Coffee Break
Quantum
HEALTH
Issue 10 March 2011
Mega Reasons to Meditate
Decades of research have shown us all the benefits of meditation, from reduced stress to lower blood pressure to sharper minds and even a greater sense of happiness. The evidence keeps mounting that meditation may be one of the most productive ways to enhance health, both mind and body. While most studies are conducted with adult meditators and so the benefits are related to adults, the improvements in mind-body health may be even more pronounced for children.
New research shows that meditation–and it doesn’t matter what kind you do–improves health and functioning in many surprising and widely diverse ways. Over the long-term, meditation improves your attention span, sharpens recall and memory, enhances learning, brings clarity to thought processes, increases cognitive flexibility, sharpens sensory processing and improves concentration. These sound like all of the abilities we want to foster in our school- age children, don’t they? Of course, they also may help us adults climb the corporate ladder a little faster, too.
In addition to cognitive and mental improvements, meditation stimulates emotional health. Studies have shown that it
enhances social and emotional functioning, reduces anxiety, alleviates depression, reduces impulsivity, makes it easier to manage your emotions, increases a sense of well-being and contentment, and can make you more empathetic and compassionate toward others.
Even certain types of illnesses and medical conditions can be helped by meditation. For example, studies reveal meditation to be an effective treatment for eating disorders, substance abuse, psoriasis, depression and chronic pain. To read more about these and other benefits of meditation, see the article “Everybody say om” in New Scientist, January 8-14, 2011.
16 Quantum Health
www.quantumhealthmagazine.com
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