Meditation

What is meditation?

Meditation is really just a way of systematically tuning out mental chatter. We all meditate from time to time, but the term itself is usually used to describe an exercise in sustained concentration that you can use to calm your body and quiet your mind--in short, to reduce stress. Historically, meditation has roots in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, but you don't have to be Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, or religious at all to practice it.

How does it work?

Researchers say that meditation works at least in part by lowering your body's responsiveness to the stress hormone norepinephrine. Normally, stress triggers the release of these hormones, which in turn causes your heart rate and blood pressure to rise (the "fight or flight" response). But meditation interrupts that flood of stress chemicals, so you don't feel on guard or tense. In short, when you meditate regularly, you're able to control your body's reaction to stress instead of it controlling you.

What are the health benefits?

Research shows that meditation can help ease a host of stress-related problems, including chronic pain, headaches, anxiety, PMS, sleep disorders, even infertility (the stresses of infertility can interfere with the release of hormones that regulate ovulation). In a study on anxiety at the University of Massachusetts, for example, 20 out of 22 anxiety-prone volunteers showed marked improvement after taking an eight-week class in meditation. And in a study on headaches, 72 percent of headache sufferers reported "moderate to great" improvement after learning how to meditate.