 |
From the very beginning period of human life in an ancient eastern heritage mentioned in Hindu text as old as 5000 years, practiced by sages and seers for their individual welfare. Later after 2600 years back, the major icon of meditation was brought into lime light by Gautam Buddha. For the human welfare along with lot of compassion, boudha distributed the technique of meditation common to all. But the concept was different at different times as per their prevailing languages. Lord Mahabir and subsequently Christians, Jews, Mushlims, Sikhs and almost all meditate and preached for continuous awareness. Shri Aurbindo, Maharishi, Raman, Mahesh Yogi, Osho and Brahmakumaris recommend meditation. Looking from this series of historical detail, there is no doubt that all these time spent for meditation is the golden investment for us, and now there is at most more than 100s meditational techniques is practiced due to their modification accordance with time, place and spiritual needs.
Human body is the combination of two components; physical and non-physical being(spiritual) wherein physical body needs medication and spiritual body requires meditation for perfect health. Both medication and meditation are derived from common root- meditari(Latin) means healing. 'Sadhna' is the simply art and skills for the purification of minds and also something beyond. Depending upon the reachment of different levels of minds, meditations have many purposes of outcomes as per their personalities and motive. However, meditation is trail of experience rather than expression. Based on the information collected from different sources, the effects of healing on human body parts are discussed on:
Mind
Human body is the very important and sensitive parts of body and its effects on body is measured in laboratory by estimating neurochemicals, and demonstrated on the basis of imagination. The logical determinations and popular saying of human mind are point out below:
Ø Mind is the master of non-physical structures while brain and body are servants.
Ø Mind is the king i.e. it first happens but we are slaves.
Ø Mind is restless and cluttered by thoughts, desires and memories.
Ø Pure mind is heaven while evil mind is hell.
Ø Mind can be best friend or worst foe.
Ø Mind and body are two sides of coin-meaning inseparable.
Ø Mind can't be seen in laboratory only its effect on physcal level can be measured.
Ø Learning to focus the mind is basic necessity for beginners.
Ø Epigeneticist Dr. Bruce Lipton estimates that more than 90% of diseases have roots in mind and caused by stress.
Ø Learning to focus the mind is basic necessity for beginners.
Ø Purifications of mind is the purpose of life.
Ø The purpose of meditation is to purify the mind.
Faculty procedures of mind
Buddha explains the working of mind on the basis of 4-faculties:
First Faculty:- It immediately cognizes that something has happened.
Second Faculty:- It recognizes and evaluate on the basis of past conditioning (experiences).
Third Faculty:- It feels an experience of sensation.
Fourth Faculty:- It reaches towards these feelings(sensation) by craving(raga) or aversion(dwesh).
All these faculties do their jobs with high speed.
The missing link found by Buddha is "people react towards the body sensations which are painful or pleasant and not to the outside situation or person," they are only the triggering factors. Due to these reactions, release the number of neurochemicals, the effects which on brain and body last for variable time depending of the severity of negativity. The sources of negativity in the deep-rooted mind while the mind training techniques and drugs act at a level of neurochemicals, which is a directly well address by "Meditation".
Actually, when reaction on the mind takes place, there are two distinct changes.
1. Breath loses its normal rhythm and
2. There are sensationson body.
With continuous practiceof meditation mind will develop faculty of awareness (by focusing on breath) and equanimity (by not reacting to these sensations). In this way the barrier between two mind (conscious and unconscious) breaks and everything become super conscious and habit pattern of blind reaction reduces and gradually stops. There is significant evidence of greater brain of monks who practice Buddhist meditation. The brain activity called gamma wave activity, in area associated with learning and happiness were activated in comparisons to those who didn't practice meditation. Mental processes like attention, memory learning and conscious perception are involved through gamma wave. The high activity in area shows positive emotions, peace and happiness. If once we know the working procedures of mind, we need to master the technique to trained the mind not to avoid other misery.
Heart
It is the important functional organ of human biology. Regular practice on meditation supports our heart in many ways- from coping with stress to maintaining blood pressures. When our mind becomes calm, the heart starts working viz. contraction and relaxatation naturally. Then after, a natural wave of heart continuously proceeds in smooth and efficient way. Researcher has found that, regular practice can positively affect the measures of heart health known as heart rate variability (HRV). HRV shows how fast your heart makes small changes in time interval between each heartbeat. For healthier heart, the level of HRV should be high. A study in 2013 found that low HRV is associated with a 32% to 45% increased risk of heart attack or stroke among people without any symptoms of cardiovascular diseases.In the same year, study found that people who did five minutes of meditation daily for 10 days had a better HRV compared with those who didn't meditate. Therefore, we may able to raise our HRV with regular meditation for healthy life.The high quality studies of experts also reflect that meditation can modestly lowers the blood pressure. A statement published in Hypertension in 2013 (American Heart Association) analyses pooled result from nine studies. It was found that on average, meditation lowered systolic blood pressures (the top number) by 4.7 milligrams of mercury (mm Hg) and diastolic blood pressures (the bottom number) by 3.2 mm Hg.
Others Organs
"Relaxation of body has a great positive vibration on major vital part-mind and heart of the body. The complex structures of humans body and their system do their job accordingly as per their biological activities. The energy and immune system will strong spontaneously with daily practice of meditation. The pattern of digestion and reproduction will increase a lot. There is no doubt about respiration systems which in turn inhale and exhale of air naturally and properly during practice hours improves a lot. Mindfulness meditation will develops our sensational organs. This organ (eye, ear, nose, tongue etc.) fosters and become more in activity. It helps off illness, pain and infection.
All these statement can be better known by examples of various studies in different time period. In one study testing immune function, flu shots were given to volunteers who had meditate for eight weeks and people who didn't meditate. Blood test taken later showed the meditation groups had higher level of antibodies produced against the flu virus, according to the study in Psychosomatic Medicine."Sadhana" has a great role in women health too. Those who are struggling with infertility, pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) and even breast-feeding can be highly improved. The research on this shows that, when women get on meditation regularly, PMS symptoms subsided by 58%.By same token, another finding is that hot flashes were less intense among meditating women.
Health related effects on meditation
1. During meditation oxygen consumption is reduced by 16%, even greater than reduction of 12% that occurs during sleep.
2. Diurnal fluctuation in secretion of stress hormone.
3. Neural structures thatare intimately related to the control of the autonomic nervous system are activated, more of parasympathetic drive.
Because of numerous good effects on health, including control of several diseases, many doctors, psychotherapists and other health professional are increasingly adding meditation techniques to their practice of mainstream, as prescription. They consider meditation as a key element of an integrated health program.
Some of the diseases which find out the beneficial effects of meditation in medical literature on internet or journals are:
Ø Arthritis
Ø Allergies
Ø Asthma
Ø Hypertension
Ø Caronary artery diseases
Ø Irritable bowel diseases
Ø Heart burn
Ø Constipation
Ø Tension, Headaches and Migraines
Ø PMS and menstrual discomfort
Ø Menopausal problems
Ø Pain in the back, hips and knees/ Fibromyalgia
Ø Depression and anxiety
Ø Substance abuse
Ø Skin disorder, e.g. Psoriasis
Ø Chronic fatigue syndrome
Ø Stroke
Ø Overweight with Obesity
Ø Sleep disorder
Ø Terminal cancer related pain and other problems.
Many psychosomatic and lifestyle disorders can be totally or practically eliminated with practice of meditation over a sufficient period. Stress can be very nicely tackled with learning art of meditation. It is estimated that concerned parties who meditated over a period of five years had over 50% reduction in doctor visits and hospital admissions.
Dr. Andrew Newberg et. al. from Philadelphia published a path of breaking paper on Jan 2011 that revolutionized the belief of scientific world. It was SPECT study on Buddhist lamas. It proved that higher meditative states are no more hallucinations; These are actual neurological events:
1. The parietal lobe of the brain is thought to be responsible of giving us a sense of our orientation in time and space. By blocking all sensory and cognitive input into this area, meditation results in the sense of no space and no time. During SPECT study, it was demonstrated that there was significant reduction of rCBF during depth of meditation by Lamas.
2. The second important finding was observed in prefrontal lobe. As we know, this area is well developed only in human race and therefore human have higher cognition, capacity of judgment, intuitive memory and complex tasks, including tactfulness along with rational evolved behavior with social etiquette. The more the developed area, the person is more intelligent. During deep meditation, it is recorded that rCBF increases in this area. I think, therefore all mediators doing a practice over few months to years, they are cognitively more evolved and their behavior is more compassionate. Also it tells us that meditation is a higher state of consciousness.
These findings of SPECT study are reproducible, with different meditation. Although, meditation has its limitation for certain groups who are suffering from psychosis, severe depression or confusional states: extreme anxiety state as well as demented people.
In conclusion, meditation is boon for human race by looking it into proven scientific technique, both in laboratory and experimental level. The positive wave in body and their detrimental effects on physical and spiritual accomplishment for purity of life is its major application for peace and harmony of our society and world, as a large.