Effect Of Meditation On Health

A quiet revolution is underway in medical science. Only a relatively few years ago, the role of the psyche as a factor in physical diseases was almost universally downplayed. Today, however, with the widespread recognition of the importance of the work of Walter Cannon and Hans Selye on the psychic causation of stress and its role in maintaining homeostasis ; with the advent and success of holistic medicine as an alternative approach; with the recognition of the value of MEDITATION in preventing disease; as well as with the series of advances in neurophysiology and clinical psychology which go a good way towards explanning the above insights, the recognition of the importance of mental and spiritual factors in fighting illness has grown into an imperative of medical treatment nearly everywhere in the world. When Prince Charls of England, in his official capacity as president of the british Medical Association, called for a thorough review of treatment research to bring the personal factor into greater relief and understanding, he was merely formalizing that reveloution. In the United States, various events, such as the “miraculous” cures of Norman Cousins and others from serious diseases such as cancer through attitudinal healing methods, has brought the question dramatically into public awareness. But even revoluotion move in the world of medicines, which employes a materialist base of assumptions and feels limited by the difficulty of harnessing subtle psychological data to a system of laboratory testing designed to measure more tangible phenomina. A way exists to move more swiftly to gain the fruits of this revolution, both for patients and doctors. This is to gain a first- hand experimental understandind of the nature of the deepest levels of the mind, and of the ways of mobilizing one‟s spiritual resources to maintain positive health and overcome many kinds of desease. This understanding and mastery of mind can be achieved easily and naturally, as numerous case histories have shown, through the correct and regular practice of Meditation. Meditation works so efficiently is that it is based on the accurate conceptual knowledge about the self‟s inner working and thus acts as a road map to lead one gently, safe and permanently back into one‟s “center”, into one‟s orginal state of inner peace and self-harmony, wherein the powers of spiritual development and physical holistic health is the healthy soul. The pre-requisite of a healthy soul is maintenance and restoration are all automatically available. The foudarion of systematic understanding of the nature and functioning of the soul. Meditation practice is also advised by several medical consultants. For the treatment of specific psychological diseases some specific positive thoughts are suggested . Special Visualisation techniques are added during meditation practice for the treatment of psychosomatic diseases such as headache, acidity, peptic ulcer, high blood pressure, etc. How to lead a healthy life is one of the most misunderstood subjects. Most people seek a comfortable and easy life and in doing so they adopt such a life style that causes or precipitates large number of deseases. High cholesterol and low fiber diet, lack of exercise, living in congested dwellings, fast urban life, smoking and consumption of alcoholic beverages are some of the disease-promoting factors. In addiction to all these factors stress and strain of day-to-day life has increased to an epidemic proportion. Due to the development of science and technology, life has become much more easy but at the same time people have become materialistic. In modern society people are looking for happiness and pleasure from material comforts and 9 external objects.In psyological term our locus of control has become external. Our state of mind fluctuates according to external circumstances. Many people are addicted to substances like tobacco, alcohol and psycotrophic drugs for pieasure but they are extremely hazardous to health. Experts in the field of stress management point out that no situation is stressful by itself. It is due to our way of thinking and attitudes, we perceive various circumstances as stress. By transforming our attitudes we can transform pain into pleasure, criticism into blessing and sorrow into bliss. The research study done by Dr.Herbert Benson and others, point out that we must learn and practice a technique that elicits relaxation responses. The experiment of hundreds of doctors and scientists imply that MEDITATION is the most promising technique for transforming our attitudes towards stressful situations and elicit the relaxation response.