Ponder
12-12-2016, 04:29 AM
Zen Meditation Magic: Secrets to Finding the Time for Peace of Mind, Every Day (https://wordery.com/zen-meditation-magic-professor-jennifer-brooks-9781495928994?currency=AUD>rck=bHZHWUxOLzVlMWcvV0VweGZlR3dDM0lqSHVxRFJtSFRn cXh5clM0TWF1aVY1SjNFeHVod0Nab1B3amsvWk5wQjBNMzFST1 F2ZVJFMjBKVFN2WXNqT3c9PQ&gclid=COeD47-P7tACFQ8IvAodfSQDKg)
Chapter 3: Your Brain and Body on Zen
Hat and glove. Love and marriage. Meditation and military.
What? One pair doesn’t belong, and it’s not difficult to figure out which one. Whoever heard of the meditative process coexisting with the U.S. military? Perhaps not in the past, but it’s becoming a brave new world when it comes to Zen meditation.
The U.S. military is studying the effects of meditation on its soldiers. It’s investigating whether regular meditation may be able to bolster the mental performance in combat conditions. The program, called “Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training” was started with the expectation that its benefits would spill over to the soldiers’ overall personal health as well. Currently, it’s being tested on only a small, select group of soldiers. The goal is to eventually make it a broader-based program.
Surprised by the evolution in the status of meditation? Sure, the claims of receiving a calmer state of mind after investing time in meditation are easy to spout off nonchalantly. Quite frankly, you say, there’s no proof to the contrary. Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.
Meditation research has been evolving for several generations. It all started with Dr. Herbert Benson, of Harvard University in the 1970s, when this practice was introduced to the general public. Benson was among the first to scientifically verify the mind-body connection. You can trace a straight line from his research to that of Dr. Dean Ornish, who uses meditation as part of an integrative program to treat his heart patients.
And with recent advances in technology, science can now go where no one has ever been before–inside a functioning brain.
This is Your Brain on Meditation
Indeed, thanks to the fMRI (“f” stands for functioning), the medical community can now see what is occurring in your brain when you meditate. Watching this activity as it happens is amazing, according to even the most stoic of researchers. The results are so incredible that merely the act of reviewing them have converted more than one researcher into a meditator.
Meditation not only calms you, but it reshapes the physical structure of your brain. Up until the advent of the fMRI, conventional medical wisdom held that your body created a fixed number of brain cells up until you reached a certain age. Once you passed that age – and it was a surprisingly young age – you slowly lost these cells. And you couldn’t re-build them. There was nothing you could do to create more.
The most recent medical research, though, has completely smashed that long-held belief into shards. You can stop the loss of your gray matter, as the brain is often referred to. Not only that—you can also grow new and faster acting brain cells – regardless of your age. Meditation is one of the best methods in which to do this.
This is Your Body on Meditation
Later on in this book, we’ll talk more about the integrative nature of your mind, body, and breath. If you believe this concept as just some mumble-jumble spouted by a guru on a Himalayan mountaintop, think again. Medical science now recognizes the vital connection between the mind and the body – and it doesn’t end with growing new brain cells. This marvelous connection continues throughout your body, influencing your overall health.
Perhaps the most surprising discovery involves how small of an effort is needed to create noticeable results. When you practice Zen meditation, for example, laying aside judgment and the assessment of events, your brain is busy making the necessary changes to help bring that connection to fruition.
The meditative act activates the area of the brain which processes negative thoughts. Dr. Philippe Goldin, director of the Clinically Applied Affected Neuroscience Project of Stanford University, found meditation-induced changes not only in the way the brain worked, but also in the behavior of individuals. He explained: “They [the participants in the study] reported less anxiety and worrying. They put themselves down less and their self-esteem improved.”
We mentioned earlier that meditation can improve your overall health. Indeed, it can. Individuals who meditate actually reduced their odds of developing a host of degenerative diseases including (but definitely not limited to):
Coronary disease
Congestive heart failure
High blood pressure
Diabetes
Cancer
Cancer, you ask? Absolutely! Recent research reveals, in fact, that individuals who meditate reduced their chances of developing cancer by 55 percent. Those are good odds. But the odds are even more in your favor if you meditate and you have any type of coronary disease in your family. Those who meditate lowered their risk of this broad category of disease by an unbelievable 87 percent.
These statistics aren’t being ignored. It’s not unusual for doctors to “prescribe” meditation right along with or—in some cases, instead of—medication as part of a health care plan. Perhaps the quality that makes meditation so valuable to your health – both mental and physical – is its ability to de-stress you. Can anyone say they’re not stressed today by work, home duties, the state of the country, international threats, or any number of things?
Nearly 50 years ago, the famous practitioner of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peele observed with a chuckle in his voice (presumably) that the only place you can find individuals who don’t live with stress is the cemetery. As long as you’re alive, you’re living with some level of stress. And stress – at any level – has been known to injure your health. The stress you’re experiencing right now may be lowering your immune system; it could be raising your risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It may even be leading you one step closer to raising your risk of arthritis.
Don’t take my word for the astounding increase in stress that society places on each of us. The professional publication Medical Journal Australia said that, within the last generation, overall stress levels have risen by thirty percent.
Ask the experts on Zen meditation and they can give you their opinion on the cause of this epidemic of stress. As a society, they say, we are unable to separate ourselves from the stresses of the events that occurred in the past. The result is that the stress we’re expecting now will slam us in the future. In a nutshell, we don’t know the peace of living in the moment.
https://wordery.com/zen-meditation-magic-professor-jennifer-brooks-9781495928994?currency=AUD>rck=bHZHWUxOLzVlMWcvV0VweGZlR3dDM0lqSHVxRFJtSFRn cXh5clM0TWF1aVY1SjNFeHVod0Nab1B3amsvWk5wQjBNMzFST1 F2ZVJFMjBKVFN2WXNqT3c9PQ&gclid=COeD47-P7tACFQ8IvAodfSQDKg
__________________________________________
https://c3.staticflickr.com/1/623/31220067650_a891b3097a_z.jpg
Chapter 3: Your Brain and Body on Zen
Hat and glove. Love and marriage. Meditation and military.
What? One pair doesn’t belong, and it’s not difficult to figure out which one. Whoever heard of the meditative process coexisting with the U.S. military? Perhaps not in the past, but it’s becoming a brave new world when it comes to Zen meditation.
The U.S. military is studying the effects of meditation on its soldiers. It’s investigating whether regular meditation may be able to bolster the mental performance in combat conditions. The program, called “Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training” was started with the expectation that its benefits would spill over to the soldiers’ overall personal health as well. Currently, it’s being tested on only a small, select group of soldiers. The goal is to eventually make it a broader-based program.
Surprised by the evolution in the status of meditation? Sure, the claims of receiving a calmer state of mind after investing time in meditation are easy to spout off nonchalantly. Quite frankly, you say, there’s no proof to the contrary. Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.
Meditation research has been evolving for several generations. It all started with Dr. Herbert Benson, of Harvard University in the 1970s, when this practice was introduced to the general public. Benson was among the first to scientifically verify the mind-body connection. You can trace a straight line from his research to that of Dr. Dean Ornish, who uses meditation as part of an integrative program to treat his heart patients.
And with recent advances in technology, science can now go where no one has ever been before–inside a functioning brain.
This is Your Brain on Meditation
Indeed, thanks to the fMRI (“f” stands for functioning), the medical community can now see what is occurring in your brain when you meditate. Watching this activity as it happens is amazing, according to even the most stoic of researchers. The results are so incredible that merely the act of reviewing them have converted more than one researcher into a meditator.
Meditation not only calms you, but it reshapes the physical structure of your brain. Up until the advent of the fMRI, conventional medical wisdom held that your body created a fixed number of brain cells up until you reached a certain age. Once you passed that age – and it was a surprisingly young age – you slowly lost these cells. And you couldn’t re-build them. There was nothing you could do to create more.
The most recent medical research, though, has completely smashed that long-held belief into shards. You can stop the loss of your gray matter, as the brain is often referred to. Not only that—you can also grow new and faster acting brain cells – regardless of your age. Meditation is one of the best methods in which to do this.
This is Your Body on Meditation
Later on in this book, we’ll talk more about the integrative nature of your mind, body, and breath. If you believe this concept as just some mumble-jumble spouted by a guru on a Himalayan mountaintop, think again. Medical science now recognizes the vital connection between the mind and the body – and it doesn’t end with growing new brain cells. This marvelous connection continues throughout your body, influencing your overall health.
Perhaps the most surprising discovery involves how small of an effort is needed to create noticeable results. When you practice Zen meditation, for example, laying aside judgment and the assessment of events, your brain is busy making the necessary changes to help bring that connection to fruition.
The meditative act activates the area of the brain which processes negative thoughts. Dr. Philippe Goldin, director of the Clinically Applied Affected Neuroscience Project of Stanford University, found meditation-induced changes not only in the way the brain worked, but also in the behavior of individuals. He explained: “They [the participants in the study] reported less anxiety and worrying. They put themselves down less and their self-esteem improved.”
We mentioned earlier that meditation can improve your overall health. Indeed, it can. Individuals who meditate actually reduced their odds of developing a host of degenerative diseases including (but definitely not limited to):
Coronary disease
Congestive heart failure
High blood pressure
Diabetes
Cancer
Cancer, you ask? Absolutely! Recent research reveals, in fact, that individuals who meditate reduced their chances of developing cancer by 55 percent. Those are good odds. But the odds are even more in your favor if you meditate and you have any type of coronary disease in your family. Those who meditate lowered their risk of this broad category of disease by an unbelievable 87 percent.
These statistics aren’t being ignored. It’s not unusual for doctors to “prescribe” meditation right along with or—in some cases, instead of—medication as part of a health care plan. Perhaps the quality that makes meditation so valuable to your health – both mental and physical – is its ability to de-stress you. Can anyone say they’re not stressed today by work, home duties, the state of the country, international threats, or any number of things?
Nearly 50 years ago, the famous practitioner of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peele observed with a chuckle in his voice (presumably) that the only place you can find individuals who don’t live with stress is the cemetery. As long as you’re alive, you’re living with some level of stress. And stress – at any level – has been known to injure your health. The stress you’re experiencing right now may be lowering your immune system; it could be raising your risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It may even be leading you one step closer to raising your risk of arthritis.
Don’t take my word for the astounding increase in stress that society places on each of us. The professional publication Medical Journal Australia said that, within the last generation, overall stress levels have risen by thirty percent.
Ask the experts on Zen meditation and they can give you their opinion on the cause of this epidemic of stress. As a society, they say, we are unable to separate ourselves from the stresses of the events that occurred in the past. The result is that the stress we’re expecting now will slam us in the future. In a nutshell, we don’t know the peace of living in the moment.
https://wordery.com/zen-meditation-magic-professor-jennifer-brooks-9781495928994?currency=AUD>rck=bHZHWUxOLzVlMWcvV0VweGZlR3dDM0lqSHVxRFJtSFRn cXh5clM0TWF1aVY1SjNFeHVod0Nab1B3amsvWk5wQjBNMzFST1 F2ZVJFMjBKVFN2WXNqT3c9PQ&gclid=COeD47-P7tACFQ8IvAodfSQDKg
__________________________________________
https://c3.staticflickr.com/1/623/31220067650_a891b3097a_z.jpg