According to a story in London’s Daily Mail Reporter, January 21, 2009,

women who stopped focusing on dieting and instead practiced yoga and meditation enjoyed long-term weight loss.

“Women who meditated and did yoga lost an average of five and a half pounds, a New Zealand study found.

“At the end of a two-year study, women who followed a program of yoga and meditation had lost weight and kept it off, while those who focused purely on exercise and nutrition had not.

“The ‘relaxed’ women were also generally happier and healthier at the end of the study. Experts believe that reducing stress stops cravings for fatty foods and sweets.

“Study co-author Dr Caroline Horwath said ‘At the two-year mark, these women were the only ones to maintain the psychological and medical symptom improvements. The positive results are exciting, given the limited long-term success of traditional dieting approaches.’”

The study concludes that women who master relaxation techniques and integrate them into their lives get the best results.

So diets may not be the best way to release weight, after all. As most people who have dieted can tell you…duh! Chronic and yo-yo dieting are far worse for your health than some extra pounds. Besides, as we all know, meditating conveys all sorts of other delicious health benefits. Now we can add one more!

AFFIRMATIONS

As someone who is in the home stretch of a significant weight release, I can second these findings. I also believe that affirmations have helped me to release a serious amount of weight. Here are some I use every day:
• Everything I eat blesses me, and I am making good choices about what I eat.
• Every day I weigh less than I did the day before, and every day I move closer to total health and vitality and to my ideal weight.
• I am happy and relaxed, and I claim my vibrant health.
• Food is fuel, food nurtures me, food keeps me healthy.
That last one is to overrule my former habit of using food as a reward for hard work (or in truth, for any emotional reason).

Want to learn more about meditation? Click on any of the following links for more information:

What Is Meditation?
How To Meditate in 5 Easy Steps
Setting the Mood to Meditate
Benefits of Meditation
Expanding Your Current Meditation Practice
Why I Meditate and How It Affects Me

Researchers in Montreal compared pain responses in people trained in meditation and those who are not.
In the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, Joshua Grant, a doctoral student in physiology at the University of Montreal and his colleague Prof. Pierre Rainville looked at how or why meditation might influence pain perception.

Scientists recruited 13 Zen meditators with a minimum of 1,000 hours of practice to undergo a pain test. Their reactions were contrasted with 13 non-meditators.

The study involved applying a heated plate to the calves of subjects intermittently and measuring at which temperatures the subject reported pain. Zen meditators experienced an 18 per cent reduction in pain intensity, the researchers reported.

While meditating, it seems that meditators were able to minimize their pain partly by breathing more slowly: they took 12 breaths per minute versus an average of 15 breaths for non-meditators.

Perhaps breathing more slowly lessens pain by keeping the body relaxed, Grant conjectured. He also projects that if meditation changes the way someone experiences pain, then people might be able to take less pain medication. “While previous studies have found that the emotional aspects of pain are influenced by meditation, we found that the sensation itself, as well as the emotional response, is different in meditators,” he said.

Also quoted in the article, Psychologist Ann Amsa teaches techniques such as visualization and breathing to assist people with chronic pain. She reported that meditation also works on the mind to lessen pain. “Meditators observe good and bad sensations and then accept and release them, so painful stimulation is felt less intensely,” she said.

“We’re doing this to raise the vibration of the planet and send peace, love and harmony to not only Barack Obama, but all of our world leaders,” said Trudy Dintzner, a registered nurse and metaphysical sciences doctoral student from Cape Coral, Florida.

According to the Ft. Myers News Press, “They were asked to take the same moment to send a positive thought, prayer or wish wherever they might be. This Pause for Peace event was part of Project One Voice, a worldwide global meditation headed by international author Russell Hill. Those who attended the local meditation said they believe positive energy can make a difference.”

“I truly believe in positive energy … and the oneness in the world and coming together for the good of mankind and for the planet,” said Barbara Smith, 57, who attended the event. “With all the chaos in the world right now, the world needs positive change.”

offerings

This ceramic ornament of hope is available at Cafe Press.

Today is probably the first serious work day of the new year—and with it may come increasing pressures as the economy continues to slide downward.

So what can you do to manage your stress? No surprise to regular visitors to this blog—you can meditate to relive your tension and worries. Even if you’re new to meditation, you can expect to see results quickly, even after your first session. Of course there are many other health benefits to meditation, but don’t take my word for it. As reported on CNN, take Dr. Brent Bauer’s word for it.

Dr. Bauer, director of the Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, had this to say about the effects on meditation on stress.

“We completely underestimate the severity of stress and the impact on our health. “When you look at what stress does to us, it reduces our immune function, it delays wound healing … and raises the risk of heart disease.”

He said he would never recommend that a patient replace conventional medicine with alternative therapies; rather, he suggested they be used to complement each other.

“I’ve got high blood pressure,” he said as an example. “I’m taking medication, but I’m also doing meditation. That’s probably the right approach.”

Two decades ago, he acknowledged, many American physicians were skeptical about integrating alternative medicine into their recommendations. Today, he said, it is part of our culture.

It really is so simple to get started meditating, and best of all in these times—it’s absolutely free!

There are many links on this blog to information on how to get started. Please—for your peace of mind—give meditation a try today! Your brain, your neck muscles and a lot of other body parts will thank you!