Meditation-- Psychological benefits holisticonline.com

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Psychological Benefits of Meditation:

 

 

 

Meditation can help most people feel less anxious and more in control. The

awareness that meditation brings can also be a source of personal insight and

self-

understanding.

 

 

 

Handling Repressed Memories and Enjoying Life:

 

 

 

Dr. Borysenko notes that "meditation may lead to a breakdown of screen memories

so

that early childhood abuse episodes and other traumas suddenly flood the mind,

making the patient temporarily more anxious until these traumas are healed. Many

so-called meditation exercises are actually forms of imagery and visualization

that

are extraordinarily useful in healing old traumas, confronting death anxieties,

finishing 'old business', learning to forgive, and enhancing self-esteem."

 

 

 

 

"Meditation frees persons from tenacious preoccupation with the past and future

and

allows them to fully experience life's precious moments", says Daeja Napier,

founder

of the Insight Meditation Center and lay dharma teacher of insight meditation in

suburban Boston.

 

 

 

 

"Many men and women tend to live in a state of perpetual motion and expectation

that prevents them from appreciating the gifts that each moment gives us," says

Napier. "We live life in a state of insufficiency, waiting for a mother to love

us, for a

father to be kind to us, for the perfect job or home, for Prince Charming to

come

along or to become a perfect person. It's a mythology that keeps us from being

whole.

 

 

 

 

"Meditation is a humble process that gently returns us to the now of our lives

and

allows us to wake up and re-evaluate the way that we live our lives," says

Napier. "We

realize that the only thing missing is mindfulness, and that's what we

practice."

 

 

 

Depression:

 

 

 

Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and isolation are hallmarks of

depression-the

nation's most prevalent mental health problem. Meditation increases

self-confidence

and feelings of connection to others. Many studies have shown that depressed

people

feel much better after eliciting the relaxation response.

 

 

 

Panic attacks:

 

 

 

Sometimes anxiety becomes paralyzing and people feel (wrongly) that they are

about

to suffer some horrible fate. Panic attacks are often treated with drugs, but

studies by

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of

Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester and director of the medical center's

Stress

Reduction Clinic, show that if people who are prone to panic attacks begin

focused,

meditative breathing the instant they feel the first signs of an episode, they

are less

likely to have a full-blown panic attack.