“Dr. Kyle, what are the benefits of meditation?”

In today’s modern world, the amount of stress we all face is staggering. Due to the ease of communication, it creates a sense of pressure to provide an immediate response and a sense of urgency to get the job done now. If a lot of you are like me, then I am sure that you live with this feeling. It’s almost like a constant underlying anxiety about what I need to be doing or what should be getting done.

For many years I lived with a great deal of anxiety that seemed to hit its peak when I was straight out of Chiropractic school. I was new to treating patients, and at first I had a very difficult time dealing with the mental stress that came with the job especially when the patient volume increased. I would go home at night and constantly think of ways I could help patients further or contemplate why a patient was not getting any better. After a period of time, the mental energy I was consuming thinking about all these imaginary scenarios started to take its toll. In fact, I became quite physically ill for an entire month with a wide array of symptoms. In a way my mind was never actually able to leave work, and I am sure many of you have felt this way too. The funny thing was that at this time I was hitting the gym about 4-5 times/week, as well as taking Yoga classes. I was eating a very clean diet with little to no processed foods, gluten, or sugar. However, even with these healthy lifestyle choices, something still was not cutting it. The one day, I walked by a brochure for a meditation class. On the brochure, it asked why we exercise and train our bodies, but not the mind. I guess at this point I had one of those “aha” moments where everything seems to make complete sense. All these years I had been focusing on the physical nature of things, like my body, but I had completely neglected the health of my mind. The next day, I started to meditate and have found it immensely helpful ever since.

I will not get into the specific version of meditation that I do, but I would like to briefly explain some of the benefits. I have found that meditation helps me to concentrate better. In fact, the longer I meditate, the more effective I am at accomplishing my tasks and goals, and the more focused and directed I feel with my life. My stress levels have been significantly reduced and I feel like I can actually leave work when I go home.

In a peer reviewed study conducted by Richard Davidson, PhD titled “Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation,” Dr. Davidson and his colleagues found a direct correlation between practicing mindfulness meditation and positive effects to the immune system.  This study is important because it establishes scientific evidence that a mind-based practice can have physical effects on the body.

Chiropractic can also help bridge the gap between the physical and mental planes. If there is a subluxation in the spine, it will impede neurological input and output to the rest of the body. Through chiropractic adjustments, the body can be restored to its original state and function properly.

In a society that it slowly becoming aware of the danger of prolonged use of prescription drugs, people are turning to more holistic approaches. Meditation is a great way to address mental stress and to re-train our way of thinking. Chiropractic is also a great non-invasive way to treat the physical body. Together the two serve as an all-natural way to face chronic pain and stress without having to turn to prescription drugs.

— Kyle Reeb D.C.

Sources:

Davidson, Richard J., Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jessica Schumacher, Melissa Rosenkranz, Daniel Muller, Saki F. Santorelli, Ferris Urbanowski, Anne Harrington, Katherine Bonus, and John F. Sheridan. “Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation.”Psychosomatic Medicine 65.4 (2003): 564-70. Web: