Quick Compassion Meditation

Meditation has been used by monks, gurus, mystics, and other spiritualist and soul searchers since the start of civilizations. Even today meditation is thought mainly as a religious or spiritual activity, but more recently non-spiritual uses for meditation are being used, such as stress relief. This is due to large amounts of tests and studies being done on those who have meditated their whole lives and those who have just started. Meditation is something that I take very seriously. I have been mediating at least once a day for the past five years. I use it not only to relieve stress, but to search my mind and soul. I never really knew the full mental and physical benefits of meditation, so I am writing this article not only to teach you about what meditation can do, but also teach myself. I have found that meditating effects almost every part of the brain. From the pain matrix to the hippocampus. However, it doesn’t just help your mind it can also help your physical health as well. Ican attest too many of my findings, due to the fact that I meditate as much as I do.

One of the biggest benefits of meditation is reducing stress. Stress is something that personally I am not too well acquainted to, I just don’t experience it very often. However, I am well accounted to what it does to people, some of my close friends and family would say that stress is the bane of their existence. Meditation can help with those stress related problems. Many tests have been done on the subject such as ones done by Dr. Hedy Kober, a neuroscientist who studies the effects of meditation on the body and mind. Kober and her associates proved that meditation actually decreases the density of the amygdala, the part of the brain where stress comes from. Those areas of the brain become denser when a person experiences fear or stress. Even though it takes a few years of regular mediation for the amygdala to significantly decrease in density, meditation can still cause people to react differently to stress. I can personally attest to this. I rarely get stressed out over things,and when I do, I handle it extremely well. I give much of the credit for this to the fact that I meditate so much. Stress also effects the hippocampus, the memory centers of our brain. Stress actually can cause the hippocampus to decrease in size. Kober also found that meditation can cancel out the negatives effects of stress on the hippocampus, which can help improve memory and decrease memory loss in the future. I personally have always had a great knack for remembering weird little details about things, and since I have meditated I found that this trait has even more so improved.

Meditation also effects other parts of the brain other than the areas related to stress. Kober found that meditation greatly effects the pain matrix of the brain. She did many experiments that have shown that those who meditate more often and for a longer have a larger pain tolerance. This intrigued me, because I know that I have a very large pain tolerance. Another study done by Dr. Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts general hospital who studies meditation, shows that meditation also effects the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex decreases in size with age, Lazar’s studies show that meditation actually stops the shrinkage of the prefrontal cortex. Lazar also found that meditation increases the gray matter in the posterior cingulate cortex, the area associated with creativity, self-reflection, and philosophical thinking. This is one of the main reasons I use meditations, because it helps me think clearly on those philosophical questions. She found that gray matteralso increases in the temporo-perietal junction, the area associated with empathy. I always find myself thinking of how my actions will affect others. Both Lazar and Kober say that meditation is the healthiest thing you can do for your brain.

Meditation can benefit your health outside of your mind as well. Tests done by the University of California have shown that meditation can reduce the body’s amount of c-reactive proteins, which is the cause of heart disease. I find this extremely important, because I have a family history of heart problems. Those same tests also show meditation increases the production of nitric oxide, which helps blood vessels, reducing blood pressure and helping with circulation problems. The immune system is also strengthened by meditation. Those tests show increases the body’s production of antibodies. Meditation can also help with pregnancy problems. It can help with infertility problems, breast feeding, and morning sickness. It is shown that those who meditate are all around healthier people.

Meditation, even though it was created for spiritual purposes, is one of the best things you can do for your mind and your body. There are many more tests that show meditation effects the body and mind in extraordinary ways. Buddhist monks and Hindu holy men, people who meditate their whole lives are some of the happiest and stress free people in the world. They live extraordinarily long lives compared to the average of the third world countries they live in. Tests have shown that those who meditate have different brain structures than those who do not, since it grows parts of the brain and reduces other parts. In people who  do not meditate the brain stops growing when the body stops, but in those who meditate the brain continues to grow and change. The strange thing is that scientists know that meditation does all this to your mind and body, but do not know why. Finding out all this, I now have an even larger respect for meditation, and I feel it will help me convince more of myfriends and family to meditate. I think everyone should meditate at least once a week, it is shown that even meditating once a week can greatly help reduce stress and strengthen other parts of the brain. It’s extremely easy to learn, there are teachers and classes  all over, and multiple YouTube videos on the subject. Just find the type of meditation that is right for you, spiritual or not. Even if people don’t use it for spiritual purposes, I think it will help people have a more positive outlook on life and that’s always a good thing.

Citation Feature, Jeanie. “Meditation Balances the Body’s Systems.” WebMD. WebMD, 1 Mar. 2006. Web. 20 Mar. 2015. Melnick, Meredith. “Meditation Health Benefits: What The Practice Does To Your Body.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 Apr. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.