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Mindful Meditation Research Paper

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Knowledge Sharing Project What do CEOs, inner city school children, returning military personnel, prisoner inmates, MBA players, doctors, and nurses all have in common? Would you guess the answer is meditation? While there are many paths to meditation mindful meditation has become the most common. In recent years there has been a growing population of people who are finding meditation helpful to reduce stress, improve productivity, and relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression. Due to the increasing popularity there is now more money than ever going towards funding scientific studies to help understand the effects mediation and mindfulness have on the body and the mind. Carolyn Gregoir, at The Huffington Post writes “It’s undeniable …show more content…

Professor Richard Davidson is a leading neuroscientist who spent years meditating but keeping it quiet amongst colleagues, “I was a closet meditator” (Free the Mind). In 1992 Davidson had the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama and was encouraged to study the neuroscience behind compassion and kindness. In the documentary Free the Mind we get a glimpse into his research at his University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. We meet and follow two veterans of our recent wars in the Middle East who have been diagnosed with PTSD and are having trouble adjusting to civilian life. The documentary follows them as they take part in a controlled study at the center on compassion meditation. During this study they measured the subjects brain activity through scans and also had them complete a list of questions to ascertain their current mood before and after treatment. One soldier, Stephen Lee, was unable to sleep or go to crowded noisy places. He had a wife and two very young children and worried about how his stress could impact his family. He was unable to sleep due to nightmares and insomnia but was trying by taking Ambien every night since his return. Stephen Lee is not alone. According to Davidson of the soldiers returning with PTSD “only fifty percent are responding to current treatment” …show more content…

The fact still remains that meditation has many benefits, for both physical and mental health, with no real negative side-effects and with little cost to the practitioner. Whatever your reason for meditating the results seem to be the same and the benefits can be even greater for those coming into meditation to relieve deep stress or health issues. “Everyone Benefits from meditation…everyone needs to look inside for reflection in order to work outside. Operating from a calm space has gotten to the be the greatest gift that anyone can be given…all happiness comes from inside” (Qtd. in

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