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Opening The Huffington Post to scenes of political confrontation, revolution, earthquakes and meltdowns, I watch with awe and compassion as our planet heaves and reels with transformation — masses of people demanding reform, while others stagger from the terrifying impact of natural disaster.
Whether it’s one’s own world crashing down or others’ lives falling apart, one feels vulnerable. Can strengthening our connection to the calm, unchanging depths of our being through meditation bring steadiness and resilience in the face of change?
As a meditation teacher, I find that people are often drawn to turning inward during periods of personal crisis, seeking to anchor themselves. It’s not uncommon for someone to come and learn meditation after receiving a devastating medical diagnosis, while going through a divorce, after losing their job or when just feeling overwhelmed by

According to polls, the most popular New Year’s resolutions for 2011 are: lose weight, quit drinking and/or smoking, exercise, manage your debt, reduce stress, get a better job, fall in love and volunteer to help others.
But if Dr. Mehmet Oz is correct, perhaps “learn to meditate” should be added to the top of everyone’s list.
Meditation is emerging as a powerful stress-buster. Research shows that it can have health benefits equivalent to or better than some of the leading medications for reducing high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Dr. Oz, a meditator himself, spoke at the “Change Begins Within” benefit on Dec. 13 in New York City. The event was sponsored by the David Lynch Foundation, to raise funds to teach 10,000 veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder how to meditate. Addressing the impact of stress and its toll on the human heart, Dr. Oz explained how the Transcendental Meditation technique reduces the three main risk factors for heart disease.
“As a heart surgeon, I see the effects of stress on the heart as the leading cause of death in the Western world. This meditation, we believe, can help a lot of people. It’s important to understand exactly how TM reduces stress and stress-related disorders.”
Stating that high cholesterol is the first major risk factor for heart disease, Dr. Oz cited a one-year study on people with high cholesterol who practiced the TM technique.1 The study found that cholesterol was reduced by 10 percent, or 30 milliliters. “Now, if you are on medication for cholesterol, we hope you can get 30 milliliters lower,” he said.
The second risk factor for heart disease, cautioned Dr. Oz, is high insulin or diabetes. “A randomized clinical trial funded by the NIH found improvements in insulin resistance, glucose and even insulin levels themselves, after just four months of TM practice, in over 100 people who had coronary blocks.2 This dramatic change was significantly better than just teaching people about their health.”
Meditation also helps reduce hypertension — the third main risk factor — according to a randomized control study on people suffering from high blood pressure.3 “Those practicing the TM technique had a significant reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, of 11 and 6, respectively. Those are big numbers. We don’t get these kind of results all the time with medications.”
The outcome of a long-term randomized trial on older African American patients with coronary heart disease showed similar promise.4 Those practicing the TM technique during this 10-year period were found to have 47 percent less incidence of mortality, heart disease and stroke. “This impact in the TM group is stunning — unimaginable. When you talk about these causes of death and you can reduce them by that much, as well as non-fatal strokes and non-fatal heart attacks, these are spectacularly large impacts.”
Research on meditation has come a long way in recent decades, with hundreds of peer-reviewed studies being published on a variety of meditation practices. There have been about 50 randomized controlled trials on the TM technique alone, and the NIH has granted over $25 million for scientists to further research the practice.
Regarding his own personal practice of the TM technique, Dr. Oz has said, “When I meditate, I go to that place where truth lives. I can see what reality really is, and it is so much easier to form good relationships then.”
As everyone knows, following through on News Year’s resolutions isn’t always easy. If we’re under stress, it’s even harder — we’re more likely to overeat and find ourselves less motivated to exercise and more susceptible to smoking, drinking and other addictive behaviors. Meditation adds a powerful engine to your New Year’s resolutions. What’s more, it’s easy!
WATCH: Dr. Mehmet Oz on the health benefits of meditation:
References:
1. Journal of Human Stress 5(4): 24-27, 1979. Cooper M. J., et al. Transcendental Meditation in the management of hypercholesterolemia; Harefuah, Journal of the Israel Medical Association 95(1): 1-2, 1978. Cooper M. J. and Aygen M. M. Effect of Transcendental Meditation on serum cholesterol and blood pressure.
2. Archives of Internal Medicine 2006; 166:1218-1224. Maura Paul-Labrador, MPH; Donna Polk, MD, MPH; James H. Dwyer, PhD; Ivan Velasquez, MD; Sanford Nidich, PhD; Maxwell Rainforth, PhD; Robert Schneider, MD; C. Noel Bairey Merz, M. D. Effects of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation on Components of the Metabolic Syndrome in Subjects With Coronary Heart Disease.
3. American Journal of Hypertension 21 (3): 310-6, 2008. Anderson J.W., et al. Blood pressure response to Transcendental Meditation: a meta-analysis.
4. American Journal of Cardiology 95:1060-1064, 2005. Schneider R.H., et al. Long-term effects of stress reduction on mortality in persons 55 years of age with systemic hypertension.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When we lived in England, we would often be asked if we were related to the well-known rock and roll star Helen Shapiro. She was a fabulous Brit singer in the ’60s who sang with the Beatles and other icons, and her most famous song was Walking Back to Happiness. We would always humorously reply and smile, “No relation, but we’re walking forward to happiness!”
Walking is a powerful practice of mindfulness. Through such movement the mind becomes quiet, while the boundaries between stillness and movement dissolve. We were leading a meditation retreat in Ireland, and Alistair was restless and having a hard time sitting. His posture was askew: he would start out sitting upright but within five minutes would be bent over. Every so often we would very quietly say, “Keep your back straight,” and he would try but it did not last long. When we interspersed sitting with walking meditation, however, he was in his element, maintaining long times of quiet movement. At the end of the five days, we asked how everyone had done and if there was anything they would like to share. Alistair simply said, “Thank you for introducing me to my feet.”
Although meditation can be an experience of profound awareness and unconditional happiness, of merging into a greater whole and dissolving boundaries, it is not a matter of either ignoring or forgetting the body. There are many stories of ascetics denying their physical needs in an attempt to purify their bodies and minds, and the Buddha himself also practiced such austerity, until he realized that spiritual awakening was not separate from his physical self.
“Meditation is a way to become a full human being, a mature human being, a person who is in possession of themselves and experiences this world in a complete way,” says meditation teacher Reggie Ray in our book, Be The Change. “When you bring awareness into your body you enter into a realm of mystery and openness around feeling and sensation… Insights arise, but also new ways of feeling and experiencing the world.”
Mindfulness is more than just being aware of thoughts and feelings, (or how we relate to others) it also applies to our physical movement, such as walking or how we pick up a cup of tea. Do we reach out and grab the cup with aggression, or do we pick it up with dignity and respect? How do we experience and treat our world? So often seekers want to reach for the sky without noticing what is here, all around them.
Rather, we can sit, sing, or walk our meditation practice in the body, as through it our thoughts and feelings find expression. By paying attention to the body, we find that it will speak to us, it will show us where we are holding or resisting, and enable us to embody awareness in the relative world.
“For me, it is easier and more effective if I work through my body — I can unravel things pretty deep and quick,” says Sounds True owner Tami Simon in Be The Change. “I breathe right into those tight places and ask them to show me what they are holding… If we listen to our body, it is asking us to enter a natural meditation, it tells us to lie down when we are tired, it tells us when we need to stop, to slow down. Moving meditation is the ideal way of slowing us down enough so our body can speak to us.”
The beauty of walking or moving meditation is that we can do it anywhere at any time. There is awareness of how things are; we pay attention to what is without judgment, no good nor bad. Life is without bias and becomes richer as a result. There is greater clarity and way more unconditional happiness.
Are you walking forward to happiness? Do comment below.
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See our award-winning book, “Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World,” with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and contributions from Jack Kornfield, Gangaji, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jane Fonda, Ram Dass, Byron Katie, and others.
Our three meditation CDs — “Metta: Loving-Kindness and Forgiveness,” “Samadhi: Breath Awareness and Insight” and “Yoga Nidra: Inner Conscious Relaxation” — are available at www.EdandDebShapiro.com.

This Blogger’s Books from
Your Body Speaks Your Mind: Decoding the Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual Messages That Underlie Illness
by Deb Shapiro
Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World
by Ed Shapiro, Deb Shapiro

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com