Accurate Education – Meditation & Mindful Exercises

Meditation & Mindful Exercise

Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains their mind by inducing a state of consciousness in which the person focuses their attention on one single thing. When the person’s mind, or attention, naturally wanders to another thought, the person brings their attention back to their original focus. The process of meditation is both simple – anyone can do it – and difficult, because one’s mind always wanders. It is the process that provides the benefits, not the goal – so the first and foremost lesson in meditation is to not  judge one’s success or failure at maintaining singularity of thought. One just practices.

Mindfulness (the buzz term of this decade), similar to meditation, is “the act of being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling at every moment — without interpretation or judgment.” There are many activities that would be considered mindful: listening to music, praying, watching a relaxation video, fishing, and playing with your pet dog or cat (“animal-assisted therapy”).

Meditation, Mindful Exercises and Health

When practiced regularly, meditation and mindful exercises have been shown to provide many health benefits including reduced blood pressure, improved overall sense of well-being with less stress, lower blood sugars, and reductions in chronic pain and anxiety. The practice of meditation or mindful exercise thirty minutes/day, in whatever form that works for an individual, is strongly encouraged as part of a healthy lifestyle, and most importantly, as part of a multi-faceted approach to chronic pain or anxiety management.

In the management of pain, practicing meditation or other mindful exercises offers many benefits. It improves one’s sense of well-being, lessens the need for pain medications and reduces the frequency and severity of chronic headaches. Recent research also confirms that meditation helps reverse the process of central sensitization which accompanies many chronic pain syndromes including chronic low back pain, chronic neck pain, chronic headaches and fibromyalgia. Central sensitization contributes to hypersensitivity to pain, cold temperature, touch and other sensations.

Hypnosis as a Form of Meditation & Mindful Exercise

Contrary to “hypnosis” as entertainment, hypnosis is in fact simply a mindful exercise in the form of a guided meditation. With hypnosis, the subject partners with their hypnotist with a specific goal in mind, such as resolving a phobia, overcoming a maladaptive behavior such as smoking or overeating, or reducing the impact that anxiety, stress or pain may have on the subject’s well-being. The hypnotist acts as a guide to create a mindful experience for the subject that can be learned and practiced as self-hypnosis, ultimately eliminating the need for the hypnotist. Hypnosis can be a powerful tool in the management of chronic pain and anxiety.

See: Hypnosis

More Information on Meditation

For more scholarly information regarding the health benefits of meditation, see references below.

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