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Meditation

Meditation

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What is meditation?
Meditation is the practice of focusing your attention to help you feel calm and give you a clear awareness about your life. Eastern philosophies have recognized the health benefits of meditation for thousands of years. Meditation is now widely practiced in the West, with the belief that it has positive effects on health.

Two meditation techniques are most commonly used:

1.concentrative.>.CLICK & SEE………. 2.mindful……CLICK & SEE

1.Concentrative meditation:focuses on a single image, sound, mantra (words spoken or sung in a pattern), or your own breathing.
2.Mindful meditation : does not focus on a single purpose; rather, you are aware of all thoughts, feelings, sounds, or images that pass through your mind.
Meditation usually involves slow, regular breathing and sitting quietly for 15 to 20 minutes.

What is meditation used for?
People use meditation to help treat a wide range of physical and mental problems, including:

1.Addictive behaviors, such as drug, nicotine, and alcohol use.
2.Anxiety, stress, and depression.
3.High blood pressure. A report from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommends meditation as one of the first treatments for high blood pressure.
4.Pain.
5.Managing hot flashes, which are sensations of intense body heat that affect women around the time of menopause.
6.Most of these conditions also require conventional treatment for best results.

People also use meditation to relieve anxieties from long-term (chronic) conditions such as HIV and cancer.

Is meditation safe?
Since meditation usually involves sitting quietly for a period of time and breathing deeply, anyone who cannot sit comfortably or who has respiratory problems may have difficulty practicing meditation. Some people with mental health problems, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or schizophrenia, may not be able to use meditation therapy effectively.

Meditation is not thought to have any negative side effects or complications when combined with conventional medical treatment, but it is not considered appropriate or safe for acute, life-threatening situations.

Always tell your doctor if you are using an alternative therapy or if you are thinking about combining an alternative therapy with your conventional medical treatment. It may not be safe to forgo your conventional medical treatment and rely only on an alternative therapy.

Source: www.everettclinic.com

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Insecurity may impact your immune system

Feeling insecure in close relationships may take a toll on the immune system, preliminary Italian research suggests………...click & see 

A team led by Angelo Picardi from the Italian National Institute of Health in Rome reports its findings in Psychosomatic Medicine.

In a study of 61 healthy women the researchers found that those who had difficulty establishing close, trusting relationships showed signs of weaker immune function.

Specifically, lab experiments showed that the women’s “natural killer”immune system cells were less lethal compared with those from other study participants.

Whether this means they’re more susceptible to disease is unknown, and for now the answer to that question is a “very prudent maybe”, says Picardi.

The findings are in line with research showing that chronic stress can impair immunity, and the extent of the impact may depend on how an individual perceives and responds to stress.

In short, personality traits may affect immune function. The researchers looked at the trait known as “attachment insecurity,”characterised by difficulty trusting and depending on others, feeling uncomfortable with emotional intimacy or worrying about being abandoned by loved ones.

A person’s “attachment style”forms in childhood, based on a child’s relationship with his or her parents, says Picardi. And it affects and is further shaped by romantic relationships later in life. So attachment style can be seen as a fairly stable trait that affects a person’s response to stressful events.

Picardi says attachment insecurity affects people’s ability to regulate emotions, including how they perceive and deal with stress—which may affect the body’s physiological response to stress.

For their study, Picardi and team recruited a random sample of female nurses, who were younger than 60 years old, had no chronic illnesses and no history of major psychiatric disorders.

The researchers measured the women’s attachment style using standard questionnaires and collected blood samples to study the function of their immune system cells.

The study found, women with greater attachment insecurity had lower activity in their natural killer cells, key defenders against illness.

Picardi noted that in other research, his team found associations between insecurity and certain skin diseases related to immune dysfunction.

These include plaque psoriasis, a condition where scaly patches form on the skin, and alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss.

Source:The Times Of India

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Depression, loneliness linked to physical ills

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CHICAGO: Depression, severe mental illness and loneliness are linked to illnesses such as heart disease and dementia, according to several studies published on Monday.

The exact connections between a dysfunctional mind and a malfunctioning body remains an ongoing question, but at least one of three sets of researchers writing in the Archives of General Psychiatry said several factors may be at work.

Jesse Stewart, formerly of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, found a correlation between depression and hardening of the arteries in his three-year study of 324 men and women who averaged 60 years old.

The arteries of those who were most depressed had narrowed twice as much as those who were least depressed, the study found. Hardening of the arteries can be a precursor to a heart attack or stroke and may occur because of a malfunctioning nervous system in depressed people.

Depression may also upset the body’s regulation of glands that release chemicals governing energy level and growth, and alter the functioning of cells responsible for blood clotting.

Hardening of the arteries leads to an overreaction of the immune system and the resulting inflammation is known to release chemicals that can have effects on behaviour.

In the same journal, a British study of 46,136 severely mentally ill people found those who were younger than 50 were more than three times as likely to die from coronary heart disease and stroke than people not suffering from mental illness.

Mental illness more than doubled the risk of dying from heart disease for people up to age 75.

Source: The Times Of India

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Insomnia in kids may spell big trouble

 Does your child suffer from regular disturbed sleep? Beware, he or she could grow up to be depressed and suffer from various ‘co morbid anxiety disorders’.

According to a study published in the January 1 issue of journal SLEEP, sleep-disturbed children have been found to be more severely depressed and suffering from co morbid anxiety disorders compared with children without sleep disturbance.

The study, authored by Xianchen Liu and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh, was conducted on 553 children with a depressive disorder in Hungary. Out of this study group, 72.7% had suffered from some kind of sleep disturbance, of which 53.5% had insomnia, 9% hypersomnia (prolonged night time sleep and daytime sleepiness) and 10.1% had both disturbances.

Researchers said depressed girls were more likely to have sleep disturbance than boys, but age had no significant effects. In an e-mail interview with TOI, Liu said the study also found that across sleep-disturbed children, those with both insomnia and hypersomnia had a longer history of illness, were more severely depressed and were more likely to have anhedonia (a key symptom of depression associated with lack of pleasure in everyday pleasurable activities), weight loss, psychomotor retardation and fatigue than those with either insomnia or hypersomnia.

Liu is an assistant professor of psychiatry and has been conducting sleep studies for more than 10 years with a focus on sleep in children and adolescents for 5 years and on sleep and depression and suicidality for about 3 years.

“We know that depression is associated with sleep problems. But what this study shows is that in depressed youths, not all sleep problems are the same. Insomnia is the most common problem, but having a combination of insomnia and sleepiness is double trouble. Youths having both of these had more severe depression than youths with just one sleep problem,” he stated.

The study, conducted in 23 mental health facilities in Hungary, also pointed out that 90% of depressed adults had sleep complaints and over two-third of depressed children had significant sleep onset problems. “The surprising finding of the study was the relationship between sleep disturbances and depressive symptoms. Insomniacs suffered from depressed mood, diurnal variation and agitation, hypersomnia caused weight loss and worthlessness,” Liu said.

Said Dr Anupam Sibal, paediatrician at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital,”Sleep deprivation leading to health complications is a common problem in adolescence. School children should get between 10-11 hours of sleep a night to achieve good health and optimum performance. We see the hours reduce to 8 in adolescence due to late night television and internet chatting. This impacts their health, attention span, reaction time, memory and motivation, ultimately affecting their academic performance.”

To ensure the most effective care, researchers in the study have advised parents of sleep-disturbed children to first consult a paediatrician, who may issue a referral to a sleep specialist for comprehensive testing and treatment.

Source:The Times Of India

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Healthy Tips Positive thinking

Start Good New Habits

4 smart ways to simplify the family schedule to make room for healthy habits……..CLICK & SEE

How is it possible to eat dinner together and exercise more when both parents work and kids are overscheduled? It can be done, says William Doherty, co-author of Putting Family First

  • Schedule it. Make time for meals together just like you do for soccer practice or dentist appointments. Plan meals in advance, shop for groceries on weekends and freeze what you can.
  • Make it fun. Benefits from a family meal don’t happen just by sitting and eating together; it’s what you do with that time. First, turn off the TV and talk to one another. But avoid stressful subjects like report cards or work, or power struggles over food. Keep conversation light.
  • Go out and play. Remember that swing set in the backyard, the basketball hoop at the end of the driveway, the bikes in the garage? Even 15 minutes of fun together burns calories, reduces stress and promotes family bonding.
  • Take a break. Limit passive computer and TV time. Get up every 20 minutes and do some stretches, tackle a household chore or go out for a walk. It clears your mind and helps burn off lunch!

From:Reader’s Digest

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