Meditation Improves Health

Health is the Art of Balance

There is no doubt that meditation improves health. Meditation has been highly regarded for thousands of years because of its many health benefits. Relaxing your mind and body is ideal for good health and healing. Meditation is the art of consciously shifting your mind and body into a state of relaxation. Therefore, meditation improves health; many experts consider it essential for healthy living.

Poor health, sickness, and disease are states of imbalance. This applies to mental and physical diseases. The imbalance creates stress on the mind and body, creating disease. There are four major categories of stress or imbalance.

1.  Healthy or acceptable range. In this range, the fluctuations are normal. They occur naturally as you go through your daily routines. Your breath, heart rate, and blood pressure will fluctuate depending on your activity, such as sleeping, awake, sitting, or walking. Even healthy activities, such as exercise, cause stress. However, in the case of exercise, you will come back stronger.
2. Minor imbalance or stress. Imbalances in this category are typical of life as a human being. Emotional upsets, such as unpleasant experiences with other people or events, cause stress. Excessive thinking and overworking will stress you out. Overstimulation of any kind is stressful. All of these are reflected in your general health. They produce changes that fall into the unhealthy range. Fortunately, most minor imbalances are temporary. Therefore, you’ll generally recover quickly and regain health without too much wear and tear.
3. Moderate imbalance or stress. Most noteworthy, this category is unhealthy, whether temporary or not. You damage yourself when you get too far out of your healthy range. This category would include things like overexposure to toxins or drugs—basically poisoning. Another is moderate emotional trauma, events such as death or divorce; physical trauma, such as broken bones or lacerations; and moderate illness or infection. While you’ll recover from these imbalances, it takes longer. Additionally, there is the possibility of some permanent damage.
4.  Major imbalance or stress. This category includes those things that cause severe damage or death. For example, extreme exposure to poisons, major physical trauma, major mental trauma, and chronic illness.

Prolonged imbalance, even if minor, will probably result in ill health and eventually cause disease. Most serious diseases do not start out serious; they accumulate over time. Meditation improves health by returning the body to balance. A healthy body bounces back. But prolonged imbalance breaks down your ability to recover. Eventually, unbalanced health becomes a severe disease.

The Stress Response

Stress can do a lot of damage. Conversely, a relaxed state does a lot of good. Relaxation restores balance, allowing the body to maintain and heal itself.

• Relaxation is the ideal state for prevention—actually, the ideal state, period. No issues. Just a happy, healthy, long life.
• Relaxation is the ideal state for maintenance. In this state the body best performs rejuvenation.
• Relaxation is the ideal state for healing. The body will heal faster and better when relaxed.

Stress inhibits or prevents normal body functions required for good health. Stress is imbalance. Health is the art of balance. Relaxation creates balance. Meditation is the art of consciously relaxing the mind and body and restoring balance.

Stress is a major contributor to ill health and disease. And stress is directly in your control. The stress response is also known as the fight or flight syndrome. It is the body’s response to life-threatening events. Signs of stress response include;

• elevated breath and heart rates
• increased blood pressure
• anxiety
• fear
• increased muscle tension

In an effort to deal with the threat, the body shuts down all non-essential functions—that is, non-essential in an emergency. The body does this so it can divert all possible energy to areas that are essential in an emergency. If there is a threat to your life, you need to either battle the threat (fight) or run away (flight). Both require strong, fast, and gross motor movements. So, energy is diverted. But at what expense?

Your body, in an emergency, will shut down some functions. To name a few;

• the immune system
• digestion
• maintenance and repair functions
• healing
• fine motor skills

Blood vessels constrict, reducing blood flow to some areas so more blood will flow to vital areas for survival. Hence, in the brain, blood is restricted to the conscious thinking part of your brain. Consequently, more blood will flow to the subconscious reactionary part of your brain. In an emergency there is not time to do a lot of thinking. You need to react. This is the purpose of martial arts training. To train the body to react. In a real life-threatening emergency, a few seconds usually determines survival or extinction.

Returning to Balance

So, you survived. Once the threat is over, your body will naturally shut down the stress response. Next, your body will bring systems back online. Especially relevant, the stress response by design is intended for surviving emergencies. Meaning rare and short-term use. Balance is then restored. But what if it wasn’t?

Some systems are shut down as non-essential in an emergency. But these systems are essential to life. How long can you go without a properly functioning immune system? What about your digestive and healing functions? How long can you sustain elevated breath and heart rates? Also, increased blood pressure, anxiety, and muscle tension? It would not take long before causing problems!

Today’s lifestyles can keep you in stress response for extended periods.

• Over working
• Getting overwhelmed with children
• Information overload
• Over stimulation of any kind
• Substance abuse
• Lack of sleep
• Poor diet
• Lack of exercise
• Emotional trauma
• Hectic schedules

And the list goes on and on. Your body doesn’t differentiate between immediate life-threatening situations and other types of stress. This is because of how your perception works. The signal from your brain is basically the same regardless of the threat. A signal is sent telling the body there is a threat. Something is wrong. There is danger. Consequently, the body initiates the stress response.

Stress Kills but Meditation Improves Health

First of all, excessive stress is a killer. Furthermore, any prolonged stress eventually wreaks havoc on your health. Even minor to moderate levels of stress are dangerous and become a life-threatening situation if they go on too long.

Hypertension, heart disease, anxiety, cancer, and almost every other disease is due to stress. Staying in the fight or flight response for extended periods of time results in disease. Many people spend so much time responding to stress that they don’t even recognize it as stress. Or if they do, they may think it’s normal. Yet, this always-on, never-off lifestyle is killing you.

You are either stressed or relaxed. Managing stress dramatically improves physical and mental health. Meditation is an extremely effective tool for managing stress. Meditation shuts down the stress response and triggers the relaxation response. Therefore, you can consciously relax your mind-body.

Meditation improves health by helping you maintain balance. Health is the art of balance, balance is the art of relaxation, and relaxation is the art of meditation.