HUMOR, MUSIC AND SPIRITUALITY OFFER BENEFITS

HUMOR, MUSIC AND SPIRITUAL LIFE
OFFER HEALTHY PHYSICAL BENEFITS

www.washingtonpost.com - Humor, music and spirituality can boost your mood, but growing evidence suggests that they also offer physical benefits. Laughter appears to have such physiological effects as: Increased blood flow, strengthened immunity, reduced muscle pain, lower blood sugar. What to do: If funny movies aren’t your thing, consider “laughter yoga,” a variation designed to induce joyful, prolonged laughter. Reading music and singing might boost your brain’s auditory and language-processing functions, while playing an instrument strengthens reaction speed and manual dexterity. Choral singing is linked to physical and emotional health. Music might also improve symptoms of several health problems, such as Alzheimer’s disease, insomnia, Parkinson’s disease, stress. What to do: Choose relaxing music and consider asking about music therapy.

Religious services or practicing meditation offer health benefits, too. Regularly attending church was linked to a lower incidence of death from cardiovascular disease, possibly because they tended to drink and smoke less. Meditation with measured breathing practice induces rapid physiological changes, reduced blood pressure, heart rate, cardiovascular risk and muscle tension. It eases depression and help people with chronic pain, headaches, psoriasis and Type 1 diabetes. What to do: Participate in an organized religion and try to learn how to meditate by looking for a class or teach yourself with the help of a book or recorded program. Try for at least 10 to 15 minutes a day, the minimum amount linked with the benefits above.


Scientists have proven that humor is good for health: Watching 30 minutes of a comedy film caused the arteries of volunteers to expand, according to a 2006 study from the University of Maryland Medical Center, while scenes from a stressful film caused them to constrict. Music improves symptoms of several health problems, and listening to music can also reduce stress, blood pressure and heart rate during and after surgery. Regularly attending religious services or practicing meditation really improves people’s health. We all have the practical experience that in this material world we may lose health or happines very easily, so we should rise to the spiritual platform and utilize our maximum time in the service of the Lord.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

For those working in Krishna consciousness, there are simply not enough hours in the day to serve Krishna. There are always activities, engagements both day and night, which the student of Krishna consciousness performs joyfully. That is the stage of real happiness - constant engagement for Krishna and spreading Krishna consciousness around the world. In the material world one may become very tired if he works all the time, but if one works in Krishna consciousness, he can chant Hare Krishna and engage in devotional service twenty-four hours a day and never get tired. ... The spiritual platform is absolute. In the material world everyone is working for sense gratification. The profits of one’s labor in the material world are used to gratify one’s senses. But a real yogi does not desire such fruits. He has no desire other than Krishna, and Krishna is already there.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Perfection of Yoga”
Chapter 2: “Yoga as Work in Devotion”
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase Network