Meditation is Good For Your Brain

Washington: Yale researchers have found that meditation appears to help brain switch off areas associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Meditation’s ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study.

Understanding how meditation works will aid investigation into a host of diseases, he said.

The Yale team conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.

They found that experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and even the build-up of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease.

The scans also showed that when the default mode network was active, brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control were co-activated in experienced meditators but not novices.

This may indicate that meditators are constantly monitoring and suppressing the emergence of “me” thoughts, or mind wandering. In pathological forms, these states are associated with diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.

The meditators did this both during meditation, and also when just resting — not being told to do anything in particular.

This may indicate that meditators have developed a “new” default mode in which there is more present-cantered awareness, and less “self”-cantered, say the researchers.

Read original article

Regain your health and learn to live fully in the present moment by starting to meditate today. You must find time to set aside for yourself and you will be surprised at the benefits you will achieve. Clarity of mind, peace in your heart and an overall feeling of wellness.  Start today!

How to Get Started with a Standing Practice

The key to developing a standing practice is to look for internal stability and avoid internal resistance.

You have to gauge your own level of comfort and resistance at the beginning of this process and then gradually add to the length of time that you hold any basic posture. It is easy to think, “okay, I’m going to hold this posture for thirty minutes”, and then start your countdown timer. What happens, though, is that you fixate on an external reference point (the clock) instead of internal ones. You will add mental and physical tension, and give up some internal clarity, to reach the external goal. Does this sound like something you've encountered in your sitting practice?

Instead of the "by the clock" approach, you should look for internal stability points. Compared to sitting, standing postures can offer much more obvious internal stability points – because they are so strongly tied to the physical body. An internal stability point is the place where everything opens up inside the posture and you feel connected and whole in a way you never do just standing around.

Once everything clicks in a stability point, you want to maintain this state for as long as possible. When you lose it or you shrink out of it or you start to collapse a little bit, the moment is over. Your standing practice then becomes a process of returning to these stability points, becoming more and more familiar with how to get there. What are the right physical alignments? How do you hold your awareness? Think of these early indicators as sign posts on the road to greater internal stability.
The best standing practice to start with begins with a downward body scan. This method works well because you learn to connect your mind to your physical body at whatever internal speed feels comfortable for you. You start by feeling the crown of your head and work downward until you reach your feet. Naturally, as this process becomes more familiar, you find more and more space to explore inside the body. If you follow this approach, you never have to worry about the clock, but you will stand for longer and longer as you refine your internal awareness.

Read More

The more you work at it the better your chances of success. The key as always is to set your goals within reach and then go for it. Small moves will lead to big gains.

As you begin your meditation you go through your ritual of getting prepared. You find your spot you put on comfortable clothes, maybe a candle and even some incense. You might even use a mantra to help quiet that incessant chatter but you still have that babble going on to the point where that is all you can focus on. It's time to practice and don't get discouraged.

Meditation Practice

All you have to do is sit comfortably and watch your breathing. Just breathe naturally, in and out, no forced, short or long breathing. Simply watch each movement of breath. If this is hard, then you can also silently repeat, “breathing in, breathing out” with each breath.

Thoughts will come and go. You will probably find yourself getting distracted. The mind is very good at finding reasons not to be still, like a monkey bitten by a scorpion leaping from branch to branch it leaps from or drama to drama. When it does, just come back to watching your breath. The monkey will eventually get quiet and be still.

Make friends with meditation by not pushing yourself. Start with sitting for just 10 minutes a day until you naturally find yourself wanting and doing longer. That way you won’t resent it. Sit upright – a bent or slouchy back will bring your energy down.

And as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Which means that meditation is accumulative – you may not experience anything the first time you do it, but keep at it and you will. And though it may appear as if nothing is happening, in the midst of it all you may have a breakthrough, a moment of insight, and that one moment can change your life.

Read more

Once you learn how to silent your mind by using deep meditation techniques you will begin to discover the true value of meditation, not just the anticipation but the actuality of removing the chains that you have placed on your mind. There is a whole world just below the surface of consciousness that must be explored. If you have the desire to let go you will find yourself in a place of abounding joy and happiness. Are you ready to let go?

There is strong scientific evidence indicating that faith and prayer may help us with experiencing greater health physically, mentally and psychologically. Many studies have been published in both medical and psychological journals supporting the positive effects of prayer and faith. But some of the studies related to prayer have mixed results depending on the type of prayer, the demographic and the methods and means its effects were being measured. So, it is important to follow these studies with a critical mind to be able to see why they came up with their conclusions. But overall most conclusions are supportive of the positive influences of prayer and faith on human health and functioning.

Physician and researcher Larry Dossey, M. D., in his book "Prayer is Good Medicine," discusses how praying for oneself and others can have a scientifically measurable healing effect on illness and trauma.

When it comes to the types of prayer, there are different types. For the major religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam, prayer is more focused on something "outside of the self," so they pray to God. But the more mystical traditions of these religions like Gnosticism, Kabbalism and Sufism, it seems like they are more focused on the "inside of the self" aspect of the prayer, believing that we all have a divinity inside of us. And then there are Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism, which focus on mediation rather than prayer.

Click here to visit the original source of this post

Prayer is really a form of meditation that may very well bring about a positive change in your life. Whatever you are more comfortable with is what you should be doing. It is a life choice that has it roots in our childhood brought on by family and societal influences. There is no right and wrong when it comes to spirituality there is only doing.

Office staff members are always tense. They end up with backaches, anxiety, and sallow complexions. Although they may have gym memberships, they hardly use them. When they do, they frequently exercise excessively.

Meditation is also an exercise. During meditation, one’s brain becomes quiet; one’s mood becomes calm; one’s meridians are open and energy flows freely; and one’s body relaxes. As a result, one can sleep better and stay healthy.

Meditation Improves Memory.

Many people think only disciples of Buddha or Tao meditate, which is not the case. Wang Yangming, a famous philosopher from the Ming Dynasty, said that he regained his health by meditating.

Associate professor Wang Yong from the Third Xinan Hospital’s Military Medical College said, “When we sit crossed-legged, we open our hip joints to the maximum and the abdominal cavity will become spacious. When the blood and energy circulate into the abdominal cavity, all the inner organs in the cavity will be nourished.
Click here to visit the original source of this post

If you are looking to improve your memory you can greatly enhance your success if you learn how to meditate properly and focus your meditative intentions on you goals. This is very powerful and you will need to follow a structured program to help you with any pitfalls you may have. although this meditation says it's advanced it really does start at the beginning and is what I have used for 5 years now. Check it out here.

Harley Murphy, who heads the Ireland operations of BNY Mellon, used to lie awake at night unable to sleep because of an avalanche of problems facing his division during the banking crisis. ''I'd go to the office each day feeling exhausted and was beginning to feel miserable,'' says Murphy. He found it difficult to think clearly and make confident decisions. He looked for ways to get back on track and then, as part of a leadership training session, took a meditation class. After 30 minutes, he began to relax and focus. ''I couldn't believe it,'' says Murphy.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons meditates. So does Ray Dalio, the 61-year-old founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund. Bill Ford’s a big advocate. Steve Jobs was often associated with the practice. Facebook, Ebay, and General Mills execs are meditators. Google set up separate rooms so senior staff would be able to pursue it. What is meditation? And why should you do it? Among entrepreneurs and business leaders, meditation is an increasingly popular seated practice that encourages alertness in the present moment, a pause to relax and focus, and, ultimately, a recentering to lead better.

Over the past decade, wellness programs, specifically those that emphasize improving employee physical fitness and nutrition, have received significant funding from corporate human resources programs. The goal: alleviate stress in the workplace and help promote work-life balance. Recently meditation got a toehold too, riding the increasing popularity of Eastern traditions, from yoga to Zen Buddhism.

''It’s a case for performance,'' says executive coach Ray Williams who has spent the past 12 years helping leaders take off the edge. ''Because leaders are under so much stress and because there is that performance requirement you have to look at how to be much more productive and better at what you do.''

Meditation is not just about finding yourself. Scientific studies show the positive affects of meditation on the brain. Last year, an article in Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging by researchers from Harvard Medical School, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and the Bender Institute of Neuroimaging in Germany, found that brain activity changed in a group of 16 participants who had not previously meditated. Among the enhancements: learning and memory processes, emotional regulation, and perspective taking. Meanwhile a study at American University published in 2009 in Cognitive Processing found that college students who meditated experienced enhanced brain activity. Here’s how:

Focus on what matters.
What the scientific research is getting at, says Michael Carroll, who teaches meditation as part of becoming a more mindful leader, is that meditation can help leaders pay attention to what really matters. ''There is so much information coming at us, we struggle to remain agile which is the most critical leadership skill. The practice teaches us to slow down instead of trying to be faster, better, or quicker, and rush past our experience instead of trying to have it.''

More control.
Meditation enables leaders to stay in the present moment as opposed to worrying about the next dismal economic report or upcoming quarterly earning. Not that those things are not important. ''Often leaders get caught up in what happens next versus what is in front of them right now,'' explains Williams, the executive coach. By dealing with what you can control and letting go of what you cannot, you can make better decisions. It also helps to approach problems in a non-judgmental and non-reactive way. The more in control you are, the more you can focus on what you are going to do. ''Really great leaders are in complete control of their emotions even in the worst situations,'' he adds.

Better stress management.
The best part about meditation is that anyone can do it–anywhere–for free. ''This is something that executives can do anytime, while waiting in line at an airport, or waiting at a stop light in the car,'' according to Dr. Martyn Newman, author of Emotional Captalists: The New Leaders, and managing director of leadership consulting firm RocheMartin. You don’t have to go off on a ten-day mountain retreat, or take up yoga or tai chi. Dr. Newman recently taught meditation skills to executives at one of Asia’s largest telecommunications companies and reports that participants said they were better prepared to handle stress and conflict and felt more productive after practicing meditation techniques.

How do you do it?
Here are five easy steps to meditate and establish calm.

1. Pause. Turn off cell phones, blackberries, and computers, and give yourself a moment of quiet. The immediate physical impact: blood pressure decreases, and brain activity is less frenzied.

2. Get comfortable. Get into a favorite chair or sit on a cushion. The physical environment should not be a distraction.

3. Focus on your breath. Observe the in-and-out flow of your breath, and stay focused on that sensation. Breathe from your diaphragm not your chest.

4. Clear your mind. Put the to-do list aside. ''Think to yourself, 'I'll catch up with this thought later,' not 'Don't think of this because it will only make your mind wander','' says Williams.

5. Practice every day. A meditation session can be as short as five minutes, sitting on the edge of the bed when you first wake up. There is no formula. Make it work for you.

Original Here

If you can find time everyday to meditate even if it is just for a few minutes you will begin to notice a remarkable change in the way you approach your life and your career. Meditate for success and you will be successful. Please share this with your friends so we can get the word out about meditation by clicking on the share button below.

One way to develop a physiology that embodies the qualities of the unified field is to have direct experience of it.

Meditation allows the mind to experience more and more abstract levels of the thinking process and, ultimately, to transcend to that most abstract level of awareness, transcendental consciousness, which is the unified field itself. This is the state of pure awareness, pure consciousness.

Meditation has been part of the spiritual tradition of almost every culture. There are a number of scientific studies that show the beneficial effects of mediation. Blood pressure comes down. Stress is alleviated. Basal metabolic rate goes down. Insomnia, anxiety, and a number of psychosomatic disorders are relieved and disappear. Moreover, there is increased brain wave coherence, which also improves attention span, creativity, learning ability, and memory retrieval.

Also, the effects of mediation last into our daily activity, and soon our activity becomes saturated and influenced by the qualities of the unified field. This is because by experientially knowing something we become it. Once we become it, we begin to embody all its properties.

Therefore, transcending becomes a very practical procedure–to not only experientially know and understand the qualities of the unified field, but to have their values expressed in our daily life, in all our daily activities.

Click here to visit the original source of this post

If you are interested in learning more we will continue to add articles that will help you on your way to true discovery. Please click on the share button below to let others know about meditation and trancedence.

The Dalai Lama on Wednesday fasted and led prayers in honor of nine Tibetans who set themselves on fire in apparent protest against China's tight grip over Buddhist practices in Tibet. A 90-minute-long prayer service at the Dalai Lama's Tsuglakhang Temple, in the northern Indian town of

Dharmsala, was in honor of the monks, former monks and a nun who have self-immolated since March calling for religious freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama.

Aged in their late teens and twenties, at least five died of their injuries, while the condition of the other four is not known.

At the service, the newly elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay, urged China to stop repression in Tibet and called on the United Nations to send fact-finding teams to the Himalayan region.

Sangay, speaking in Tibetan, said China was following an official policy of cracking down on religious institutions in Tibet.

"We would like to appeal to the Chinese government to immediately stop its repressive policies in Tibet, and to resolve the issue of Tibet through peaceful means," Sangay said.

China says Tibet has been its territory for centuries, but many Tibetans say it has a long history of autonomous rule by Buddhist leaders.

A failed uprising in 1959 led the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in India.

China considers the Dalai Lama to be a separatist intent on ending Chinese rule over Tibet. The Dalai Lama says he is seeking only a high level of autonomy for Tibet.

The Dalai Lama will observe a daylong fast Wednesday in honor of those who have died or injured themselves through self-immolation, the first time he has done so since widespread protests rocked the region in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics.

The prayers were attended by the Karmapa, head of the second-largest school of Tibetan Buddhism, and Kirti Rinpoche, the exiled head of the Kirti monastery in China's western province of Sichuan near Tibet. Most of the monks and former monks who have self-immolated belonged to Kirti monastery.

Click Here For Original Story

We will post more stories as they happen to help raise the awareness of the Tibetan plight. Perhaps with some more press the Tibetan people can reclaim their land and their religious rights to worship as they see fit. Check out Free Tibet for more information on Tibet.

Help raise awareness and let people know what is going on to the peaceful people of Tibet. Please use the share button below and help us fight these atrocities.

Alcohol, cigarettes and drugs cause untold damage, but their users derive some kind of pleasure from them, or at least relief from the massive stress that they would otherwise feel. But by exposing their minds to a greater source of satisfaction, the natural tendency would be to head away from the addiction, because the greater satisfaction is more appealing. Support for this new view has existed for almost 20 years.

Going back to the early 1970s, studies in the United States and Europe have repeatedly shown that when addicted people are taught to meditate, their level of anxiety decreases, pulling down with it their use of alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs.

Click here to visit the original source of this post

Continue to visit our site as we add more informational articles on meditation and particularly articles about meditation and addiction. Addiction is a horrible problem and many thousands are limited because they have become a slave to these addictions. Don't become a statistic. Learn how meditation can help you with your addictions.

While many of us may never reach this level of competitive practice we can all benefit by incorporating Qigong into our daily lives and experience the health benefits of Qigong.

At the fourth International Qigong Tournament and Exchange currently going on in Vancouver, many of the competitors spoke Sunday of how the practice had improved their lives after being able to overcome the complications of illness and injury.

While many of the more than 300 competitors in the eight-day tournament were out to demonstrate they were among the best practitioners in the world, others were clearly happy to be competing after previously living with various ailments that had affected their mobility and overall way of life.

"I've been very ill," said competitor Felicia Kazmer of the New Jersey-based U.S. Health Qigong Association. "I have Lyme disease and infections. I was out on medical for six months last year and through the practice of Qigong, and especially the intense practice because I knew we were coming to the tournament, I am feeling better than I have in years and years. I know that this has opened the meridians and allowed the qi to flow and it's worked better than any drug."

While Qigong has been practiced in China for centuries, it is relatively new to the outside world. It is for this reason that after holding the biennial International Qigong Tournament and Exchange in China on the first three occasions, the event was moved abroad for the first time to help increase its awareness and growing popularity. Click Here To Continue Reading

While Qigong is a popular sport there are also many uses , which include gaining many health benefits from Qigong.  All it takes is a little time and effort for you to start making a positive change in both your physical and mental health.  The following program is very popular and you will find it very helpful.  Qigong For Health