Regular meditation more beneficial than vacation!

As mindfulness meditation and yoga have become mainstream and more extensively studied, growing evidence suggests multiple psychological and physical benefits of these mindfulness exercises, as well as for similar practices like tai chi and qi gong.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses analyzing hundreds of research studies suggest that mindfulness-based interventions help decrease anxiety, depression, stress, and pain, and help improve general health, mental health, and quality of life. These practices also appear to reduce inflammation and increase immune response.

You say vacation, I say meditation…

As much as this intuitively makes sense, I’ve often wondered if simple rest and relaxation could be just as good for you. The few studies conducted suggest that vacation does result in real, albeit temporary, positive effects on health and well-being.
So when the editors at Harvard Health Publications suggested I take a look at a recent study comparing a mindfulness meditation and yoga retreat to regular vacation in terms of mental health as well as physical health outcomes, I agreed. This is interesting stuff.
The study was conducted at a resort in Southern California with 91 female volunteers who had no major health problems, were not pregnant, nor taking hormones or antidepressants. The mindfulness intervention was an established meditation and yoga retreat consisting of 12 hours of meditation, nine hours of yoga, and self-reflective exercises over a week. The participants were divided into three groups of about 30 each: experienced meditators, women who had never meditated, and a group who simply “went on vacation.” The 30 “vacation participants” listened to health lectures and then did fun outdoor things for a week.
At the end, all three groups (vacation, novice, and regular meditators) showed statistically significant improvements in scores of stress and depression, which were measured using well-established and commonly used questionnaires. If we stop there, it seems that vacation is just as good as mindfulness exercises for stress reduction and mood lifting.
But what’s really striking are the result from 10 months later: the regular meditators still showed significant improvements on these scores, the novice meditators even more so. However, the vacationers were back to baseline. The researchers had ensured that all three groups were equal in average age, education level, employment status, and body mass index. This finding is in keeping with prior research showing that vacation has beneficial but very temporary effects, and that mindfulness therapies have sustained beneficial effects.

What about long-term physical benefits of meditation?

These researchers also took blood samples just before and after the week long study period. All three groups showed significant positive changes in the markers of immune function. However, regular meditators also showed additional, more interesting changes. I got in touch with study author Eric Schadt, Ph.D., director of the Icahn Institute at Mount Sinai, who offered this interpretation of the data:
“Regular meditators showed both the same types of ‘improvements’ at the molecular level as the others, but on top of that exhibited changes that were also associated with some aging/disease processes that also correlated with biomarkers of aging in a favorable direction. I think there is some suggestion there of improved healthy aging, so hopefully that motivates further study in this direction.”
He went on to explain that other factors that often go hand in hand with meditation (for example, exercise, diet, even exposure to incense) could help explain these improvements. “So that as well remains to be more fully resolved in future studies.”
The vacation study was fairly small and included only women, and the authors point out that more research in this area is needed. But the evidence that mindfulness exercises can result in long-lasting positive psychological effects, especially for people new to these experiences, is compelling. In addition, meditation and yoga can boost immunity, and regular practice seems to promote more complex genetic effects related to healthier aging.

Yoga and meditation offer health care savings and you can do them at home

A new research study shows that a little yoga or meditation a day might just keep the doctor away.
Stress-related health problems are responsible for up to 80% of visits to the doctor and account for the third highest health care expenditures, behind only heart disease and cancer. But as few as 3% of doctors actually talk to patients about how to reduce stress.
Mind-body practices like yoga and meditation have been shown to reduce your body’s stress response by strengthening your relaxation response and lowering stress hormones like cortisol. Yoga has been shown to have many health benefits, including improving heart health and helping relieve depression and anxiety.

But the cost-effectiveness of these therapies has been less well demonstrated — until now.

The study

Dr. James E. Stahl and his team of Harvard researchers studied a mind-body relaxation program offered through the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. The 8-week program taught participants several different mind-body approaches, including meditation, yoga, mindfulness, cognitive behavioral skills, and positive psychology. The study volunteers participated in weekly sessions and practiced at home as well.
The researchers found that people in the relaxation program used 43% fewer medical services than they did the previous year, saving on average $2,360 per person in emergency room visits alone. This means that such yoga and meditation programs could translate into health care savings of anywhere from $640 to as much as $25,500 per patient each year.
“There are many ways to get to the well state — many gates to wellness, but not every gate is open to every person. One of the strengths of the program is that it draws upon many different tools that reinforce each other and allow many gates to be opened to a wide array of people,” says principal investigator Dr. Stahl, who is now section chief of general internal medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Yoga and meditation are soaring in popularity — but will insurance pay?

Yoga and meditation programs are gaining wide appeal. Nearly one in 10 Americans practices yoga, and 45% of adults who don’t practice yoga say they are interested in trying it. Americans are also using other forms of complementary health therapies, such as meditation (8%) and deep breathing (11%).
Many health care plans do not cover yoga or meditation, although some provide discounts for fitness programs including yoga or tai chi. States like Washington require private health insurers to cover licensed complementary health care providers, but the majority of states do not. However, that may soon change.
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review recommends that health insurers cover wellness and prevention-oriented therapies that are both low-cost and evidence-based, as both yoga and meditation are. The article discusses a study of Aetna employees who participated in the company’s mindfulness program and enjoyed a 28% reduction in stress, 20% better sleep, and 19% less pain, as well as an increase in worker productivity worth an estimated $3,000 per employee per year. The company offers free yoga and meditation programs to its employees.
“There are a lot of great studies on the biologic side, just not enough on the economics,” notes Dr. Stahl, who is looking to change that with his ongoing research. As the evidence for the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of yoga and meditation programs continues to grow, we can expect to see more interest from health care insurers.
“If I have a tool that works in clinical medicine that has very little side effects and considerable benefit, why would I not use the tool?”

Insomnia Improves Sleep!

Mindfulness meditation helps fight insomnia, improves sleep:- 

If you’ve ever crawled under the covers worrying about a problem or a long to-do list, you know those racing thoughts may rob you of a good night’s sleep. Sleep disturbances, like having a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep, affect millions of Americans.

The daytime sleepiness that follows can leave you feeling lousy and sap your productivity, and it may even harm your health. Now, a small study suggests that mindfulness meditation — a mind-calming practice that focuses on breathing and awareness of the present moment — can help.
The study, which appears in this week’s JAMA Internal Medicine, included 49 middle-aged and older adults who had trouble sleeping. Half completed a mindfulness awareness program that taught them meditation and other exercises designed to help them focus on “moment-by-moment experiences, thoughts, and emotions.” The other half completed a sleep education class that taught them ways to improve their sleep habits.
Both groups met six times, once a week for two hours. Compared with the people in the sleep education group, those in the mindfulness group had less insomnia, fatigue, and depression at the end of the six sessions.
The findings come as no surprise to Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. “Mindfulness meditation is just one of a smorgasbord of techniques that evoke the relaxation response,” says Dr. Benson.
The relaxation response, a term he coined in the 1970s, is a deep physiological shift in the body that’s the opposite of the stress response. The relaxation response can help ease many stress-related ailments, including depression, pain, and high blood pressure. For many people, sleep disorders are closely tied to stress, says Dr. Benson.
Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on your breathing and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. It helps you break the train of your everyday thoughts to evoke the relaxation response, using whatever technique feels right to you.
Dr. Benson recommends practicing mindfulness during the day, ideally for 20 minutes, the same amount suggested in the new study. “The idea is to create a reflex to more easily bring forth a sense of relaxation,” he says. That way, it’s easier to evoke the relaxation response at night when you can’t sleep. In fact, the relaxation response is so, well, relaxing that your daytime practice should be done sitting up or moving (as in yoga or tai chi) so as to avoid nodding off.

To elicit the relaxation response, try these two simple steps:

Step 1: Choose a calming focus.:-
Good examples are your breath, a sound (“Om”), a short prayer, a positive word (such as “relax” or “peace”), or a phrase (“breathing in calm, breathing out tension”; “I am relaxed”). If you choose a sound, repeat it aloud or silently as you inhale or exhale.
Step 2: Let go and relax:-
 Don’t worry about how you’re doing. When you notice your mind has wandered, simply take a deep breath or say to yourself “thinking, thinking” and gently return your attention to your chosen focus.

The Power of Meditation!

Last month, I read a study showing that just eight weeks of daily meditation leads to increased grey matter densities in areas of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress-regulation. I shared this with some friends, and we immediately formed a meditation group, committed to meditating for eight weeks straight in order to duplicate the results.

In just one day of meditation I saw improvements, but I feared writing about them due to possible placebo effects. But now, I’m becoming more and more confident in the power of meditation. I’m four weeks into the program, and here’s what I’ve noticed:

1. I’ve obliterated arbitrary rules from my life:-
I used to fall into routines, such as needing to sleep at a certain hour or eating meals at a certain time. Meditation has made me appreciate the pacing and natural flow of my emotions and thoughts, and I’ve come to believe that we go through multi-day cycles of needing attention to one dimension of our life more than others. My new state of mind reminds me of a talk at Stanford, where a businesswoman said, “Forget trying to achieve balance. Living life is more of a real-time readiness to pivot as your life demands. If you haven’t been spending enough time with your kids, go home. If you haven’t been spending enough time at work, stay longer. There is no perfect set amount or schedule that will keep you happy all the time.”

2. The time I spend worrying about small personal problems has shrunk from one week to one day:-
Minor negative events, like seeing my bank account lower than expected or noticing that a relationship hasn’t progressed like I’ve wanted it to, used to bog me down for whole weeks. I’d see my Mint.com account balance summary on Sunday, then fret about my financial situation Monday through Wednesday, then Thursday through Friday analyze the heck out of my responses, and on Saturday, maybe come up with a plan to remedy the situation or realize I got over-worked for no reason. Now, with daily meditation, I have an opportunity every day to reset. Meditation separates you so far from your present struggles that you are hit with a reminder of Life Before The Worry, which then reminds you that your life goes on just fine without you being so focused on a singular issue.

3. As a consequence of having only daylong issues, I feel like I’m better equipped to live out the motto “Carpe Diem.” Having the security that comes from believing that all the crap that’s bothering you today, won’t bother you tomorrow, is liberating, and frees you up to smell the roses. The past four weeks have been some of the most fun times of my life. I’ve been going out a lot more, but oddly enough, also working harder and more passionately.

4. Larger personal problems, while not instantly solved by mindfulness, have been transformed into more manageable games and projects.
For example, I’ve had some long-standing personal problems when it comes to relationships, and while I don’t think these have been solved, I feel more centered in my approach to them. I feel like meditation puts me at the top of a mountain so I can see all my thoughts below, rather than being consumed by the pedestrian hubbub at ground level. Whereas before, I approached my relationship issues from only a couple discrete perspectives (i.e. “I need to work on commitment issues” or “I need to work on self-confidence”), I approach them now from a continuous synthesis of maybe hundreds of perspectives, like little dots forming a Pointillist painting.

5. The new pictures formed of my personal problems include newfound, significant amounts of self-acceptance. You know the old adage, “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Well, I’m a problem-solver, and so everything tends to look like a problem that I can solve with just the sheer will of my introspection. Meditation, by distancing me from my problems, has turned everything from nails into more unique and nuanced objects. I now see many alternatives to problem solving, including letting go, coping, seeking support, relaxing, or simply embracing my flaws.

6. I waste less time on mind-rotting activities, like surfing reddit:-
Meditation reminds me every day of what a sane, mindful mind feels like. By having that as a daily reference, I can more clearly see how “insane” a lot of my former activities were. I noticed this right after my first meditation session. I was about to go to reddit, and then I cringed at the thought of flooding my mind with random information highs and funny pictures. After abandoning reddit, I was about to check out news sites, including the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post, and again, I cringed. The thought of those large, bold headlines hitting me with inflammatory content seemed insane. I’ve now come to believe that meditation is one of the best responses to modern information overload. I keep reminding myself of this quote from David Foster Wallace, “There are four trillion bits coming at you, 99% of them are shit, and it’s too much work to do triage to decide. So it’s very clear, very soon there’s gonna be an economic niche opening up for gatekeepers… Because otherwise we’re gonna spend 95% of our time body-surfing through shit.” Why can’t that gatekeeper be you?

7. I feel more emotionally intelligent, and I’m able to catch myself more quickly in social situations:-
Meditation sort of puts your ear to the ground, and lets you hear the low-volume murmurs that are going on inside you. Once you have a daily reminder of their existence, it’s hard not to hear them during the rest of the day. For example, I listen better to others now, because when I’m going off on some rant, I can hear a little voice inside warning me about my ego, and I’m able to dial myself down. Whereas before, I’d usually be consumed by the volume of my own speech or the emotional bursts that come from self-expression.

8. I feel mentally and physically sharper:-
Reducing anxiety and stress removes a major energy drain from your life. I feel like there are all these endorphins swirling around me that I didn’t have before, and as a result I feel healthier and more alert. I also feel like I’ve learned how to snap out of hangovers, by simply removing all the noise that’s pounding my head the morning after.

To Release Self-Neglect and Love Yourself in Action !

Shift Your Self-Perception:-

Feeling worthy requires you to see yourself with fresh eyes of self-awareness and love. Acceptance and love must come from within.
You don’t have to be different to be worthy. Your worth is in your true nature, a core of love and inner goodness. You are a beautiful light. You are love. We can bury our magnificence, but it’s impossible to destroy.
Loving ourselves isn’t a one time event. It’s an endless, ongoing process.
It begins with you, enfolding yourself in your own affection and appreciation.
Read on for steps to discover your worth and enfold yourself in affection and appreciation.

1. Begin your day with love:-

Remind yourself of your worthiness before getting out of bed. Breathe in love and breathe out love. Enfold yourself in light. Saturate your being in love.

2. Take time to meditate and journal:-

Spend time focusing inward daily. Begin with five minutes of meditation and five minutes of journaling each morning. Gradually increase this time.

3. Talk yourself happy.

Use affirmations to train your mind to become more positive. Put a wrist band on your right wrist. When you’re participating in self-criticism, move the band to your left wrist.

4. Get emotionally honest.

Let go of numbing your feelings. Shopping, eating, and drinking are examples of avoiding discomfort, sadness, and pain. Mindfully breathe your way through your feelings and emotions.

5. Expand your interests.

Try something new. Learn a language. Go places you’ve never been. Do things you haven’t done before. You have a right to an awesome life.

6. Enjoy life enhancing activities.

Find exercise you like. Discover healthy foods that are good for you. Turn off technology for a day and spend time doing things that make you feel alive.

7. Become willing to surrender.

Breathe, relax, and let go. You can never see the whole picture. You don’t know what anything is for. Stop fighting against yourself by thinking and desiring people and events in your life should be different. Your plan may be different from your soul’s intentions.

8. Work on personal and spiritual development.

Be willing to surrender and grow. Life is a journey. We are here to learn and love on a deeper level. Take penguin steps and life becomes difficult. One step at a time is enough to proceed forward.

9. Own your potential.

Love yourself enough to believe in the limitless opportunities available to you. Take action and create a beautiful life for yourself.

10. Be patient with yourself.

Let go of urgency and fear. Relax and transform striving into thriving. Trust in yourself, do good work, and you will see results.

11. Live in appreciation.

Train your mind to be grateful. Appreciate your talents, beauty, and brilliance. Love your imperfectly perfect self.

12. Be guided by your intuition.

All answers come from within. Look for signs and pay attention to your gut feelings. You’ll hear two inner voices when you need to make a decision. The quiet voice is your higher self; the loud voice is your ego. Always go with the quieter voice.

13. Do what honors and respects you.

Don’t participate in activities that bring you down. Don’t allow toxic people in your life. Love everyone, but be discerning on who you allow into your life.

14. Accept uncertainty.

Suffering comes from living in the pain of the past or the fear of the future. Put your attention on the present moment and be at peace.

15. Forgive yourself.

Learn from your mistakes and go forward. Use this affirmation, “I forgive myself for judging myself for __________ (fill in the blank i.e.: for getting sick, for acting out, for not doing your best).

16. Discover the power of fun.

Self-love requires time to relax, play, and create face-to-face interaction with others. Our fast-paced world creates a goal setting, competitive craziness that doesn’t leave room for play. Dr. Stuart Brow says, “The opposite of play isn’t work, it is depression.”

17. Be real.

Speak up and speak out. Allow yourself to be seen, known, and heard. Get comfortable with intimacy (in-to-me-see).

18. Focus on the positive.

Go to your heart and dwell on and praise yourself for what you get right in all areas.

19. Become aware of self neglect and rejection.

Become conscious of your choices. Ask yourself several times throughout the day, “Does this choice honor me?”

20. Imagine what your life would look like if you believed in your worth.

Dedicate your life to loving you. Make it your main event.

21. Seek professional help.

Self-rejection and neglect is painful. You deserve to be happy. You have a right to be accepted and loved. If necessary, seek help from a support group, counselor, or coach. It’s the best investment you can make.
Because we are all interconnected, when I love me, I also love you. Together through our love, we can heal ourselves, each other, and the world. Love is our purpose, our true calling. It begins with and within each of us.

Break Out of Frustrating Relationship Routines!

The person you imagine your beloved to be as you are falling in love is just that — an imagined perfect partner you've conjure up in your head. Being human, we can only live up to someone else's "superhero fantasy" for a limited amount of time before the mask falls off, and we reveal just how human we really are. The habits you were able to ignore in the beginning of your relationship — toothpaste cap off; dirty dishes in the sink; nail biting; always needing to be right; always needing to be early, etc. — begin to get on your nerves, and the quirkiness you once found adorable now becomes abominable.

Here are five suggestions for helping to begin the process: 1. Offer empathy to your partner:-
 If you were fortunate to grow up in an environment in which your needs were cheerfully and reliably met, remember that not everyone enjoyed that same luxury.
2. Help your partner understand where you are coming from when you ask for things to be different. 
 Knowing "why” makes doing the “how” a lot easier to handle.
3. Let your partner know how you’d like to see them behave differently:-
 If you just tell someone, “Don’t do that anymore,” without offering an alternative, it might feel like a guessing game, and no one ever wins those.
4. Remember that our behaviors are shaped over decades"-
Learning how to relate in new ways might be a trial-and-error experience. Be patient and always bring realistic expectations to any relationship.

Expectations…Do They Help or Hurt You?

We all have expectations. In my experience I have found expectations to be happiness killers. The times in my life where I just followed my heart, doing what I was good at, everything turned out great. It was only when I started having grand expectations of myself with what I wanted that life started throwing me a curve ball. Expectations can really hurt us, because we can’t predict an outcome. All we can do is do our best, living in the now and staying present.
What is it that we expect from ourselves, and others?  Expecting too much sets us up for disappointment.  So many relationships fail because of expectations we put on the other person and ourselves. When we learn to accept and be grateful for what we have and who we are, we let go of our expectations. Living in the now let’s us be more aware of the present moment, experiencing the event.

Don’t you think it would be better to just live your life, experiencing it as it happens? By taking this action, you really don’t have expectations; you’re just experiencing something as it unfolds.
I have started living my life in the NOW. I must tell you that when I started letting go of all these high expectations I put on myself, everything became lighter for me. I even received a phone call from an old friend saying: “Wow. I don’t know what you are doing right now, but you seem very grounded and peaceful.” He is right. I am! It was all because of letting go of expectations.
Live for today! YES, you should still set goals for yourself. Those are healthy. It’s the expectations that aren’t. Let them go to see if you feel better, lighter and more peaceful, and you’ll find out if these expectations help or hurt you. The best part? I bet you’ll feel freer having let go of your expectations. See what happens when you try!