Meditation: The Surprising Health Benefits and a How-To

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This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while now, and I believe there’s no better time than now for it.

Why? Meditation can be a game-changer - especially when stress levels are high (and who’s stress levels aren’t through the roof right now?). 

So this week, I joined forces with two meditation experts to compile the information presented here. Now I’d like to share this valuable information with you, including some of the many health benefits of meditation and a simple step-by-step guide to help you get started today.

What is meditation?

The words “meditate” and “meditation” may seem quite foreign, vague, or “flighty” to you - especially if you’ve never given it a try. They may still seem foreign, even if you have given it a try!

But what does it mean to meditate?

One way of thinking about meditation is that it does for the mind what physical exercise does for the body. Meditation is a mental exercise that involves many facets, including relaxation, awareness, and focus. It is a means of transforming the mind.

Every major culture and religion practice some form of meditation, but meditation does not need to be associated with any religion. It is simply (though not so simple) a mental exercise designed to promote relaxation, clarity of thought, peacefulness, and connection. Some people use meditation as a way of connecting to their inner self, a specific deity, or whatever Spirit they believe guides them. 

From a health standpoint, meditation goes much further.

Guest contribution: One person’s Meditation Story

by Joe Aiello

Although I don't recall exactly when, but I first discovered meditation after my accident. Meditation is medicine, and it has brought discipline to my life and lightness to my step, but it wasn't always that way.

A former technology executive, I began my path into this unknown meditative world with what I knew, and that was tech. After purchasing several different pieces of kit and committing to using them every day, my practice naturally evolved into meditating.

Not knowing what to do, I sat there and, as I recall, found it difficult, painful even—the self-judgment and the awkwardness of the frustration of not being able to turn off my mind. However, I pressed on every day and eventually got the tutelage I needed. 

I can vouch, after having meditated for well north of 87,000 minutes, that there is something to this. The benefits of meditation are vast; they are also tangible, and with a bit of investigation, one will resonate. As with anything in life, persistent consistency is a must: daily practice will yield better results. I now help other TBI survivors, and those with chronic pain learn to meditate.

Studies have shown that meditation can slow the rate of cellular aging. Telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes (Kelly describes them as the plastic coating found at the tip of shoelaces), reduce in size when under chronic stress, depression and poor nutrition. 

[1] Studies have shown that some forms of meditation may have beneficial effects on telomere length by reducing cognitive stress by increasing positive states of mind, which signal a hormonal response that may promote telomere maintenance. Telomeres are an essential part of human cells that affect how our cells age and how we look. Think more wrinkles. A major cause of DNA damage is the shortening of telomeres.

[2] Meditating also increases self-awareness and impulse control (a skillset, not just TBI survivors need). MRIs have shown that regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, particularly in regions known for emotion regulation. Neuroimaging showed that an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction practice netted increases in gray matter in the hippocampus and areas of the brain tied to compassion and self-awareness.

[3], [4] Another study followed up with 18 volunteers three years after they had completed an eight-week meditation program. Most volunteers had continued practicing regular meditation and maintained lower anxiety levels over the long term. A more extensive study that cited 2,466 participants also showed that a variety of different meditation strategies help reduce anxiety levels.

Suffice to say that there are countless benefits; studies abound which demonstrate, with a scientific lens, that a regular meditation practice can help with: addictive behaviours, attention span, memory loss, empathy, pain, decrease blood pressure, and so on. Beyond the scientific data, however, is how you feel after practicing for a while.

Models of Meditation

  • Guided meditation;

  • Mantra meditation;

  • Mindfulness meditation;

  • Walking meditation;

  • Pranayama meditation; and there are many more!

I believe we all have the capacity to meditate. I say this because there exist as many meditation techniques as there are people! With consistency, anyone can create a conscious practice, which like exercise for the body, keeps us psychologically and emotionally fit.

Put your thoughts into a vision of being where the world is healthy and happy and evolving into a peaceful community. We must not let fear create havoc on our mental health and allow it to compromise our immune systems further.

We all want a better world, and that starts with us through the thoughts which we manifest.  

Disabled or otherwise I would encourage anyone to supplement and enhance this material with their analysis through their direct experience.

“…meditation is toilet paper for the mind [sic].” Shinzen Young

Is there a better time to meditate than now?

Additional Health benefits of meditation

Yes, the health benefits of mediation are vast. Here are a few more of the many benefits people experience after committing to a regular meditation practice:

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  • Meditation can increase your EQ. A higher EQ, or emotional quotient, may be an even greater factor than our IQ (intelligence quotient) in achieving success, reaching our goals, and becoming the leader we wish to be. People with a higher EQ tend to have a deeper emotional understanding of themselves and others. And one of the most accessible ways of boosting your own EQ is through meditation.

  • It increases positivity. Meditation stimulates our brain in such a way as to make us more positive people. Over time, we learn to let things go and look for the good in any situation. This positivity mindset becomes a great coping mechanism that is transferable to every aspect of life.

  • It boosts your immune system. When we meditate, activity in our brain’s prefrontal cortex, right anterior insula, and right hippocampus increases. Every one of these areas of the brain act as our immune system's command post. So by meditating, we’re increasing the communication networks between our brain and our immune system. Over time, this increases our immune system’s effectiveness by improving markers of inflammation and cell-mediated immunity. [5]

  • Meditation increases neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s ability to form new neural networks and rewire itself. And meditation has been proven to increase neuroplasticity! It strengthens the brain’s “corpus callosum,” the network of nerves that cross-link both halves (hemispheres) of the brain and improves neuronal connections. [6] This has been linked to many health benefits including:      

      • Better focus

      • More Creativity

      • Clearer thinking

      • Enhanced memory

  • Meditation reduces anxiety. Brain imaging has shown that meditation provides anxiety relief by activating specific areas of the brain including the anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, and anterior insula. Each of these is involved in executive functioning and helps to control worrying. By activating these regions, anxiety levels decrease. Once you are armed with the tools meditation provides, it can even help you out of a panic attack should you find yourself in the midst of one.

  • Meditation improves cognitive function. Yes - meditation can make us smarter by increasing the amount and density of gray matter in our brain. Brain scans show that the hippocampus and frontal cortex of meditators contain more gray matter. This comes with improved emotional stability, greater positivity, better logic, more focus, and improved overall cognitive function.

  • Meditation reduces stress. This is huge and something that everyone can use help with right now! Meditating can produce a deep state of relaxation along with a tranquil mind. When we meditate, we focus our attention and try to eliminate the never-ending stream of jumbled thoughts that take over and cause stress. By slowing down, focusing on our breath and calming the mind, we also switch out of fight-or-flight mode and into parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) mode. This reduces cortisol levels and enhances our emotional well-being.

“Meditation can do all this - and more! It’s not a simple fix and doesn’t happen overnight. But over time, with a regular meditation practice, we can experience all these benefits and enjoy a calmer, more positive demeanour, enabling us to be better equipped to deal with the stressors life throws at as.”
— Kelly

And the good news is that you can start meditating today. It doesn’t cost anything but has the potential of creating tremendous health benefits - both physical and mental. 

How to meditate: a beginners guide

Meditation is about understanding your thoughts and letting them go - it’s not necessarily about sitting in silence without moving. 

As Joe pointed out, there are many ways to meditate, and you certainly don’t need to follow a script to give it a try. Regardless, I wanted to provide you with the tools to start meditating if you don’t already do so. To accomplish that, I reached out to an expert in the field and asked him to put something together for my readers.

Guest Contribution: A Meditation Exercise

By Lou Pino

My Meditation Background

I have been practicing meditation every day for more than 5 years now. I have put in 1500 hours of practice. To put that into context a full-time job with a forty-hour workweek is about 2000 hours per year. I have worked as the lead researcher for a Toronto company that developed a device to help people meditate using feedback from their brainwaves. I have also worked as the lead researcher in a company that used heart-beat feedback from a Smartwatch to help people relax.

Active Attention

There are many different forms of meditation for different purposes. What I’d like to walk you through is a meditation method that can help develop the fundamental skill, the base of the pyramid if you will, that holds up all of the other practices and that is an essential fundamental life skill - active attention. 

There are two types of attention - active attention and passive attention. Active attention is when we chose to stay with one object of attention and hold it with vividness and clarity. Passive attention is the opposite - you are carried away by a stream of thoughts and the energy of attention is scattered. 

Think of a candle flame. What happens when you look at a candle flame? Are you holding it in your attention or does it trigger some memory or thought that triggers another thought etc. Are you caught up in a stream of thoughts that have nothing to do with the candle flame? Active attention is when you look at the candle flame and choose to hold it in attention on purpose. Thoughts or emotions may arise but you let them go and bring your attention back to the vivid sensory sensations of the candle flame.

A good metaphor for active attention is that you want to transform the scattered diffuse light of a ten-watt incandescent bulb into a ten-watt laser beam. 

Almost everybody who starts meditation report what is called “monkey mind.” It takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to get out of monkey mind and get into a more focussed state of mind when I meditate. You know you are making progress when you are relaxed and alert. 

Thoughts will always arise but the duration that they hi-jack you away from active attention will get shorter and shorter the more practice time you put in. It’s impossible for your thoughts to go away completely. This is a common myth that people have about meditation. The longest your mind will stay silent is about half a second for most of us, and up to 5 seconds if you are really practiced. 

It’s important that you do the practice daily if you want to improve. It’s better to do the practice 5 minutes every day than all at once for an hour on the weekend. 

Let’s begin. Steps in Practice:

  1. Posture. Put some energy in your spine to help energize your practice. Align your spinal cord like it’s a stacked column of building blocks. Relax your muscles and let the structure of your spinal cord be a free-standing structure. You know you are doing it right when you feel dignified. 

  2. You may choose to keep your eyes open or closed but closed is easier when you are first starting.

  3. Take some slow, deep breaths through your nose (if there aren’t any medical conditions preventing you from doing so). Feel the air inflate your belly and then your chest. Then slowly, let go of all of the air and push it out so that your belly is flat. Do it slowly and deeply making each in and out-breath last for a total of 12 seconds - about 6 seconds for the in-breath and 6 seconds for the out-breath. Try this for 3 breaths.

  4. Now return your breathing to normal and natural. 

  5. Start a timer - aim for ten minutes if possible. 

  6. Shift your attention to the physical sensation of your breath. Pay attention to some physical sensation of your breath that you find interesting. It could be the feeling of the expansion of your chest, the feeling of air rushing past your nostrils. Try to focus on the physical sensations directly - not any thoughts of the concept of the breath itself, but its physical sensations. This is not about thinking but feeling. The breath is your object of active attention. Your only task is to keep your active attention on it. 

  7. When you notice that you are distracted, and you will be, that’s OK. This is part of the practice. When it happens, bring your attention back to the physical sensations of your breath. Don’t be hard on yourself when this happens. When you have noticed that your mind has wandered - Congratulations!! You have completed 1 repetition in building the muscles of your active attention. 

  8. If you feel agitated then breathe slowly and deeply to help you become relaxed. Then bring your breath back to normal when you feel sufficiently relaxed.

  9. If you are starting to fall asleep then open your eyes. Change your posture, lift your chest, and change your head position and or hand position. Then get back to paying attention to your breath. 

  10. Continue breathing and focusing on the feeling of your breath until your timer ends. 

  11. Begin.

Conclusion

The meditation practice Lou walked you through is just one of many. If you would like to know of other meditations or learn more from our experts please reach out to me directly or comment below.

Regardless of how you proceed from here, I urge you to simply proceed. Meditation can do wonders for our mental health and longevity. So start by making it a little habit at first - even if you commit to 2 minutes of meditation each day. Set a realistic goal for yourself then consistently achieve it. You may not think that two minutes will make much difference, but it’s a good place to start!

As always, I welcome your thoughts and value your feedback. Let me know what you think and how you like to meditate by dropping me a line or commenting below. If you’d like to receive my newsletters for more information about brain health, neuronutrition, lifestyle tips, and nutritional advice, please sign up. And if you haven’t done so yet, check me out on YouTube and kindly subscribe.

Of course, if I can help you or a loved one with your nutritional needs, make an appointment to see me today.

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Brain Health, LifestyleKelly AielloMemory, Mental Health, Meditation, Mindfulness, LifestyleComment