Mindfulness Meditation Essay

Meditation is known to human since time immemorial and it is prevalent in almost all religions. However Religion is not the jurisdiction of meditation, although It can go well together. Knowingly or unknowingly everyone does meditation. A scientific explanation of Meditation is ‘communication between consciousness to the cells and genes of the body’. Understanding, exploring, and practicing A 24 hour scientific meditation can help guide our thinking and desires, can enable the body to cope with stress, to heal and protect itself from diseases, improve our day to day performance, making higher achievements in all spheres of activities of life to live in health, peace and happiness

This paper is about my experience with mindfulness based meditation and scientific inquiry of these experiences. Mindfulness based meditation is describes as technique used to cultivate nonreactive, non-judgmental and stable awareness of the present moment (Garland and Gaylord, 2009). The end goal is to sustain this meta-cognitive state for a long period of time. I practiced non-denominational form of mindfulness based meditation for the first time in my psychology class, which was devoted towards intellectual and experiential examination of meditation. The practice was conducted in a group it was instructed by our own professor and it begun at the end of class. There was one sessions per week and each session was structured meaning it was

Josephine P. Briggs, M. (2010, June 25). Exploring the Power of Meditation. Retrieved from National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health: https://nccih.nih.gov/about/offices/od/2010-06.htm

In modern day San Francisco the term of mindfulness is nothing new to the residence here. Meditation, acupuncture, yoga, and herbal remedies are heard about almost as often as news of the California drought. The difficult part of all of these terms is attempting to figure out what, if any of them, are right to incorporate into a daily life practice. The hype about mindfulness meditation in particular starts to become clearer as more research findings show the astounding benefits.

In order to become stress free, millions of people choose meditation and mindfulness as a source of relief. Choosing the two can help a person, not only get stress relief, but also achieve a much better physical body and response. Being mindful of one’s health by meditating can help a person achieve a better mental health.

For instance, Davidson and colleagues (2003) conducted a study in which subjects perform mindfulness meditation for eight weeks; right after they were vaccinated with the influenza vaccine. Results show significant increases in left-side brain activation (in charge of positive affect). They also found significant increases in antibody titers among those in the meditation group compared to the control group. Moreover, they found that the increments of activation of the left-side of the brain were able to predict the amount of antibodies created in the body of those in the mindfulness meditation group. They conclude that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces noticeable effects on brain and immune function. Their findings suggest that meditation may change the brain and immune function

read about how mindfulness mediation can improve mood, quality of life, and attention for those adults who struggle with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). What they were trying to discover was ways to alleviate the signs or impairments that can occur with an individual with affective problems or impaired attention. Most adults with ADHD have a hard time with staying alert and attentive to their surroundings. In the study, all participants in the treatment group received an 8 week course where they were taught meditation techniques and those in the control group did not receive any sort of meditation techniques but instead were prescribed an ADHD medication to take. The medication obviously helped those not receiving the meditation

Mindfulness is a relatively new phenomenon to the Western world although has been practiced in other countries across the world for thousands of years as a form of meditation. Thought to have first been introduced before Buddhism thousands of years ago, mindfulness was taught to Buddha as a way of alleviating suffering. Today, mindfulness focuses on helping people in secular ways to develop skills that can be used in daily life and

Mindfulness Meditation is paying attention to where we are in any given moment; regardless if that moment is joyful, painful or anywhere in between. It is a practice and skill that can be developed over time. The results range from improved physical and emotional well being to a deeper connection to self and others.

Through much research towards the history of mindfulness meditation followed by understanding the risks of today’s college students practicing unhealthy methods to increase academic performance it is important to find a link between the two in order to bring forth a new means of aiding academic performance. Through proper research and diligent efforts it will be a top goal to not only scientifically support the potential for meditation to be more successful than non-prescription drugs (Adderall) when it comes to increasing academic performance.

First, a brief historical origin of meditation and contextualizing mindfulness, following the literature reviewed to provide a foundational understanding of various types of meditation being practiced and what its documented effects have been. The second body of the literature reviewed on the neurobiology and mechanisms of change with mindfulness meditation practice.

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

Physiological. Over the decades, scientists have found that physiological changes are evident in those who meditate over long periods of time. A study by Lazar et al. (2005), showed that long time meditators have a thicker cortex than non-meditators. The area of the brain evaluated in this study was the right hemisphere, which is the center of sensory, cognitive and emotional processing. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) processes were used to measure the cortex of the brain. Researchers concluded that meditation slows age-related declines in cortical structure, and the respiratory rate and blood pressure levels were lower amongst long-time meditators (Lazar et al., 2005).

I found this article very interesting as it talks about the benefits of meditation and how great it affects our brain as well as how much it required to gain its maximum benefit. It also discusses how mindfulness-based medications could aid in treating various conditions such as depression, stress, anxiety and chronic pain.

The beneficial effect of meditation for people with chronic conditions is also proven by Chan & Larson (2015), however, their point of view is that further research on the topic is necessary due to the inconsistency of the results. After examining the multiple research studies, the authors argue that meditation may “result in significant improvements in anxiety, depression, and chronic disease symptoms”. Furthermore, they state that people with chronic diseases relate more positively with their body, which is resulting in increased activity levels and improved quality of life (Chan & Larson, 2015). In some studies, the accent was made on improvement that is achieved in perception or acceptance of a specific symptom when the symptom itself was not changed. Meditation also relieved the manifestations of multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and peripheral neuropathy (Chan & Larson, 2015). In addition, this complementary treatment modality has the beneficial effects on attention span, sleep quality and latency, and enhanced well-being (Morone, Lynch, Greco, Tindle, & Weiner, 2008).