they receive the message, the cells “become happy” too, in turn; in other words, they begin to function more efficiently, influencing their own chemical processes. If we are depressed, on the other hand, exactly the opposite happens. Sadness is transmitted to each cell, generating heart pain, the case of infarction, and the immune system weakens. Whatever we think and do starts in the iteration of our organism, and then comes to the surface and comes to life.

You have probably heard about experiments in which subjects in a state of hypnosis get to have warmer hands, to appear red spots on their skin or even rashes just by the force of suggestion. This mechanism does not work only in the case of hypnosis. And we do it all the time, except we don’t usually have voluntary control over it. A typical victim of the heart attack would be shocked to learn that she caused it on her own. And yet, if we look beyond the morbid implications, the really interesting news is that we have huge powers, not yet exploited. Instead of unconsciously creating diseases, we could consciously create health.

One-third of adult Americans belong to the large category of hypertensive patients; almost 30 million people have already been warned by their doctors of the danger of heart attacks and yet they are not undergoing any treatment. These patients generally respond very well when they follow the meditation sessions. The connection was first made in 1974, following a study by Harvard Medical School. 22 hypertensive patients were monitored 12,000 times, before and after meditation sessions. Over a period that extended from one month to 5 years, the average levels dropped from 150/94 to 141/88. This situation was enough to bring the diastolic pressure (lower figure) back to an acceptable average; the systolic press (the higher figure) has also seen a significant improvement, although it has not reached 120 or 130 as it is considered normal according to American standards. These results were repeated in many other studies, regardless of whether or not subjects were given a medication against arterial pressure.

You may think that reducing hypertension by only a few lines is not a great achievement, even if an insignificant increase in blood vessel pressure is considered extremely dangerous in the long run. Half of the total number of deaths associated with hypertension belong to this category. Insurance companies use the blood pressure index as the most significant indicator for life expectancy. A middle-aged man who has a normal blood pressure (120/80) expects to live 16 years longer than someone who has a moderate hypertension (150/100). By practicing meditation, most people under the age of 40 might expect to be below the limit set for normal hypertension which is 130/90.

Meditation can also lead to a significant decrease in high cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is an essential risk factor for cases of heart attacks, because excess cholesterol in the blood is directly related to the layer of fat that is stored, blocking the arteries that lead to the heart. At first glance it seems amazing that the mind could control the cholesterol serum.

A few years ago, two researchers from Israel, M.J. Cooper and M.M. Aygen, selected 23 patients with high cholesterol levels; of these, 12 were trained to practice meditation and did so for 11 months, while the other 11 did not practice meditation. At the end of this period, the group that had practiced meditation recorded a substantial decrease in cholesterol levels, from an average of 255 to 225 (the level of 200 is considered ideal for adults in the USA). Those who had not practiced meditation did not register a considerable decrease in cholesterol levels. The subjects were monitored so that age, diet, weight and exercise were not major factors.

These results suggest that the entire human mind-body system can be influenced by a mental technique, and the encouraging results related to hypertension and cholesterol have led to the expansion of research on other diseases.

Thus, Dr. David Orme-Johnson, a research psychologist, analyzed the level of health of a sample of 2,000 people who practiced meditation. The entire group agreed that they agreed to be checked periodically from a medical point of view. A major transport company that covers hundreds of other groups of people has been included in this research. There were no bans on diet or lifestyle.

Dr. Orme-Johnson wanted to find out how often a person who practiced meditation regularly went to the doctor, compared to the average per person. It turns out that the difference is quite large. Those who followed the meditation followed an outpatient treatment:

• less than 46.8% in the case of children (0-19 years)
• less than 54.7% in the case of young adults (19-39 years)
• less than 73.7% in the case of mature adults (over 40 years)

The above situation highlights a remarkable improvement in the health of the subjects. A mature meditation practitioner visited his doctor once compared to 4 times, as was the average per person for those who did not meditate. The fact that older people have benefited the most from this service is also extremely significant. Regarding specific diseases, the study showed that in cases of heart attacks and cancer, the two major causes of death in the U.S., their number decreased below the norm. People who practiced meditation recorded:

• 87.3% fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks
• 55.4% fewer hospital admissions for benign and malignant tumors of all types.

None of these categories has seen such decreases in the use of conventional disease prevention techniques. Let’s keep in mind that if a cholesterol-lowering drug could lead to a decrease in the number of heart attacks by 50%, this would be the headline of news around the world.

The situation is 2 times more eloquent in the case of cancer-related figures. Dr. Orme-Johnson used a sample of 600,000 employees of the same transport company. He analyzed all medical requests recorded over a period of over 5 years to ensure that there is no short-term deviation from the normal situation. In conclusion, people who practiced meditation halved their trips to the doctor compared to the average American.”

Excerpt from Perfect Health – by Deepak Chopra

Source: http://apastructurata.blogspot.ro/