Most people know that exercising regularly is healthy for you.  But have you ever considered meditating as part of your health routine?

Benefits of Meditation:

* Greater clarity of thought

* More peaceful states of mind

* Enhanced ability to concentrate

* Increased creativity and intuition

If you are new to meditation, here are some suggestions:

Meditation Suggestion #1 Be Consistent Choose one time of day that you can easily work into your schedule. The benefit of meditating at the same time each day is that your biorhythms will naturally adjust to it as a habit, like waking, eating and falling asleep. Your nervous system will grow accustomed to meditating at a particular time allowing you to enter deep meditative states more easily.

Make sure your phone is turned off. If you have children, set aside a time when they're at school or asleep.

Meditation Suggestion #2 Create Your Space Create a boundary between you and the outside world even if you're only meditating for ten minutes.

Meditation Suggestion #3 Where to Meditate? Reserve a special place in your home to meditate. It can be as simple as setting aside a comfortable chair or pillow, or an entire room if you have the space. Place a candle, flowers, or any special items that have spiritual meaning for you on a table as an altar.

Creating a place that is reserved for meditation helps because Spiritual Energies gather in the place where you meditate; making it easier each time you sit in the same spot. Like going to a temple, church, or place of worship, with regular practice all you will need to do is sit in that place to feel settled, calm, and relaxed.

It can take many months of meditation to attain theta levels consistently during your meditation practice. Sacred Ground helps you to achieve those levels sooner, so that you can begin to experience the life-changing benefits. Whether you're a new meditator, or are experienced, let Sacred Ground take you to your inner world.

Meditation Suggestion #4 Create a Reverent Atmosphere Invent your own soothing ritual before you meditate. Maybe it's at night after a bath, or at dawn before the rest of the world is awake. Light a candle, take a few deep breaths, and dedicate your meditation to the unfoldment of your highest potential. Say a prayer, chant or burn some incense if you wish. A tranquil and reverent atmosphere helps to induce a meditative state. Some people find Meditation Music helpful.

Meditation Suggestion #5 Position Yourself for Meditation Sit with your spine straight. Use pillows behind your back for support if needed. It's important to have your spine straight so energy can travel freely up and down your spine. You may sit cross-legged or on a comfortable chair with your feet flat on the floor. You can also lie down, placing a pillow under your knees. If you tend to fall asleep when meditating, it's best to sit up so you can stay awake.

Tip: Theta is the frequency of meditation. Because theta is right on the edge of delta, associated with sleep, it's common for beginning meditators to drift into a nap instead of meditation. If you fall asleep easily when meditating try using Brain Power. It harmonically layers theta waves with very high beta frequencies to keep you awake and alert.

Meditation Suggestion #6 How Long Should I Meditate? How long you meditate each day depends on you. A good beginning is 10 to 15 minutes per day. You might find that you naturally expand your meditation time by adding five minutes here and there. Another way to expand the time you meditate is to set a goal of adding five minutes each week until you adopt a natural rhythm of twenty to thirty minutes. One of the pitfalls of beginning meditators is to be too ambitious. Trust your intuition and start off with an amount of time that feels comfortable for you.

Advanced meditators usually spend an hour per day in meditation. If you can gradually work up to forty or sixty minutes the better your progress will be. Consistency brings remarkable long-term benefits.

The key is to do it every day. The effects of meditation are cumulative. Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin says, "Modern neuroscience is showing that our minds are as plastic as our bodies. Meditation can help you train your mind in the same way exercise can train your body." Therefore, each and every minute you meditate you're enhancing the biochemistry of your brain, building muscles that increase your mental, emotional and spiritual potential.

Meditation Suggestion #7 Sit, Breathe and Relax When you meditate, take long slow deep breaths. Send the breath deep into your abdomen and then breathe out. Each time you breathe in imagine cleansing energy infusing your body. When you breathe out, ask your body to let go of tension and stress.

Tip: To quiet a busy mind count each exhalation, starting with one going up until ten, then begin the cycle all over again. If you forget where you are, go back to one and begin again. Do this for ten minutes to slow down mental activity. In the beginning many thoughts will come and go. When you notice you are thinking, bring your attention back to your breath. Linger on the peaceful space that lies between your thoughts. In time the space will expand.

Meditation Suggestion #8 Relax with a Body Scan A body scan calms your nervous system, releases tension and helps you feel embodied - sometimes we spend so much time in our heads that we forget we have a body. Practicing this exercise for five or ten minutes is a meditation in itself. It's also a wonderful way to settle down before you meditate.

To begin, direct your consciousness to explore your left foot. Feel the physical sensations inside and around your foot. Then move your consciousness up your left leg, to your knee, thigh and into your left hip. Imagine traveling through the arteries, tissues and bones. You might come across energy blocks or areas of numbness. You might feel tingling vibrations, as the cells come alive from your conscious attention. Observe the sensations. Experiment with how you can tell muscles to relax and let go simply by directing your will.

Do the same with the right foot and leg up into your right hip. Direct your awareness to the root chakra area - abdomen and buttocks. Next explore your stomach, heart and chest, traveling up to your throat. Then move down to your left hand, feel the sensations in each of your fingers, and travel up your arm to your left shoulder. Repeat with the right side. Explore your neck and throat; notice how you can relax and expand your throat. Travel into your brain, let your face and jaw relax. Allow the muscles around your scalp, temples and forehead to soften and relax.

Tip: EEG (electroencephalogram) research has revealed that when the forehead, temples and scalp are relaxed, theta activity moves more easily into the frontal cortex. When those muscles relax you are able to go deeper into a meditative state.

Meditation Suggestion #9 How to Deal with the Mind Gain the benefits of meditation even if you're a new meditator. Balance your Chakras, become positive and reduce anxiety; strengthen your immune system, and develop your creativity, just by listening to Deep Meditation.

The first goal of meditation is to notice and quiet random thoughts. In his book, Learn to Meditate, David Fontana, Ph.D. says, "By watching your thoughts and learning to identify them as distractions you have begun the path of meditation."

As you practice meditation you'll become aware of how your mind runs around in circles with many different thoughts and memories. At first your mind will be like a chatterbox, shifting from one concern to another, this is natural. You might catch yourself thinking about work or solving problems. You might worry about something that hasn't happened yet or remember things you forgot, like paying your credit card bill.

Meditation Suggestion #10 Label Your Thoughts Observe the quality of your thoughts and then label them. "These are busy, work thoughts," "These thoughts are negative and limiting," or "Here we go again with my To Do list." Then gently return your attention to your breath and expand into the space between your thoughts.

Each time you identify the quality of your thoughts, you are making enormous strides in meditation that will inevitably unfold in your life. In time you will become a keen observer of your inner world. You'll notice when you've fallen into negative thinking and you'll learn to redirect your attention to thoughts that expand and enhance your sense of self.

The highest level of thought is positive. Positive thoughts soothe your nervous system and encourage states of wholeness and well being. If negative emotions arise, such as anger, regret, fear or sorrow, label them and then gently shift your attention to something positive.

Meditation Suggestion #11 Meditate Upon Your Divine Self A powerful practice is to meditate upon your divine self, the self who holds vast potential and gifts. Use your imagination to discover the magnificent being within. Drink from the well of knowledge that will multiply your joy and fulfillment in life. Exploring and contacting your divine nature is what meditation is all about. Guided Meditations that will help you create nurturing states of being and contact your higher self: Guided Meditation, Retrieve Your Destiny, Fulfill Your Heart's Desire, Living Prayer.

Meditation Suggestion #12 Finish with Feeling At the end of your meditation session, just sit for a moment, feeling the energies moving in your body. This pause before you leap back into the world allows you to integrate the meditation session into your daily life.

Article reprinted with permission.

Kelly Howell, founder of Brain Sync (http://www.brainsync.com is internationally acclaimed for her pioneering work in healing and mind expansion. Her clinically proven, Brain Wave Audio Technology is used in hospitals, biofeedback clinics and by physicians and psychologists throughout the world.

"Kelly Howell is a masterful guide in helping to integrate body, mind, and spirit. In an age where life is becoming increasingly hectic, her instruction is invaluable."

- Larry Dossey, M D. Author: The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Howell

The Institute of Medicine (the medical branch of the US National Academies of Science) released a report brief on June 29, 2011 on the state of chronic pain in America, entitled Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research.  The purpose was to assess how pain affects people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, and what can be done on the national level to improve awareness and treatment.

Chronic pain affects at least 116 million American adults--more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. Pain also costs the nation up to $635 billion each year in medical treatment and lost productivity.   It is  a major reason for taking medications, a major cause of disability, and a key factor in quality of life and productivity. Given the burden of pain in human lives, dollars, and social consequences, relieving pain should be a national priority.

The toll documented in the report is staggering. Childbirth, for example, is a common source of chronic pain.  The institute found that 18 per cent of women who have Caesarean deliveries and ten per cent who have vaginal deliveries report still being in pain a year later.

Ten per cent to 50 per cent of surgical patients who have pain after surgery go on to develop chronic pain, depending on the procedure, and for as many as ten per cent of those patients, the chronic postoperative pain is severe.

The risk of suicide is high among chronic pain patients. Two studies found that about 5 per cent of those with musculoskeletal pain had tried to kill themselves; among patients with chronic abdominal pain, the number was 14 per cent.

For patients, acknowledgement of the problem from the prestigious Institute of Medicine is a seminal event. Chronic pain often goes untreated because most doctors haven’t been trained to understand it. And it is isolating: family members and friends may lose patience with the constant complaints of pain sufferers. Doctors tend to throw up their hands, referring patients for psychotherapy or dismissing them as drug seekers trying to get opioids. 

“Most people with chronic pain are still being treated as if pain is a symptom of an underlying problem,” said Melanie Thernstrom, a chronic pain sufferer from Vancouver, Washington, who wrote The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing and the Science of Suffering(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010) and was a patient representative on the committee. “If the doctor can’t figure out what the underlying problem is,” she went on, “then the pain is not treated, it’s dismissed and the patient falls down the rabbit hole.”


Among the important findings in the Institute of Medicine report is that chronic pain often outlasts the original illness or injury, causing changes in the nervous system that worsen over time. Doctors often cannot find an underlying cause because there isn’t one. Chronic pain becomes its own disease.

“Having pain that is not treated is like having diabetes that’s not treated,” said Ms. Thernstrom, who suffers from spinal stenosis and a form of arthritis in the neck. “It gets worse over time.”

Ms. Thernstrom compared the effect of chronic pain on the body to the rushing waters of a river carving out a new tributary. Pain, she says, also changes the body’s landscape.

“My pain is at the level where it’s manageable,” she said. “I do wish I had gotten aggressive treatment in the first year. There is a window of time to intervene, because pain changes your nervous system and pain pathways develop.”

“When pain becomes chronic, when it becomes persistent even after the tissue and injury have healed, then people are suffering from chronic pain” Mackey said. “We’re finding that there are significant changes in the central nervous system and spinal cord that cause pain to become amplified and persistent even after the injury has gone away.” 


The pain report is only a first step for the community of medical professionals who treat pain. It will be up to medical schools to begin better education of doctors in the treatment of pain, and the National Institutes of Health to decide whether to promote research into chronic pain.

—--

My comments:

This report is an important milestone in creating a national awareness of the “epidemic of pain” in this country.   Chronic pain is a very difficult problem to treat, because in most cases, there is nothing left for the doctor to do.  It truly frustrates doctors to see patients not getting any better over time.  Many primary care doctors dread having to see their chronic pain patients come in, because of the reasons stated in the article– suspicions of exaggerated symptoms, assumptions of pain reliever drug addiction, psychological problems, etc.

More attention is needed in formulating a strategy to prevent chronic pain from happening, and ways to better manage it.  This study is a good first step towards that direction.

If you have chronic pain, it still is a good idea to do the things that make the body healthier overall:  give it the building blocks to regenerate and repair tissue (high nutrient density foods); avoid ingesting toxins such as smoke, alcohol, preservatives, and pesticides; drink pure, clean water; get a good dose of Vitamin D every day by going outside in the sun; do short workouts that engage all body parts in unison every day, avoid negative people, negative media, and negative thoughts as best you can; engage in activities that require concentration; socialize with positive people; laugh to your heart’s desire, and get enough rest each and every day.  These activities may not cure chronic pain, but can make it more manageable.

At MDi Wellness center, we have several complementary medicine resources to help patients with chronic pain, including Ayurveda, acupuncture, chiropractic and nutrition therapy.

If you suffer from chronic pain, call the office and we'll put together a program for you to help you.

 Article originally appeared on The Pain & Injury Doctor blog

References:

The New York Times, Giving Chronic Pain a Platform of Its Own

The Institute of Medicine, Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research

The human brain is said to be the most complex structure in the universe.   Although scientists have a much better understanding of how the brain works compared to 50 years ago, much of it is still a mystery.  We do know that intelligence is related to the number of synaptic connections in the brain (interconnected neurons, or brain cells– Einstein’s was off the charts).   And thanks to technology that can measure neuronal activity within the brain, we have an idea where the various sensations such as anger, fear, and love are produced in the brain.

But when it comes to “mindset” issues involving weight loss (emotional eating, ingrained habits), rather than venture too deep into the mechanical workings of the brain, it is more practical to focus on the things within one’s power to change.   After all, there is a somewhat cynical saying in the field of neurology– “Science can explain how the brain works using various models, but (so far) we are helpless to cure any neurological disease or problem with our current knowledge.”  Think about that for a moment.  If the most highly skilled neurologists in the world can’t give you a pill capable of changing your brain, then they are no better off than you in correcting the problem.

If you are one of the millions of people mired in long-standing habits that are slowly destroying your health, the first thing to do is to admit it to yourself, and let it absorb into your consciousness.  Have a conversation with yourself when you are alone, with no distractions.

First calm down any scattered noise that may be occupying your mind– job worries, financial worries, relationship worries, health worries, vices, pleasures, and anything else.

Next, take a couple of deep breaths.  Find a mirror, look straight into your eyes and tell yourself you must stop _____ because it is hurting you; setting you up for poor health that will eventually impact your loved ones as well.  Then affirm, “From this moment on, I shall make a commitment to strive for a life of optimal health.”

Next, assess your home, work and car physical environments.  If they include any items that support/enable your bad habits; whether actual items, arrangement of items, or anything else, find a way to purge them or neutralize them.   If any have monetary value, realize that anything that drains your health actually costs you money.  Replace them with health-promoting items such as live plants, positive message posters and screen savers, calming music, and so on.   You must create “fertile ground” in your surroundings because this is where your senses take in information in the form of images, words, sounds, and actions.   If you can control certain sensory inputs in your environment, take advantage of it; you will need it because society is full of health-destroying temptations that can trip you and put you back into your old routine.  So, create that “protective bubble” around you as best you can, and it will be easier to stay on track.

Reprinted with permission from The Optimal Body System blog