The topic of meditation haunted me for almost two years, but I ignored it. It was clear to me that meditation is very important for a healthy lifestyle, but for some reason it always seemed that only esoteric people meditate and for a long time yoga practitioners, enlightened monks and various kinds of ascetics. ABOUTit seemed that I was very wrong. IN At some (happy!) moment, I began to come across books and articles about meditation practices that were written by people “from science”: doctors of medicine, psychologists, even engineers! And it also turned out that there are a huge number of techniques that are subject to the “ordinary” person, and people regularly meditate, far from Buddhist monasteries and religions in general, residents of large cities, with a Western lifestyle, even cynical businessmen and politicians, and similar characters “understandable” to me. In a word, it became obvious to me that I also have a chance to join meditative practices and I began to search for “my” meditation. What I have chosen and how I meditate, I will tell you in the next post.
Why is meditation so important for health, and how do scientists explain it? I’ll tell you by example held some time ago at the American clinic Menla Center conference called “Longevity and Tibetan Medicine”… It has brought together Tibetan monks, Buddhist scholars, meditation researchers and award-winning biomedical scientists, immunologists, geneticists, aging scientists, stress physiology and many more from universities such as MIT, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Duke and UCSF. To this meeting they were prompted by the desire to find a connection between consciousness and the state of our body. The similarity of the ideas of “postmodern biology” – the new science of “systems” of thought and medicine – with the ancient practices of Tibetan medicine and Buddhism is striking!
The conference focused on the links between the nervous system, health and aging. The older we get, the more inflammation-causing molecules our immune system produces, and the more our nervous system reacts to stress. And stress is one of the factors that incapacitate the body and accelerate its aging (I wrote about the harm from stress several times).
This relationship is not just reasoning, but a fact proven by scientific research. The fact is that the immune system is controlled by the so-called vagus nerve. It is the most important “conductor” of brain signals to all major organs. And we can activate this nerve – through relaxation, meditation, and other ancient practices.
What does it do? By activating the vagus nerve, we can control our immune cells and reduce inflammation, and therefore prevent disease and even slow down the aging process. After all, inflammation is one of the main causes of disease and aging. By achieving a healthy brain state, we can turn on our vagus nerve and control inflammation.
Here are some of the conclusions reached by the conference participants.
By learning to “put” the brain into positive states through deep relaxation or meditation, we can:
• reduce inflammation,
• help the body recover by activating stem cells,
• increase heart rate variability,
• increase the size of your brain (which usually decreases with age),
• improve immune function,
• reduce depression and stress,
• improve productivity.
Obviously, all of this will improve the quality and duration of life. I have been meditating for several months now and I am ready to support scientists in everything! I have never met such a simple and effective means of dealing with the problems of a modern city dweller. More about how my husband and I meditate and how it affects our lives, I will tell in the next post.
Sources:
FT.com
Dr. Hyman.com