Meditation is healthy — who knew?

In “A look at the science behind meditation”:http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/112/science/A_look_at_the_science_behind_meditation.shtml the Boston Globe reports that a new study indicates that mediation increases immune system function, speed of rebound from stressful events, and tends to shift brain activity to patterns more common to “habitually calm and happy” people. (via “Rebecca’s Pocket”:http://www.rebeccablood.net/ )

Well duh.

It doesn’t take much study of nearly any “path to enlightenment” to figure out that periodically affecting an altered, contemplative consciousness is common to virtually all of them. 

Whether it’s “sitting zazen”:http://www.mro.org/zmm/zazen.shtml, “being mindful”:http://www.ramsjb.com/talamasca/avatar/mindfulness.html, “chanting”:http://www.kwanumzen.com/practice/chanting.html or praying, done right the effect is much the same—shifting to an “alpha brain wave pattern”:http://brain.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm. 

In alpha, both hemispheres tend to “synchronize”:http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~weinberg/MantraEvaluation.html, and brainwave “voltage”:http://www.aaets.org/arts/art47.htm goes up dramatically. 

Once you develop the ability to do that at will, a lot of other interesting things tend to start to happen.  Among other things, this is the “flow” state taught to athletes to get themselves into the “zone”.

If you’ve never meditated, here’s an introduction from one of my favorite authors, Alan Watts.  “Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation”:http://spoerlein.iwarp.com/mind1.html

You can even learn how to do it (and what it’s like) without doing any of the work. By listening to a binaural beat pattern through a set of headphones, you can entrain any brainwave pattern you like.

If you’d rather toss out a couple of dollars for a good audio entrainment program than learn how to do it for free, then you might want to check out “Centrepoint’s HoloSync”:http://www.centerpointe.com/links.cfm?ad=27150 audio product. disclaimer: I’m a Centrepoint affiliate, and that’s an affiliate link

Do it any way you prefer, but do it. What do you have to lose? 

If you don’t like it, you can always go back to being a “Miserable Asshole™”:http://www.miserable-asshole.com.

Hey, it’s your neurology; decide for yourself whether you want to learn how to use it or not.

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