May 9, 2008...6:35
Meditation reduces blood pressure, boosts heart health: new study
A new study has found that meditation can significantly reduce blood pressure and boost heart health.
In welcoming the report, Seikan Cech BHSc (Hons) Dr ChineseMed(Acup) DipCouns Grad DipSocSc (FamTherapy) from The Gawler Foundation said “these findings provide further confirmation of our long-term observations and experience that regular meditation practice will routinely create a whole range of positive health effects for the body and mind.”
Dr James W Anderson, the study’s lead author, said the study showed that all it takes is 20 minutes a day to reduce your blood pressure and boost your heart health.
Not just any meditation will do though.
Dr James W Anderson, the study’s lead author, suggests regular transcendental meditation, which involves sitting in a comfortable chair and attempting to quiet the mind by focusing on a mantra. “It’s fairly simple but you need training to get into it,” Anderson said. “It allows you to get below the kind of ‘cocktail chatter’ that’s always going on in your brain.”
Released in the American Journal of Hypertension, the study said that transcendental meditation has a unique ability to bring the practitioner into a quiet zone that acts as a kind of sanctuary for a person, refreshing them and reducing stress.
Seikan who is a therapist at The Gawler Foundation is a Zen monk with extensive meditation experience.
“Maintaining excellent health is actually what our bodies are designed to do naturally,” he said “To allow this to happen effectively, it’s useful for our minds to become settled and not get in the way. This is what meditation will facilitate. And by restoring the balance between the body and the mind, our health and healing will be its natural ’side-effects’ - ones that nobody will ever have to complain about!”
Links:
> Reuters
>The Gawler Foundation
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