Just a few reasons why meditating is so good.

Slava Dodonu meditates daily because he enjoys it. Like most people who meditate, he does not realize the countless physical and psychological benefits, and if he does, it is probably not his primary reason to meditate. Meditation gives him a sense of purpose and control:

Before it used to be sleeping and doing daily duties. Now there is more. There is a time in the morning when I am with myself, consciously with myself. It’s neither sleeping nor working. It’s just being with myself. In the evening, the experiences collected during the day are put to rest. All extraneous mental and emotional weight is acknowledged and let go of. I am with myself again.

There seems to be countless other benefits for meditating as well, and the web is full of examples and proof. Efficiency of Meditation to Reduce Blood Pressure talks about Transcendental Meditation, which has been experimentally shown to reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressures significantly. Dr. James W. Anderson, the lead author of the study, believes that

blood pressure reductions of this magnitude would be expected to be accompanied by significant reductions in risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease—without drug side effects.

Meditation and Physiology mentions a study that found monks to have higher electroencephalographic (EEG) activity than healthy subjects who did not meditate. This means that people who meditate are more alert, attentive, and have better functioning cognitive abilities such as memory and intelligence. They also have greater brain mass, according to a study quoted in the blog post Meditation increases grey matter in right hemisphere of the brain. Apparently, meditation slows down deterioration of the prefrontal cortex and, consequently, slows down age-related memory loss.
Let’s return to Slava. Meditation has helped him deal calmly with stressful situations and achieve personal growth. He doesn’t mention neurological or bodily reasons for meditating, probably because he is not aware of the benefits that I have mentioned. By doing something that makes him feel good, he is inadvertently making himself a healthier individual, psychologically and physically.

This post is a profile on the blog Yogic Trance
(http://www.yogictrance.com/), whose author goes by admin. The
subject of the blog is the advantages of practicing yoga and
meditation. The writer posts on this blog frequently, some days have
multiple posts. The blog seems pretty popular, with each post
receiving seven to 14 views. One post that I found interesting is
"Meditation and Yoga for Depression and Bipolar"
(http://www.yogictrance.com/2008/05/22/meditation-and-yoga-for-depression-and-bipolar/). The author describes his own experience with depression and how
meditation helped him sort out his life. He also summarizes the main
points in a book by Amy Weintraub, a yoga instructor who has
researched depression, on the expected and unexpected rewards of
meditation. Another interesting post, "Yoga cure for Smoking"
(http://www.yogictrance.com/2009/01/07/yoga-cure-for-smoking/),
explains how overcoming psychological and emotional problems through
yoga helps people to achieve the strength to quit smoking. It gives
an example of a breathing technique to use when you have a craving.

Yoga is a discipline that involves meditation, breathing techniques
and a series of postures to achieve tranquility and control over one's
thoughts. This blog discusses the benefits of yoga beyond these
effects. The writer discusses how meditation has helped him in the
post "Meditation and Yoga for Depression and Bipolar":

My mind, for one, is like a Circuit City showroom, with TVs and VCRs
and home sound systems blaring all at once from all sides.

He used meditation and yoga to assert control over his brain and
manage his depression, enabling him to function normally. He also
discusses ways in which yoga has helped other people deal with
depression and other mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder,
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)
and addictions.

This is relevant to my blog, which discusses the relationship between
meditation and physiology. My blog will look at yoga and other
techniques that involve meditation to assess the physical and
psychological gains that come from meditating and the underlying
physical processes. I recognize, however, that yoga involves
techniques other than just meditating that contribute to producing the
health benefits discussed in this blog.

This blog is highly scholarly. The writer mentions many different
maladies that yoga treats and other benefits of yoga, describes the
specific meditation for each treatment, and how it works to produce
the specific outcomes. He also includes various accounts in which
meditation has helped someone overcome a physical or psychological
ailment and cites professional research. For example, "Real life
story of how Kundalini Yoga helped OCD" describes a female patient's
struggle with OCD and BDD and the Kundalini Yoga therapy that she
underwent. She says,

Yoga put me in a state of balance, and gave me peace of mind
immediately. I was able to quit cigarettes. I also started to have a
normal appetite again…The most beneficial aspect of the experience,
however, was the immediate release from anxiety, depression, and OCD…
The continuation of the practice led to a greater state of peace and
general strength that has continued up to this day.

"Meditation and Yoga for Depression and Bipolar" cites Amy Weintraub
and backs up her argument with a study in UCLA in which

28 mildly-depressed young adults attended two one-hour yoga classes
twice a week for five weeks. Midway into the course, subjects
"demonstrated significant decreases in self-reported symptoms of
depression and trait anxiety," which they maintained to the end.
Subjects also reported decreased negative mood and fatigue following
class.

The posts are very rich and detailed, providing various examples,
personal reflections, and research.

The blog is aimed toward anyone interested in doing yoga. I think it
would also be relevant to anyone in the field of psychology,
especially therapists who may wish to use yoga as part of a treatment
plan for people suffering from mental health disorders or trying to
overcome addiction. Physicians may also be interested in this blog
since it discusses physical benefits of yoga such as reducing blood
pressure.

This blog will feed my work by contributing insight into a specific
meditation technique and how it improves health. I can compare the
benefits of yoga with that of other techniques to see which overlap
and therefore determine which are attributable to meditation alone.
My site will differ because it will consider various practices
involving meditation, as well as the act of meditation itself, and
compare and contrast methods and effectiveness. I will also explore
spiritual as well as biological aspects.

Hello!

Hello! This blog is an introduction of my topic of discussion for the semester. I will seek to find a connection between meditation and physiology and explore the health benefits of meditating. I have heard of people using meditation to lower their blood pressure, reduce anxiety, and overcome phobias. These effects of meditation are logical because they result from relaxation. But my interest in this topic arose when I learned that meditation can be equally effective as cognitive behavioral therapy in treating depression and other psychopathologies. As a psychology major, I am curious about the powerful effects of thinking on emotions, behavior, and personal health.

Over the course of the semester, I will identify the positive effects of meditation related to metabolism, the autonomic and central nervous systems, and the endocrine system. I will research and discuss the biological processes that underlie these effects. My primary focus, however, will be on meditation and psychology. I would like to find out if meditation produces health benefits directly, or if it does so indirectly via increased psychological functioning. I will discuss the effectiveness of meditation as treatment for specific psychopathologies and compare it to conventional therapeutic approaches and pharmacotherapy. Could meditation be a substitute for expensive therapies and medications in treating disorders such as depression and anxiety? Or is it most effective when used as a component of therapy? Also, is there enough empirical support for the effectiveness of meditation to make it part of conventional medicine, or should it be classified as an alternative health practice?

I am writing to an audience who is seeking non-chemical interventions to health problems, specifically mental health disorders. I am also writing to those in the scientific community who have studied the effects of meditation and those who are interested in incorporating it into treatment.

I hope that this introduction has aroused an interest in the topic and that I have raised intriguing questions that will draw people back to this blog.