Category Archives: mental health

Health, meditation, mental health

Beyond spirituality: the posture of meditation in mental well-being

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Meditation has traditionally been linked to Eastern mysticism but science its staring to indicate that cultivating a “heightened” state of consciousness could have a major affect on our brain, the way our system function and our levels of resilience.

Clinicians are increasingly looking for effective, preventative, non-pharmacological tools to treat mental illness. And meditation techniques – such as quietening our thought, understanding the self and exercising control – show promise in its place tool to regulate emotions, mood and stress.

Body
Meditation influences the body in unexpected ways. Experienced mediators, for one example, can speed or slow their metabolism by a little over 60% and lift their body temperature by as much as 8°C.

Even a little lessons in meditation tend to make people calmer, less stressed and a lot more relaxed. As cheap as twenty to thirty minutes each day results in physical changes, such as reduced blood flow, lower pulse rate, deeper and calmer breathing. Improvements in arterial pressure attributable to meditation really are connected to a reduced danger of an event involving the heart.

Meditation is additionally beginning to prove effective as a treatment for chronic and acute pain. One experiment showed that four days of mindfulness meditation substantially reduced the participant’s experiences unpleasantness and the intensity of their pain.

Mind, brain and beyond
Meditation increases left-sided, frontal activity in the brain, an area of the brain associated with positive mood. Interestingly, this growth in left-brain activity can also be related to improvements in level of immunity activity. The more you practice meditation, the greater your the immune system may very well be.

Studies have shown that long-term meditators are on the rise volumes of grey matter in the right orbito-frontal cortex and hippo campus regions of their brain which you ll find are responsible for regulating emotion. Similar changes have often been discovered non-meditators who completed an eight-week course in mindfulness training.

So even a limited stint of meditation provides the potential to refresh the structure of our brain.

Ageing
The cortex in the brain usually thins as we get older – a form of atrophy linked to dementia. Intriguingly, those who have meditated around an hour each day for six years display increased cortical thickness. Older meditators also show decreased age-related decline in cortical thickness when compared with non-meditators of a given same age.

Meditation may increase longevity by protecting our brain and heart from the damaging outcome of stress. One study reported that meditation and yoga help to prevent cellular damage attributable to chronic psychological stress. It needs to be even been suggested that meditation may slow cellular aging.

Emotional stability
The causes and results of emotional experience exist through the entire body as well as having the brain, and consequently they’re deeply linked to psychological and physical stress.

Meditation enhances positive emotions and mood, and appears to make people less vulnerable to the stresses and upsets of everyday life. Research suggests that meditators are better at regulating immediate responses to negative stimuli and have now reduced activity in the amygdala – a region implicated for a threat. These findings reflect greater emotional resilience among meditators and also less psychological distress and anxiety.

Mindfulness, that can be cultivated through meditation, is merely one technique which could increase social anxiety and well being. Several therapeutic techniques happen to based on these practices, which can include mindfulness-based stress-relief and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. These treatments have had success in curing anxiety and mood disorders.

Next steps in research
Studys and research have shown us that meditation improves our mood, reduces the body’s reaction to stress and, eventually, alters the structure of the brain.

Our crew along at the University of Sydney is attempting submit some of the gaps in traditional familiarity with how meditation acts toward the mind and body to calm emotional reactions. We’re currently investigating impact meditation on brain and body function during emotional provocation, such as viewing disturbing photographic images.
We want to better learn about the effects of short, intensive periods of meditation on brain and body functions associated with regulation of emotional responses. We happen to be also examining the genetic characteristics that may help determine what types of people benefit best out of meditation training.

If we can demonstrate the efficacy of intensive meditation on emotion regulation, and characterize individuals that would benefit most, we’ll obtain established a big role for meditation in improving mind and body health.

Author’s resource box:

http://theconversation.com/beyond-spirituality-the-role-of-meditation-in-mental-health-4326

Health, meditation, mental health

The Origins of Meditation

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The practice of meditation has been a media choice for various millennia. Although there are without any recorded texts which might
point exactly when this practice started, several ancient civilizations became the cradle of today’s meditation practices.

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India particularly is hailed as the proponent of meditation as an established practice. Over centuries, many Hindi scholars have written about meditation, due to the methods for its benefits. Many of the well-known Hindi texts include the Vedas and the Yoga Sutras which was it is written by Patanjali.

But no one has arguably been more influential when it comes to meditation than Siddharta Gautama, otherwise known as Buddha. In 500 BC, he achieved enlightenment in the practice of meditation. His influence spread throughout Asia and at some point the full world.
While the East has been practicing meditation for some centuries already, the Western world picked the procedure up far too late. As a matter of fact, it was only in the middle twentieth century when meditation turned out to be a widespread practice among the West. Today, more and more meditation centers and organizations crop up in the western world. While meditation was intertwined with religious practices, a good number of Western meditation centers are stripped off this spiritual aspect. They usually focus now located on the health advantages associated with this practice, primarily in the fast-paced realm of today.

But regardless of one’s lack of the spiritual side of meditation, it continues to be widely-recognized because of its benefits to people’s mental well-being. It was actually, and it remains together considering the central aspects of meditation.


Author’s Resource box:

The Origins of Meditation – Simply Mee Yoga Academy. https://simplymeeyoga.com/the-origins-of-meditation-2/

Top 5 Best Emoji Apps To Download for Samsung Galaxy S10 …. https://www.s7fanclub.com/best-emoji-apps-download-android-samsung-galaxy-phones.html

Everything You Need To Know About Meditation | About …. https://healthpick.in/care-health/all-you-need-to-know-about-meditation/

meditation, mental health, Religion

Buddhist Meditation

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Remember those Chinese style movies that feature monks from their heads shaved off? Well, those folks practice Buddhism, which is undoubtedly a spiritual movement invented to make the person choose the facts of life. In the center with this is meditation, which happens to be the way of making this possible.

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Yet to understand Buddhist Meditation, you have to know about Buddhism itself is centered upon the Four Noble Truths. First, we have to be aware that there is undoubtedly suffering on the earth which happens because of our ignorance and our desires. At times when we do understand ourselves, we could finally find a way to turn out this suffering. Individuals that obtain the answer took a state of Nirvana.

This then leads us into the core of Buddhist meditation that is the practice of the eightfold path. These virtues namely are the right action, right concentration, right effort, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right speech, right thought, and right view.

The proceedings of Buddhist Meditation are based upon two things. The very first is known as “Samatha,” which implies tranquility, and of course the second is named “Vipassana” this means mindfulness.

 Let’s explore this somewhat further. “Samatha” meditation involves a great deal of breathing, which happens to be invented to develop concentration, detachment, equanimity, and happiness. There are actually 40 Samatha meditations, and each teaches the brain to one single object to produce various states of tranquility.

Vipassana meditation, on the other hand, develops self-understanding by having in a position to comprehend the stuff that intends inside one’s head. By practicing this regularly, you certainly will soon develop wisdom that will make you with nonsuffering.

But must you become a follower of Buddhism so that you can practice this kind of meditation? The actual answer, no matter if this approach is based upon the doctrines of the religion and relates to concentration and mind control.

For those who wish to experience Buddhist meditation, the first thing you should do is find an inaccessible place where you are able to achieve this without being disturbed. Next, get that beautiful soft pillow or cushion to sit down on in the event the floor is certainly not that comfortable for you. 

Now, let your hands rest on their crib, considering the palms facing upward. It’s hard to lie in this position in just 5 minutes or maybe more so don’t hesitate to produce a few slight adjustments. The important thing may be that you happen to be comfortable in the manner you are.

Then it is almost time for them to close your eyes and focus on your breathing. We’ve made it simple to do this fact is that there are 4 proper methods. You could possibly inhale and exhale long, inhale and exhale short, inhale short and exhale long or inhale long and exhale short.

 It will take the necessary time prior to obtaining the hang of things. For fun’s sake, don’t forget to unwind all your muscles, so your mind and body are able to represent one.

Buddhist meditation is just among several other techniques around that could help relieve you from stress, actually make you think far better to have a better outlook in life and do many different items that will optimize your overall physical health

If you do, in fact, appreciate what Buddhist Meditation can do, you could possibly already spend money on cushions, prayer beads, incense, and a few other accessories. It is often optional, so don’t think that just because they are not around that your particular experience is not just a sizable one.

Author Resource Box:

Buddhist MEDITATION | Alternative Knowledge-Pool. https://knowledge-pool-eso.blogspot.com/2017/05/buddhist-meditation.html

Learn The Basics Of Vipassana Meditation Technique | prCvir. https://prcvir.com/blog/vipassana-meditation-technique/

Health, meditation, mental health

Mindful Meditation

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Many exhibit still comply with Kabat-Zinn’s official curriculum for MBSR, which has two options for components that outline an eight-week intervention program: in-class group instruction by a certified teacher for three plus a half to three plus a half hours, weekly, and at-home practice for about an hour, six or seven days 7 days, to use those learnings independently.

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The at-home practice includes both 40 minutes of formal mindfulness practices (including sitting meditations, body scan meditations, walking meditations, and hatha yoga) and five to fifteen minutes of informal mindfulness practices (for instance producing your thoughts, behaviors, emotions, reactions, and sensations during regular every day activities). There is also an all-day retreat during week six.


Other studies use regimens modeled after MBSR in principle and practice, which you ll find are grouped under the label mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), Vago says. (The degree by which they conform to the main structure varies; they seem to be shorter, for example, or focus on certain practices but exclude others.) There is always one MBI designed specifically regarding the the curing of depression generally known as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)—a blend of MBSR and cbt (CBT)—that is currently considered scientifically valid as MBSR.
Mindfulness meditation looks totally unique other than the clinical world, and practices can vary from person to person—from like the ones of meditation they practice, to ways in which often they do it, as well as for how much time. Most of the people who meditate aren’t participating in a formal program having hour of practice daily plus weekly group classes with specially trained teachers personally coaching them and researchers keeping tabs.


However, the scientists conducting research need to be in a position to compare apples to apples when they are studying meditation, and these formalized programs are a means to control that variability and be certain that researchers are looking with the results of the same active ingredient within their studies.

Author Resource Box:
https://www.self.com/story/mindfulness-meditation-health-benefits

Behavioral Science, Health, mental health

Can you recognize triggers of Mental Health Disorders?

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It has been amazing the way a lump of gray matter could manipulate most of the systems in our body inside the most systematic way possible with the intricacies and luxurious functioning. But what’s queer about this particular stuff (whole body we call brain) may be that it will malfunction in a manner that it could cause single or multiple representations of social anxiety problems makes the big bet a private.

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Clinical research and laboratory observations consistently home in on the conclusion that mental health disorders are products of the accumulation and interaction of many contributing factors. It will happen to more comfortable to identify each disorder in cases where there is only one provoke all meal health disorders, but that simply isn’t the real truth. In reality, all mental disorders could root from several causes, which can include a breeding ground that is conducive to the development of psychological imbalance or illness disorder or individual genetic make-up that programs the mental performance (as well as faulty parts of our brain) to produce into something non-normal.

Saying that it’s all about the pathological make-up of the brain that creates mental well-being disorders is simplistic, really. Exploring the strange development of these disorders would reveal that there are actually at least 3 contributing characteristics that might be thought to be potential causes; every one of these has varying degrees, which means that a particular culprit just might be more dominant than the other.

First, considering the physical causes. This bracket of causes is biological in nature. Everyone possesses a distinct and unique biological make-up that dictates the direction of his health, could it be physical or mental. A lot of people are born with inherent tendency to develop a specific mental disorder compared to other people around you while others are less susceptible to risks. This cause also covers the genetic make-up in an individual, the biological make-up, as well as having the incidents life adversely affect the physical body (like trauma upon the head or experiencing alcohol or drug problems).

The second will be environmental or social causes. Nature VS Nurture has long been a great debate among the scientific community, but research suggests that someone goes through a spilled-half of both. Nature, of course, is the physical attributes of an individual while Nurture reflects more on the social structures and physical, emotional and mental environments that actually an individual was vulnerable to. This factor tells us more about how an individual matured, the interaction of influences that affected all facets of his development, and the mechanisms he utilized to manage a particular environment.

It is often observable that a few mental disorders are caused primarily via the outcome of experience led to through environment. For instance, people (especially children) moving to a stressful, chaotic and unstable environment will probably develop mental illnesses than of the unfortunate members who live in peaceful environment. This consequence is just because there are specific social and environmental components that hopefully will become factors towards the production of emotional health problems.

Third would be the psychological factor. This specific factor tells us more about the psychological state of a person, his coping mechanisms to certain life events that would otherwise purchase psychological disorders, his perception by himself self and his excellent environment and thought patterns that affect his mental well-being. Just, for example, somebody who has gone outside the limit of his stress coping capacity will probably have breakdown mentally since the psyche’s automatic “lockdown” to protect itself.

For the majority of individuals lacking emotional health, it is usually the case of triggering the mental health to digest through series elements that have eventually considered to be the root of mental well-being disorder.

Author Resource Box: What Causes Mental Health Disorders? – The Online Health …. https://theonlinehealthjournal.com/what-causes-mental-health-disorder

Health, mental health

Can you perform well when you are under stress?

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The American Psychological Association says that common resources of work stress include low salaries, excessive workloads, along with a lack of control in job-related decisions among employees. Though some of one’s roots of work-related stress can be beneficial. One hopes to navigate tough deadlines at work might as well consider you attempt to boosts your productivity. When it comes to workplace performance, often workloads and deadlines produce important incentives to promote employees.

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One needs to picture being underneath of the gun on any project. Pressure can drive efficiency. Now you’ve got momentum, and everything is coming together. The key is specializing in the advantage now even with hassles, and taking ownership or staking out autonomy. If it’s not coming, create a list considering the positives of completing the stressful task.

But it is also crucial that you know that do not assume all stress is good for you. A large part of it isn’t. The scientists acknowledge there’s bad stress—unreasonable deadlines, workplace harassment, a manager who’s a monster—but we’re not sure making a list will fix that.

Author Resource Box:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/mentalhealth/can-work-stress-actually-be-good-for-you/ar-BBWMb9H?ocid=spartanntp

Behavioral Science, Culture, mental health

Is there a benefit to forgiving someone who done you wrong?

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Harboring anger and hostility were related to a higher risk of cardiovascular system disease in a paper published within the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2009.

The paper, which involved reviewing 44 previously published studies on cardiovascular illnesses, found that anger and hostility were related to increased cardiovascular system disease events, such for example coronary arrest, in healthy people and poor prognosis in people who already had a brief history of heart disease.

“To better understand the entire process of forgiveness, it may be useful to step back and appear at the procedure for waiting on hold to anger,” said Neda Gould, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

“Anger is a form of stress, and thus, whenever we hang on to anger, it is as if we are turning in the body’s stress response, or fight or flight response, chronically. We know that turning about this response chronically contributes to wear and tear on the body,” she said. “It might not be surprising that after we participate in the act of forgiveness, we could commence to switch off the strain response while the physiological changes that accompany it.”

Even yet in people with high lifetime stress, those types of who scores on top of measures of forgiveness — in which they report engaging in acts of forgiveness — their high-stress lives tend not to predict poor psychological state, based on a study published when you look at the Journal of Health Psychology in 2016.

This means forgiveness may provide some protective factors against lifetime stress, even though researchers have traditionally known that lifetime stress is tied to worse psychological state outcomes.

Another study, published into the Annals of Behavioral Medicine in 2016, unearthed that with time, increases in forgiveness are associated with decreases in stress.

The study involved using questionnaires to measure degrees of forgiveness and perceived stress among 332 adults, age 16 to 79. The adults were followed for five weeks, and levels of forgiveness were measured by asking perhaps the adults agreed or disagreed with statements such for example “I wish for good things to occur to the person who wronged me.”

The analysis unearthed that quantities of forgiveness tended to change as time passes, however in general, “increases in forgiveness were associated with reductions in perceived stress, that have been in turn about decreases in mental yet not physical health symptoms,” the researchers wrote when you look at the study.

“Given how complex we have been as human beings with regards to our biology and our experiences, it is hard to generalize why some people are more likely to forgive than others. However, forgiveness is an art that can be cultivated,” Gould said.

Reference

Forgiveness and your health: What science says about the …. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/05/health/forgiveness-health-explainer/index.html

Behavioral Science, Culture, Health, meditation, mental health

Spiritual benefits of meditation

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Meditation is mainly for the searcher of real information. There is an entire science behind it, predicated on teachings from thousands of years ago. The spiritual benefits are way too numerous to list and rely on the sincerity, orientation, and persistence for the spiritual searcher.

If done correctly, meditation energizes your awareness, bringing peace and wisdom, expanding your ability to love unconditionally, and prepares the soul for deep spiritual communion with God, the main one without a Second.

Many siddhas (psychic or spiritual powers) are natural fringe advantages of meditation.

Dhyana may be the Sanskrit word for meditation. Nonetheless, it has a narrower meaning. Dhyana is when the concentration is concentrated about the same point.

Reference
Benefits of Meditation | Swami Kenananda. http://swamikena.org/benefits-of-meditation/

Behavioral Science, Culture, Health, meditation, mental health

Meditation replenishes the body

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For many thousands of years in ancient India, folks have been taking advantage of the practice of meditation. The main aim of meditation is spiritual awakening within and enlightenment. However, the consistent practice of meditation brings and have many benefits on many levels, such as the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels.

People who meditate realize that they usually have dramatic increases in awareness of one’s body, calm energy, and general well-being. Scientific technology has been used to validate and prove that the numerous advantages of meditation by measuring alterations in brain wave activity, as well as physical health benefits with time. Over 500 scientific tests conducted at 200 independent universities and institutions in 35 countries and published in over 100 leading scientific journals regarding the substantial great things about meditation.

Meditation replenishes mental and emotional energy, but additionally, there are some direct effects in the physical brain and nervous system. For instance, recent scientific studies have discovered that meditation escalates the pre-frontal cortex of your brain, that area of the brain responsible for positive feelings and emotions. People who meditate regularly also show improved and increase their capacity for learning and retaining information – a bonus for the college student!

Reference
Benefits of Meditation | Swami Kenananda. http://swamikena.org/benefits-of-meditation/

Behavioral Science, Culture, Health, mental health

IS EMDR Therapy a good Solution for Men Who Won’t Talk About Mental Health?

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EMDR was developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s when she realized rapid eye movements alleviated her psychological distress. Even with decades of case studies perfecting and demonstrating the technique, EMDR struggled to be legitimized beyond a “pseudoscience,” mostly given that it did advisable that you be true. However, subsequent studies highlight several biases within the research debunking EMDR, and there is evidence that efficacy may be hindered by lack of proper training and skepticism of clinicians facilitating the session. Despite criticism, the efficacy of EMDR happens to be demonstrated by over 30 randomized clinical studies with PTSD remission rates which range from 77 to 100 percent, with regards to the type of trauma and number of sessions.

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Traumatic experiences map towards the brain, training the amygdala and limbic system to react to memories as if these were immediate threats. Which means, once triggered, traumatized people lose usage of reason. This is the underlying dynamic of PTSD, which can be how post-traumatic stress disorder develops. For an individual with PTSD, it does not matter if they rationally realize that they are not being attacked because their amygdala is a primary executive function. They remain under constant neurological fire.

EMDR addresses psychological distress by dealing with the neurological sources of confusion, just how physical therapy treats sources of physical pain. More specifically, the technique uses bilateral stimulation, often within the form of rapid eye movements from straight to the left, to correct the brain’s processing system and quell the psychological effects of the trauma.

Picturing an unpleasant memory while engaging with bilateral stimulation happens to be found to reduce psychological arousal and anxiety enough that traumatized people can quickly recover access to coping mechanisms unavailable in their mind when in fight or flight mode. Therapists are not able to delete trauma. However, they can turn down the intensity of memories, so they are more manageable. Scientists suspect it is so successful given that it essentially combines exposure therapy with rapid eye movements associated with sleep. During REM sleep, mental performance eliminates unnecessary information, in a procedure known as reverse-learning, that might also assist in dampening intrusive thoughts.

“This analytical strategy can get rid of the stigma of weakness or hypersensitivity which is commonly related to psychotherapy,” psychotherapist Jessica Jefferson explains.