Psychological Benefits of Meditation

[Guest guest]

Psychological Benefits of Meditation

 

*** Note: Previously posted by Kari Sprowl ***

 

Meditation can help most people feel less anxious and more in control.

The awareness that meditation brings can also be a source of personal

insight and self-understanding.

 

 

Handling Repressed Memories and Enjoying Life:

 

Dr. Borysenko notes that "meditation may lead to a breakdown of screen

memories so that early childhood abuse episodes and other traumas

suddenly flood the mind, making the patient temporarily more anxious

until these traumas are healed. Many so-called meditation exercises are

actually forms of imagery and visualization that are extraordinarily

useful in healing old traumas, confronting death anxieties, finishing

'old business', learning to forgive, and enhancing self-esteem."

 

"Meditation frees persons from tenacious preoccupation with the past and

future and allows them to fully experience life's precious moments",

says Daeja Napier, founder of the Insight Meditation Center and lay

dharma teacher of insight meditation in suburban Boston.

 

"Many men and women tend to live in a state of perpetual motion and

expectation that prevents them from appreciating the gifts that each

moment gives us," says Napier. "We live life in a state of

insufficiency, waiting for a mother to love us, for a father to be kind

to us, for the perfect job or home, for Prince Charming to come along or

to become a perfect person. It's a mythology that keeps us from being

whole.

 

"Meditation is a humble process that gently returns us to the now of our

lives and allows us to wake up and re-evaluate the way that we live our

lives," says Napier. "We realize that the only thing missing is

mindfulness, and that's what we practice."

 

 

Depression:

 

Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and isolation are hallmarks of

depression-the nation's most prevalent mental health problem. Meditation

increases self-confidence and feelings of connection to others. Many

studies have shown that depressed people feel much better after

eliciting the relaxation response.

 

 

Panic attacks:

 

Sometimes anxiety becomes paralyzing and people feel (wrongly) that they

are about to suffer some horrible fate. Panic attacks are often treated

with drugs, but studies by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., associate professor of

medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester

and director of the medical center's Stress Reduction Clinic, show that

if people who are prone to panic attacks begin focused, meditative

breathing the instant they feel the first signs of an episode, they are

less likely to have a full-blown panic attack.

 

*** Note: Previously posted by Sister Kari Sprowl ***

 

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