STUDY: MEDITATION KEEPS HEART HEALTHY

MEDITATION CUTS STRESS, LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE
AND REDUCES RISKS OF HEART ATTACKS AND DEATHS

WISCONSIN (BBC Science) - A study presented last week at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Fla., suggests that trascendental meditation reduce blood pressure and risks of heart attacks, strokes and deaths. The paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association revealed that Meditation helped heart disease patients lower risks of heart attack, stroke, and death by nearly 50 percent. Researchers followed about 200 high-risk patients for nine years. The meditators tended to remain disease-free longer and also reduced their systolic blood pressure. “We found reduced blood pressure that was significant — that was probably one important mediator,” said Dr. Robert Schneider, director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, who presented the findings. The study was conducted at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

The participants found transcendental meditation easy to learn and practice, Dr. Schneider said. He suggested that the stress reduction produced by the trascendental meditation could cause changes in the brain that cut stress hormones like cortisol and dampen the inflammatory processes associated with atherosclerosis. Robert Schneider MD, FACC, specialist in clinical hypertension and co-author of the study stated, “This well-controlled clinical trial found that blood pressure can be effectively lowered in students with a stress-reducing intervention. This has major implications for the prevention of hypertension, heart attacks and strokes in adulthood.” The study was sponsored by a Specialized Center of Research Grant from the National Institutes of Health-National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and by the Abramson Family Foundation, David Lynch Foundation, and other private donors. Researchers have found that transcendental meditation provides deep relaxation and reduces anxiety, high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug abuse, increases longevity and improve cognitive performance and overall psychological health and well-being.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

If we want to control the mind we should first understand why it is that the mind continues to wander here and there. The principle reasons are two, anarthas and aparadha [impure qualities and offenses to the Holy Name]. This being the root cause of mental instability, the mind will again return to its wanderings when the artificial means of control [yoga] are withdrawn. The chanting of the Holy Name itself is the principle means of bringing the mind under control while chanting japa. Only the process of self-purification, by the chanting of the Holy Name, will remove anarthas from the heart and release us from offenses.

Śrīla Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja
“Meditation Techniques and the Holy Name”
www.gosai.com/krishna-talk/63-meditation-techniques.html