Medical Research Into the Benefits of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. 2/6

So, what happens in the body? And first of all, we have already seen a bit of the explanation of the chakra chart here. What you will see here, this is the central nervous system. The central nervous system, this is the spinal cord, this is the brain and the limbic area of the brain is quite important because I will talk about it later, lies within the brain in the middle and this is a center for emotion and motivation. So, this is the central nervous system. What you will see next is actually the autonomic nervous system which is also depicted here. So, this is the left and right sympathetic nervous system and the middle channel corresponds to the parasympathetic nervous system. The spiritual energy we have inside when we meditate actually passes through all these nerve plexuses. So, this is the solar plexus, this is the cervical plexus and it enters the limbic area of the brain and when it enters the limbic area of the brain, we become thoughtless. All these different chakras they correspond to the nerve plexus system to the endocrine system. So, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system are very important and they need to be in balance. So, in daily life, you are either in this what is called the fight-or-flight mode, you activate the right or the left sympathetic nervous system. One is important for action, one is important for inhibition and in the night, when you sleep, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This system relaxes and restores all the bodily functions, while the other one is important for daily activities. Now they have to be in balance. So, if you think you can survive with four hours of sleep per day, then you͛re sadly, you͛ll pay it later with your health for this habit because it is important that the body gets restored. So, the sympathetic nervous system is activated in daily activities and the more stressed you are, the more it is activated. What it does, it supplies maximum blood to all the muscles for the daily activities. The stress hormones are increased.There is more, the lungs, the passages are dilated, you have increased heart rate and if you’re constantly stressed, it may actually affect your heart. And during rest, when you activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the opposite happens and you have a decreased heart rate, more blood is given to all the organs, which restores all the bodily functions which you͛ve wasted during the day. There is decreased activity of stress hormones and the digestion is stimulated. What research has shown, that meditation activates the parasympathetic nervous system more than rest, so that means you enter a state of hyper-rest, which is better than sleep. This has been shown by many studies conducted in India and in Australia. So, what happens is there is a decrease in the heart rate, there is a decrease in the breathing rate, there is a decrease in pulse rate and blood pressure, in oxygen metabolism and this is anti-aging and there is a decrease in other physiological parameters of stress. I will show you a few examples. So, this is the blood pressure in people who have, in controls, it͛s the red line, so these people during 20 minutes rest, nothing really happens. These are people who have meditated for 4 weeks, so after 20 minutes of meditation only, the blood pressure goes down. And those who meditated for eight weeks have a stronger effect and those who meditated for 12 weeks have a really strong effect. So, in other words, if you have high blood pressure, you can reduce it by meditation. This is the heart rate. Again, the controls, and again, the more practiced the people are in meditation, the more the heart rate goes down. This is of course very good. It protects your heart if you constantly have a reduction in heart rate on the daily basis. That’s very good for you and of course all the other measures as well. This is a study by doctor Chung from Philadelphia University and she took people who had hypertension and she gave them one week of intensive meditation. They had to meditate in a meditation hospital every day for, I don’t know, eight hours or so. And the high blood pressure went down significantly in the meditators but not in the controls who were getting normal treatment in a normal hospital. So, meditation is far better and only after one week you can reduce your hypertension, which is quite impressive. So in conclusion, the state of mental silence reduces sympathetic activity and what it means is it enhances the parasympathetic activity which restores all your bodily functions and de-stresses the
body. Now, another very curious phenomenon which you may have noticed if you͛ve meditated for a while and if you͛re new, you will feel it at the end when we have the meditation. When you achieve the state of mental silence, you feel a cool breeze on the hands and on top of the fontanelle area. And the fontanelle is called fontanelle because it comes out like a fountain. So, this cool breeze is described in the Bible. For example, it’s called the cool breeze of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost of course, means your own spiritual energy. And studies have actually shown that this isn’t just something you imagine. Because sometimes people say, when we ask, do you feel cool breeze, you know, they think I have to say ͚yes͛ to please you or they think you’re sort of suggesting it and that’s why they feel it. This is not true. Studies have shown, this is people during the rest period and in the rest period the temperature of the hand actually goes up a little bit, that’s normal. But in meditation, the temperature goes down significantly. And this has been shown on the hands and on the top of the head and some people feel it on the feet for example, so I think it can also be on the feet. So, in conclusion, Sahaja yoga meditation activates the parasympathetic nervous system and this restores your bodily functions. Now, what about the brain?


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