The art of meditation is nothing new but even today it keeps opening its incredible secrets in front of stunned conventional practitioners!

Believe it or not, but we leave in the crazy world where everything is not like it was a just a couple of centuries ago. Our previous generations inhaled unpolluted air, enjoyed clean water and grew natural food. What do we have today? Having the same physiology as it was 4 or 5 generations ago modern humans lead crazy lives! We consume unclean water and extremely harmful soft drinks, stuff our stomachs with junk food, inhale polluted air and hear constant urban noise around us. As for the emotional and nervous stress and strain, it is absolutely unbearable. Our speed of life makes us be in a hurry on a twenty-four hour basis, we are overworked and stressed in our family lives, we don’t have enough rest and sleep to do extra work and make our carriers. We never realize the fact that our body requires some time to relax and restore, what is more, our head requires some rest, too. Unfortunately, the majority of people realize this simple truth when they fall seriously ill. Don’t join them! Think ahead and turn to totally safe and highly effective practice known for centuries - meditation.

“Did it come to your mind that people who meditate on a regular basis are happier, healthier and live longer than those who don’t?” This utterance is rather usual today, but is it true or not?

What it meditation? It is a unique focusing practice where the major task is to slow down the normal stream of thoughts filling the mind. There are all kinds and types of meditation. Maybe you will be surprised to learn that a prayer is also a pure meditation as it is. In addition to this kind of concentration natural for all believers there are Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness meditation, Zen meditation, Buddhist meditation and Taoist meditation.

Meditation is the realm of alternative medicine that unlike official medicine it never forgets that individuals have more than a mere ailing body. Meditation perceives people as unique creatures with an inseparable unity of intellect, body and soul. Meditation teachers realize that you cannot be healthy and content with your life if your brain is full of hatred, anger and misery. The stunning fact is that more and more official doctors recommend their patients meditation as a way of managing a number of illnesses. With meditation you can:

- lower your blood pressure;
- improve the general state of patients with angina including their exercise performance;
- let persons with asthma breathe freely;
- forget about insomnia;
- restore after everyday disastrous day of life.

Meditation is a native activity for every person, that is why it is up to you to make up your mind where you will practice meditation. Some individuals choose to master meditation at home. It is very simple with all the instructional books and audio CDs available. Others choose to learn from a good teacher.

With all its simplicity meditation can offer you many options. There are several approaches to meditation. Here are some tips for you how to meditate.

1. Concentrate on your breath - keep your attention on the feeling of the stream of air going in and out of your nostrils. This is so called “mindfulness meditation” - the meditator should learn to be “mindful”, i.e. aware of the present moment of time, but his or her consciousness should be free of any judgments and reactions.

2. Focus on your body - keep your attention on the sensations in your organism: pain, warmth, discomfort, tension etc.

3. Focus on any word or phrase you like - keeping your attention on a word or phrase is called a “mantra”. Its major task is to keep your head free of any distracting thoughts.

It is wrong to believe that you should always sit during meditation. It is possible to lie down, to stand or even to walk. If for some reason sitting still is difficult for you, feel free to combine meditation with other practices such as yoga or tai chi - you will get double pleasure and positive effect!

The use of meditation for healing human body and soul is not new. All present-day meditative techniques are the result of years and years of work and mental experiments of personalities around the world. The healing power of mediation has been known and practiced for thousands of years. Its cornerstone is tradition and religion; its effect is health and inner harmony! Actually, all religious groups turn to meditation in one form or another.

It is doubtless that of all the religions Buddhism is a “father of meditation” - it is the best known and the most practiced type of meditation in the world. Buddhists use the practice of meditation for reaching real wisdom and compassion and for understanding reality as it is. Buddha followers guess that our usual state of mind is very narrow - it is both limited and limiting. Meditation broadens human horizons and makes it possible to reveal our conscious and unconscious possibilities profoundly.

The sad fact is that despite its unique history and rich traditions, meditation has been wrongly ignored by the representatives of traditional medicine and only during the past three decades the medical science focused on the studies of clinical effects of meditation on health. The 1960s started with surprising medical reports of yogis and meditation masters from the mysterious East who could perform extraordinary bodily control and could consciously stay in altered states of their minds - and this is where studies of self-regulation and voluntary control over the autonomic nervous system launched! The pompous scientific world was shaken when refined scientific instrumentation proved that impossible things are possible! Now health care professionals specializing in stress-related disorders had a unique way of treatment without ruinous side effects typical for drug treatments - it was the art of meditation! It proved to be a valuable means for stress reduction, and what is more, individuals and physicians enjoyed both the process of healing meditation and the health benefits available with regular trainings!

But the greatest surprise was still to come! After some time of scientific investigation of meditation this activity turned out to be perfect not solely for altering the brain’s function in the short term. The medical data demonstrated that regular practice of meditation produces a miraculous long-term positive effect! So, Transcendental Meditation in particular guarantees you a healthy state of relaxation including decreased heart and perspiration rates, decreased pulse rate, decreased concentration of cortisol in your blood (it is a major stress hormone) and high activity of the part of your brain responsible for rest and relaxation! Famous practitioner R. Keith Wallace studying Transcendental Meditation revealed that during meditation the body gains the most profound rest possible. Paradoxically, your brain and mind become clear and more alert - your reactions are faster, your creativity and efficiency is greater and your view of the world is broader!

Unlike Transcendental Meditation, Taoists believe that our emotions are ruled by the Fire energy of the heart. When you cannot keep your emotions, this fire energy flares upwards and destroys your life energy and clouds your mind. But you can manage that! Your willpower, on the contrary, is controlled by the Water energy located in your kidneys. If you do not control this energy, it flows down through your sexual organs, weakening your spirit and ruining your life. So, Taoists consider that when you sit motionless doing nothing and thinking of nothing, i.e. when you are meditating your Fire and Water are well balanced. Water energy from the kidneys goes up to your head via the Central and Governing channels. At the same time Fire energy from the heart goes down into the Lower Elixir Field in the abdomen. Through this right circulation of two energies and by means of this mental alchemy in the organism your mind becomes calmer, cooler and more controllable, while your sexual energy becomes really enjoyable!

Meditation is definitely one of the safest activities possible. It is great for persons of all ages and states of health. However, you should know that in humans with bad psychiatric problems, there have been a few reports in which regular meditation has worsened the state of their mental health. If you have a psychiatric problem, please, talk to your mental health professional before starting the practice of meditation.

One more necessary point - if you take medications on a regular basis never stop taking them before you have completed the course. The truth is meditation cannot give you stable relief immediately - in needs some time to work! If you cannot bear standing in line in the waiting room of your practitioner to get your prescription, find a reliable pharmacy online where you can get prescription drugs no rx necessary legally. Take definite steps to make your life better right now! And let healing mediation be your best guide.

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