According to recent research from author Britta Hazel, of Justus Liebig University and Harvard Medical School, mindfulness meditation improves your immune system, helps to reduce blood pressure, and has a significant impact in boosting your brain power (cognitive functioning).
How Mindfulness Meditation Improves Your Immune System
Now new research suggests that mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure and enhanced cognitive function.
The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, draws on existing scientific literature to attempt to explain the positive effects.
The goal of this work, according to author Britta Hazel, of Justus Liebig University and Harvard Medical School, is to “unveil the conceptual and mechanistic complexity of mindfulness, providing the big picture by arranging many findings like the pieces of a mosaic.”
The authors specifically identify four key components of “mindfulness” – the state of meditation – that may account for its effects:
- attention regulation,
- body awareness,
- emotion regulation,
- and sense of self.
Together, these help us deal with the effects of stress.
Dr Hazel said the components are closely intertwined so an improvement in attention regulation, for example, may improve our awareness of our physiological state. Body awareness, in turn, helps us to recognise the emotions we are experiencing.
She said: “Understanding the relationships between these components, and the brain mechanisms that underlie them, will allow clinicians to better tailor mindfulness interventions for their patients.”
However, the framework underscores the point that mindfulness is not a vague cure-all. Effective mindfulness meditation requires training and practice and it has distinct measurable effects on our subjective experiences, our behaviour, and our brain function.
Dr Hazel said: “We hope that further research on this topic will enable a much broader spectrum of individuals to utilise mindfulness meditation as a versatile tool to facilitate change both in psychotherapy and in everyday life.” Original story here.
This story was suggested to us by our friend Lila, who reports on the Paleo Diet over at Paleo Diet News.
Learning mindfulness meditation involves four key elements. As Dr. Hazel says, they are:
- regulating your attention
- having awareness of your body
- regulating your emotions
- maintaining a sense of your “self”
Would you like to learn more about how mindfulness meditation improves your immune system, lowers your blood pressure, and helps you think more clearly?
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About Jim Arthur, Senior Editor
I’m very interested in learning more about mindfulness meditation. I’d love to receive a mindfulness meditation.
Hi Carol … we have several in the works. Please sign up here.
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Just beginning to learn about meditation, and how it can help in health and martial arts..
Thanks
Thanks Jonathan….. love to get comments like yours. If you like, Meditation Techniques here.
Yes, please send me a free mindfulness meditation.
Thank you.
I just found out my blood pressure is a bit high. I occasionally practice guided meditations, but now I am motivated to use meditation for my health.
I am very interested in ur mindful meditation ~i no 4 a fact these tools work because I cured my carpal tunnel and tennis elbow, & avoided surgery through the Japa meditation that Wayne Dyer promotes…i believe you can never get enough meditation & all different kinds work:-)
Feeling the sniffles today right before the big feast day.
hi Jim,
Thanks for this – in true mindfulness we don’t regulate anything. We are interested in watching and witnessing the mind and body (thought, emotion, sensation and movement) as they naturally arise. This provides insight and understanding into their true nature. The type of meditation that is being described here would fall under concentration meditation (“samatha” in Buddhist terms), as there is a goal to change or “regulate”, rather than simply witnessing. I do agree however, that in concentration meditation, which is a foundation of mindfulness, that there are benefits to the functioning of the immune system through the release of endorphins, deeper sleep, mind-body awareness and cell renewal. I personally have experienced improved health as I reconnected with my own practice several years ago after a long hiatus and would recommend even 10 minutes of breath activity each morning, which is what I recommend to many of my first-time meditation students.
I would be very interested in this meditation technique !! If you can recommend on for body pains ! Please feel free to send more info!