Miracles of the Spirit Ministries
Dedicated to inclusive, nonreligious spirituality and the experience of miracles.
Founded by Rev. Lynn Woodland
Just One Percent
Meditation
Each person has certain predilections in every aspect of life. This includes meditation. Try the techniques below and see what works for you. Keep in mind that these represent only a few of the techniques that people have found useful. We hope to include others as time goes on.
Be patient with yourself. Meditation is a different way of using consciousness and it takes practice. In fact, meditation is not a goal, that is why it's referred to as a practice. It took me two weeks to experience the spacelessness and timelessness that were described to me as characteristic of successful meditation. It was worth it for the way my life changed, for the way my relationship with life changed.
Breath & Centering
Meditation on an Object
Mindfulness
Music & Movement
Toning
Some of the benefits of meditation include:
- Meditation creates a unique state, in which the metabolism is in an even deeper state of rest than during sleep. During sleep, oxygen consumption drops by 8 percent, but
during meditation, it drops by 10 to 20 percent.
- Meditation is the only activity that reduces blood lactate, a marker of stress and anxiety.
- The calming hormones are increased by meditation, and a stress hormone is decreased.
- Meditation has a profound effect upon three key indicators of aging: hearing ability, blood pressure, and vision of close objects.
- Long-term meditators experience 80 percent less heart disease and 50 percent less cancer than nonmeditators.
- Meditators secrete more of a youth-related hormone as they age than nonmeditators. Meditating forty-five-year-old males have an average of 23 percent more of this hormone than nonmeditators, and meditating females have an average of 47 percent more. This helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight.
- 75 percent of insomniacs were able to sleep normally when they meditated.
- 34 percent of people with chronic pain significantly reduced medication when they began meditating.
- Results show that 24 cities in which 1% of the population had been instructed in meditation by 1972 displayed decreased crime rates during the next year and decreased crime trends during the subsequent five years (1972-1977) in comparison to the previous five years (1967-1972), in contrast to control cities matched for geographic region, population, college population, and crime rate. Journal of Crime and Justice, 4:25-45, 1981.
Further information can be found on other sites throughout the web.
Research about meditation
Increased Positivity, Decreased Crime
The results show that 24 cities in which 1% of the population had been instructed in meditation by 1972 displayed decreased crime rates during the next year and decreased crime trends during the subsequent five years (1972-1977) in comparison to the previous five years (1967-1972), in contrast to control cities matched for geographic region, population, college population, and crime rate. Journal of Crime and Justice, 4:25-45, 1981.
For details and other abstracts see
http://www.wisespirit.com/medresrch.htm#crime
Effects of Meditation
More information in available at Meditaiton Organization website.
Yoga Journal
For information on meditation and meditation techniques go to the Yoga Journal's website.
The Chopra Center at www.chopra.com has a lot of information.
(This site is graphic intensive and may be slow with older browsers or dial-up modems.)
Conversations with God Foundation
For more information on Neale Donald Walsh, his books Conversations with God, or the Conversations with God Foundation , visit their web site at http://www.cwg.org/