Meditation can help many ailments

It's about time scientific studies were done of this phenomenon, which for centuries has been reported upon by Westerners traveling to Tibet and elsewhere. These findings have consistently been pooh-poohed by the skeptical scientists and Western religionists, who labeled these practitioners are "charlatans." Obviously, they are not, and their techniques are highly useful, as is meditation in general, demonstrated for millennia by yogis and the like.

The form meditation in which one sits quieting the mind for hours on end is called "vipassana," but there are other forms as well, or methods one can use in order to be able to achieve vipassana. Vipassana can be difficult to accomplish, as the mind can carry on endlessly chattering. However, with these other methods, which are sometimes quite physical, quieting the mind can become much easier. Making sure one is sitting comfortably and not attempting the cross-legged "lotus posture" can also facilitate attaining to a state of peacefulness and reduced stress.

Harvard Gazette: Meditation changes temperatures
Mind controls body in extreme experiments
By William J. Cromie
Gazette Staff

In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering.

If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.

Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours.

Why would anyone do this? Herbert Benson, who has been studying g Tum-mo for 20 years, answers that 'Buddhists feel the reality we live in is not the ultimate one. There's another reality we can tap into that's unaffected by our emotions, by our everyday world. Buddhists believe this state of mind can be achieved by doing good for others and by meditation. The heat they generate during the process is just a by-product of g Tum-mo meditation.'

Benson is an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He firmly believes that studying advanced forms of meditation 'can uncover capacities that will help us to better treat stress-related illnesses.'

Benson developed the 'relaxation response,' which he describes as 'a physiological state opposite to stress.' It is characterized by decreases in metabolism, breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. He and others have amassed evidence that it can help those suffering from illnesses caused or exacerbated by stress. Benson and colleagues use it to treat anxiety, mild and moderate depression, high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, excessive anger, insomnia, and even infertility. His team also uses this type of simple meditation to calm those who have been traumatized by the deaths of others, or by diagnoses of cancer or other painful, life-threatening illnesses."