Over the years we have all been hearing about the benefits from meditation for our physical body, our mind and thoughts, emotions and how it heals depression, anxiety, stress, PTSD, improves sleep, supports mental and physical healing of illness and disease. You might have also heard how meditation cultivates and accesses our intuitive nature which is key to our advancement and evolution. But does research back these claims up? Are the best ways to meditate also simple and effective? Are there specific methods of meditation that draw upon research that maximize the benefits? Discover the answers below.
Benefits From Meditation
A key feature of meditation is that it trains our body and mind into the relaxation response which is characterized by a slowing of our heart rate, and breathing, and diminishing of stress. (Stress causes cortisol production that is destructive to the body.) The relaxation response shifts the conscious mind from ordinary waking consciousness, which is the vigilant state (beta brain waves), into a flow and observation (alpha brain waves and sometimes deeper states like theta and delta).
The relaxation response is the opposite of the fight, flight or freeze response which are the characteristics of hyper vigilance where we often find ourselves during ordinary waking consciousness. Learning the relaxation response or re-remembering it through specific musical meditation practices combines research in guided visualization and specific musical listening for easy and quick methods. The take-away from the benefits of the relaxation response as a result of meditation develops awareness,
observation, and non-attachment to occurring and re-occurring thoughts as well as deepens our relationship to our spiritual self.
The following information covers dominant mental, emotional, and physical health concerns in the US and the world for adults, teens, and children and the research that demonstrates dynamic content for accessing the healing states of meditation, and that are beneficial for spiritual awakening, and consciousness development.
Stress, Anxiety, Depression
Stress, anxiety, depression and are on everyone’s radar especially since the pandemic because we, collectively have become aware of these warning signs, and because the pandemic and post-pandemic life has contributed to their presence and need for attention. Unfortunately, younger children also have signs of stress, anxiety, and depression so finding suitable, non-pharmacological interventions that are easy-to-use for everyday life are essential. We also know stress, anxiety, and expression are components of mental and physical illnesses and diseases, which underlines the importance to have non-pharmacological interventions that are effective, easy to access, and easy to incorporate into daily life and useful anywhere and anytime.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Another aspect of stress, anxiety, and depression is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which is a chronic and debilitating disorder that affects peoples’ lives, especially combat veterans and other people who have witnessed one event or a series of multiple smaller traumatic events. There has been enough research on the use of meditation for people with PTSD that multiple research studies on PTSD and meditation are available. These multiple research studies are called a meta-analysis. The collective overview of the meta-analysis reveal meditation provides a positive influence and intervention that supports recovery and management of posttraumatic stress disorder.
Heart Disease
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United
States and the world, according to the World Health Organization. Listening to specific kinds of music reduces stress and anxiety and the use of meditation for reducing heart disease is also of immense value. Meditation produces changes in brain activity, and can lower respiration (breathing rate), oxygen consumption, adrenaline levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol which is a hormone released in response to stress according to Harvard Heart Health.
Pain
Different research groups at different times have conducted research with people who have pain with specific musical listening and with meditation to discover how well patients respond. The effects of meditation and musical listening give pain patients the benefits of lessening of pain, more control over the pain instead of the pain having control over their life, and a change from feeling the pain was not manageable to have the ability to manage their pain.
Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s patients have signs of stress in many situations, lack of understanding and cognition, and progressive changes in their memory loss. Using special musical listening gives beneficial results for people with Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Additional benefits of specific musical listening include stress reduction, slowing of cognitive decline, and reducing the progress of Alzheimer’s with aging.
Sleep
Many people find getting to sleep, staying asleep, getting deep restorative sleep or waking up too early from sleep not only disruptive, but the cause of lack of interest, lack of energy, lack of attention while awake at different times in their life, when they are going through a challenging time, and often as we age. More recent research shows the link between lack of getting good sleep as the result of unresolved trauma. And lack of good sleep can affect how well you think, react, learn, get along with others, work performance, and is a significant contributor to illness.
Research on the effectiveness of meditation and getting good sleep has been going on for over three decades. Meditation
helps to get to sleep and regulates during sleep which contributes to reducing stress. Other components of meditation beneficially impact our sleep and influence our cognitive process, emotions, and behaviors.
Evolution of Consciousness
All the areas above are significant reasons for incorporating meditation into daily life. This final area shows how meditation effects our evolution and our advancement. Additional research has discovered when people meditate there are changes in how our brain actually functions. These changes are profound brain activity patterns from meditation that result in neuroplasticity. Previously neuroplasticity was considered to only occur during human development from ages 0-25, however meditation research shows new neural pathways, and remapping occur. Neuroplasticity from meditation changes the ability to learn, responses to environmental influences, and responses to stress resulting in health, learning, memory, and the ability to recover from damage from illness and accident.
We cannot overlook the value meditation brings to our lives, but so many people have found meditation to be challenging
to do! Methods of easy meditation, which is accessing the relaxation response are the key. 3Melete Meditations were created because special sounds and frequencies, tonal patterns and rhythms carry the listener without effort and are just as easy to listen to anywhere anytime. We are at the beginning stages of understanding the value of meditation. As research continues and researchers become meditators, new areas of benefits will be identified! Additional benefits of meditation will be covered in the next blogs. Check out the different meditations 3Melete has to offer so you can get the benefits.
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