Mindfulness+Meditation

=Introduction =

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Recently, the Eastern traditions of meditation and yoga have begun to transform the lives of individuals in the United States. Studies have shown, there are mental and physical health benefits from including the practice of meditation into your daily life. Executive functioning and working memory processes seem to be supported by the practice. Meditation is a practice developed to quiet the mind through breathing techniques and the ability to redirect your mind when it begins to wander. The point of the practice is to reach a calm state and to be in the present moment. Meditation can assist in many areas such as anxiety, depression, stress, and cardiovascular problems in addition to emotional regulation. = = =Types of Meditation =

There are many different ways to incorporate meditation into your daily life. Different forms consist of mantra-chanting, deep breathing, sitting upright, or laying down. There is a mix of practices that incorporate meditation. Mala beads are Hindu prayer beads that are used when reciting mantras. The 108 beads on the Mala necklace represent the amount of times the mantra should be repeated. This is very similar to rosary beads. The difference is there are many different elements and crystals used in these beads emphasize different attributes and attract certain requested elements. For instance, Black Tourmaline beads and used for protection while Rose Quartz beads are used to encompass love into the practice. Another way to incorporate meditation into your daily life is through the practice of yoga. There are many types of yoga ranging from Yin (restorative yoga), to Bikram (hot yoga which practices the same positions over and over again), to Vinyasa Flow, which is a faster paced yoga that incorporates sun salutations with other elements. Throughout these classes, there is incorporation of a steady Ujjayi breath, which is a deep breath in and out through your nose. The purpose of the practice is to incorporate movements with your breath. Certain movements correlate with taking a deep breath in and certain movements correlate with releasing the breath. This keeps the breath flowing even during hard situations and prevents the practitioner from tensing up and keeping stress within the body. The end goal is to reduce activity within the brain to achieve mental silence and relaxing state.

=High Levels of Stress in America =

The average person’s day consists of many stressors big and small. Stressors can range from spilling a drink to losing your job. These stressors can produce high levels of anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular stress that can eventually lead to a heart attack (Donald, 2016). The way these events are perceived determine the effects the event may have on our physical or emotional state. The ability to remain aware of the present situation, usually helps decrease the level of stress by focusing on what needs to be handled at the moment. This concept is centralized around the practice of mediation. As the levels of stress are rising in children and young adults due to extreme academic pressure and packed extracurricular activities, many schools are implementing a meditation practice into their daily schedule to benefit the students, teachers, and the staff (Gouda, 2016). Children are now expected to include a various amount of extracurricular activities to “separate” themselves from other students in hopes to receive admittance and scholarships into good schools. If academics are not a source of strength, intense workouts can be pushed on children to increase the likelihood of children receiving an athletic scholarship. 24% of respondents in a study (ages 12-25 years old), experienced extremely high levels of stress at school, college, or vocational training. 60% of respondents experienced medium levels of stress (Gouda, 2016). This implemented the need for a stress reduction techniques and meditation is healthy, uncontroversial, and essentially free. Children and adults are able to meditate individually, as a group, or with a guided meditation which are accessible anywhere on the internet, especially Youtube. Though it will not fix all problems, meditation in daily stressful places such as school and the workplace have produced positive results for all ages (Gouda, 2016).

=Neurological Effects of Meditation =

Mindfulness has conclusively been able to reduce stress and decrease avoidance behaviors of uncomfortable and highly stressful situations. Yi-Yuan Tang from Nature Reviews Neurosciencedelved into this topic and look at how meditation actually changes brain composition. After meditation, the brain structure develops to enhance attention. The anterior cingulate cortex is the part of the brain that is associated with attention the most. Brain imaging technology such as fMRI and PET scans have documented changes in the cortex before and after meditation. Also, the frontolimbic networks experience changes following meditative practice. The frontolimbic networks are associated with emotional regulation which coincides with clinical mental diseases. Since meditation has shown positive results such as increase in the networks, there are hopes that the study of meditation can be looked at further to discuss if it has the potential to treat some mental diseases without medication. These diseases can range from anxiety, and depression, to other diagnoses such as PTSD. Drug abusers could also benefit tremendously from the use of meditation to quiet the mind and reduce the urge to use. The studies that are interpreting how effective this can be as a form of treatment have found meditation and mindfulness to be very beneficial and efficient in reducing the mental problems people are facing in a efficacious manner. Meditation also seems to have had an impact on the insula, medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex, which all work to improve self-awareness. The evidence supports the theory that meditation can cause neuroplastic changes in the structure of the brain. It is now important to pinpoint which types of meditation are more effective and the necessary length of meditation to be effective. It is believed that about 15 minutes of meditation a day can contribute to lower stress levels and feelings of overwhelm.

=Conclusion=

Meditation helps improves the health of an individual during stressful times. Prolonged stress can lead to life threatening issues such as cardiovascular disease and mental health disorders. The research on meditation has just begun and more studies need to be developed to determine how beneficial the practice of meditation can be. It is believed that when applied to daily routines, meditation can reduce the occurrences of conflict and exacerbated anger. Meditation teaches individuals to remain in the present with their constant breath. This allows individuals to regulate their body in a constant flow of inhale and exhale. = = =References =

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