"(Medical Xpress)—With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body.
A new study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindfulness meditation.
The study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation."
Medical Xpress
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Do you meditate? I dabbled in it, but didn't really try. One time I experienced a kind of 'going under' effect where I consider I 'got it.' With practice, I think I could achieve positive results, both mentally and physically.
17 comments:
OHHHMMMMMMMMM........................
Ya gots ta med'ate ev'ey day. But even then don't look back...cause sumpin be gainin' on ya.
---Satchell Paige
For real? My dad said Satchel Paige was the best pitcher he ever saw. But I don't know if he meant in person or on TV.
Did neanderthals meditate their way to homo sapiens sapiens?
Do you meditate?
Nope. But I do enjoy an afternoon nap when I get the chance :-) It really recharges me. The cats like it too!
When hungry eat, when tired sleep.
Sleep is a significant beautifier.
Yeth, Meth, they did. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Dabble Ducks do not have the ability to dive down and swim underwater like the divers do.
I don't know if mindfulness meditation is all it's cracked up to be. It can lead to this, for instance.
That's the first performance piece by Yoko that I actually like.
I was inspired.
The brain is plastic. What we do affects it. What others do to us affects it.
I don't really meditate per se, but I thrive if I can get outside regularly to a quiet spot and stare for while.
Going back to our other thread, I think that's why I don't like it when strangers talk to me on a commute or travel. I use that time to let my thoughts drift. I'm in between here and there, and that means it might be small window where my mind can just relax. I call it unknotting my brain. Talking to people adds more knots and doesn't relieve the old ones. So, I have to make up for it at another point in the day.
Um, everything induces gene expression changes. A change in gene expression is about as ubiquitous as joint flexion. Or respiration. Or a heartbeat. It's more or less constant among the 20,000+ genes in our 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) cells, just at different rates and in different directions. And even "turning off" a gene's expression is technically a change.
Blogger Lydia said...
I don't know if mindfulness meditation is all it's cracked up to be. It can lead to this, for instance.
I don't think you can fairly blame performance art on meditation.
I have attended buddhist retreats where I meditated for one or two weeks. I am a happier person at the end. I can't keep up any kind of practice in everyday life. I find exercise more helpful in everyday life. I could have quite happily become a buddhist monk, if I had had a trust fund.
I do yoga and I practice Catholic prayer rituals, both of which are forms of meditation.
I don't doubt that these forms of meditation produce medical and genetic changes in the individual.
Crack, for once, is right about yoga. You can't embrace the physical part and reject the meditative, religious part. I don't know much about the theology of yoga, although I am sure it exists. The spiritual part, for me, is that a flexible body produces a flexible mind. Finishing a difficult set of yoga is an achievement that releases endorphins into your system, dramatically transforming your mood.
I don't see yogic meditation as being at odds in any way with Catholic prayer rituals. Repetitive prayers are a form of chanting, of cleansing the mind of unwanted thoughts and bringing clarity to your thinking.
Music is, however, my primary form of meditation.
Music has always been a profession for me. It has also always been the place where I contemplate my relationship with God.
I became a Church musician because playing music was the only way I could relate to the ritual of Mass.
I prefer Mass to Protestant services, although I routinely play for both. Not saying I don't like the Protestant services. Mass is all about ritual. I prefer the Latin Mass, because the abstraction of ritual is even more pronounced.
Protestants are trying to make sense of things. In a way, many of the Protestant denominations view themselves as "scientific" or "literary" about their faith. No such pretenses in the Catholic Church.
I am a happier person at the end.
The result is what counts.
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