If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Medical News Today: Data from a new study suggests that individuals who engage in compassion meditation may benefit by reductions in inf lammatory and behavioral responses to stress that have been linked to depression and a number of medical illnesses. This study focused on the effect of compassion meditation on inflammatory, neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress, and evaluated the degree to which engagement in meditation practice influenced stress reactivity. Read more here.

New Scientist: Though neuroscience will never peer inside of Luke Skywalker or Yoda’s head to find the brain region responsible for feeling the Force, a new study comes close.
Trained Zen Buddhists return to a state of inner calm faster than people who don’t practice meditation, according to neuroscientist Giuseppe Pagnoni and his colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta. Read more here.

The National: In 10 years experimenting with the world of well-being, it’s the single most replenishing thing I’ve learnt to do, and an increasing number of spas across the globe seem to agree, for they now offer private and group sessions of meditation. You’ll get a more instant result from a good massage or facial, of course, while a meditation session can be frustrating and difficult. But if you have a good teacher you’ll take home the tools you need … Click to read more »

The Courant: The U.S. military is spending $4 million to figure out whether New Age practices and holistic therapies can mend the wounded psyches of its troops. Concerned with the high number of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries, the government is handing out grants to conduct clinical studies on everything from yoga, to Reiki, to animal assisted therapy, to transcendental meditation. Read more here.

The Earth Times: Who doesn’t know the daily aggravations brought on by work, relationships and the pursuit of one’s own needs, and who hasn’t sometimes wished for more peace and quiet?Meditation is one possible means of achieving them. Lutz Hertel, a psychologist at a German wellness association in Dusseldorf, is convinced of one of its effects: “We see a lot more value in meditation than in massages or wellness packs. When meditating, you are active, which is the opposite of … Click to read more »

Globe and Mail: The patients are sitting still, their eyes closed, meditating, on the floor of a group therapy room at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. It is the fifth week of an eight-week training course in mindfulness meditation for people recovering from depression. Mindfulness-based psychotherapy is growing rapidly in popularity, and these patients are part of a clinical trial to assess whether it can prevent relapses as effectively as antidepressant medications. Read more here.

The Daily Bruin: Sitting back, getting comfortable and concentrating on the breathing patterns of your own body is how some people use mindfulness meditation to focus. People learn from mindfulness meditation to deal more effectively with many aspects of everyday life, including stress, said David Creswell, a research scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA. In recent years, the practice of becoming more mindful and tuning in to ones internal experiences has gained scientific momentum. Multiple research studies … Click to read more »

Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News: Researchers at UCLA report that the practice of mindfulness meditation stopped the decline of CD4 T cells in HIV-positive patients suffering from stress, slowing the progression of the disease. The study was just released in the online edition of the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. “This study provides the first indication that mindfulness meditation stress-management training can have a direct impact on slowing HIV disease progression,” said lead study author David Creswell, a research scientist … Click to read more »

Meditation sessions are proving a hit for members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists at their Annual Meeting at Imperial College, London - with a growing number claiming they are turning to the spiritual discipline to combat anxiety and burnout.

Meditation workshops, run by the College’s 2,000-strong Spirituality Special Interest Group, are overbooked. “It seems to be an indication of the need for spiritual nourishment, something that College members are not finding easily in the outside world,” says Dr Sarah Eagger, … Click to read more »

Las Cruces Sun-News: In the past 40-plus years, scientific researchers have begun to study the cognitive, physiological and neurological changes that occur in meditation. These investigations have found significant health benefits for regular practitioners of meditation. Read more here.

Washington Post: Researchers say they’ve taken a significant stride forward in understanding how relaxation techniques such as meditation, prayer and yoga improve health: by changing patterns of gene activity that affect how the body responds to stress. The changes were seen both in long-term practitioners and in newer recruits, the scientists said. Read more here.

The Oregonian: To unravel the workings of the brain, neuroscientist Michael Posner and colleagues at the University of Oregon have turned to an ancient discipline: meditation. A recent experiment tested college students’ ability to focus their attention and filter out distractions. Half the students received training in mindfulness meditation while the other half received relaxation training.
After five days, meditators outpaced nonmeditators on the attention test, and they became significantly better at handling stress. Read more here.

East Valley LivingEckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, says that stress can be defined as wanting the present moment to be different than it is. Dr. Dr. David Simon, co-director of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Southern California, agrees. He says that stress is caused by anything getting in the way of our desires. One antidote to the effects of stress is to practice meditation, but it isn’t always the most appropriate way … Click to read more »

We all know that mindfulness and meditation are increasingly taught as ways of coping with stressful situations. But what about other forms of Buddhist practice? A research study led by Dr. Russ Phillips, a Buddhist and professor of psychology at Missouri Western State University, identified 14 Buddhist coping strategies by asking Buddhist practitioners what coping mechanisms they used and by examining the outcomes.

The use of religion to cope with stress — known … Click to read more »

Newsweek: Transcendental meditation is meant to make kids calmer, happier. But for some parents, it’s having the opposite effect. A small but growing movement is bringing Transcendental Meditation into more U.S. schools as a stress-buster for America’s overwhelmed kids. However, critics believe that TM is a repackaged Eastern religious philosophy that should not be infiltrating public schools. Read more here.

Victoria news: Getting involved in some form of exercise or meditation can greatly reduce one’s stress and, by association, the chances of developing stress-related hypertension. Read more here.

Keep the Doctor Away: Whatever the cause, stress is all too often the outcome of living our daily lives. But, when we think that the world has gone plain bonkers, can meditation help to keep us reasonably sane? Read more here.

Female First: The method of meditation has been practised for hundreds of years and the health and social benefits are doubtless. Meditation classes are designed to calm the mind and gain clarity and perspective and once you’ve mastered the basics the methods are entirely transferable to everyday life. Read more here.

Quad City Times: Meditation is used by some medical professionals because it appears to have long-term benefits as far as emotional and physical well-being is concerned. It tends to ease conditions that are worsened by stress, including allergies, arthritis, cancer, chronic pain, heart disease and depression. Read more here.