Emotional pain can be more excruciating than physical pain. Having been going through a very difficult time, I have realized that the pain in my body is a welcome change to the one in my heart and mind. But what kind of toll can the stress of emotional upset take on the body?

When you are stressed out or very upset, the body goes into “fight or flight” mode, pumping adrenaline, cortisol and increased blood to the muscles in expectation of what the mind perceives as danger. This is a temporary response, but if the stress is ongoing, the process continues to repeat itself over and over. The result of this constant “fight or flight” is an imbalance in the nervous system.

Read the full article by Tracy Rydzy > Psych Central News

Mindfulness meditation has been unequaled in helping me navigate the stressors that can rob me of the beauty of each moment. It has helped me manage a serious mental illness, and it has helped me confront major and minor roadblocks that threaten to derail all of my plans.

In fact, I believe that anyone can benefit from this practice. And therein lies the problem.

Mindfulness should be about fully experiencing the present moment — taking in all that is around us non-judgmentally, and sharing empathy for the plight of others we encounter. But it threatens to become an individual pursuit.

Read the full article by George Hofmann Psych Central News

Since the day about two years ago that he truly committed to the practice, George Stephanopoulos, anchor of Good Morning America, hasn’t missed a day of meditating. Watch the video

By Stacy Colino
Published: Bethesda Magazine – May-June 2013

In the 1990s, Jennifer Stein was a litigation associate at a large D.C. law firm, working long hours, traveling extensively and “experiencing tons of pressure to be at the top of my game,” she recalls. “Then I got a great opportunity to argue an appeal in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It was a big deal and very exciting—but very, very stressful.”

As she was preparing for oral arguments, Stein began feeling increasingly ill. She’d had Crohn’s disease—an autoimmune disorder and chronic inflammatory condition that affects the gastrointestinal tract—since age 17, and it consistently flared up when she was under stress. The pain in her digestive tract became overwhelming, and she lost so much weight over the course of months that colleagues wondered if she had an eating disorder.

Read the full article by Stacy Colino > Bethesda Magazine

by Rebecca Gladding, M.D.

This Is Your Brain on Meditation
The science explaining why you should meditate every day
Published on May 22, 2013 by Rebecca Gladding, M.D. in Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain

I realized today that in all my posts regarding the brain and how to sculpt it with mindfulness, I’ve never actually explained how and why meditation works. Specifically, the science behind how your brain changes the longer you meditate. I think this is important for many reasons, but one of the most salient is that this information serves as a great motivator to keep up a daily practice (or start one).

Read the full article by Rebecca Gladding, M.D. > Psychology Today – http://www.psychologytoday.com/

Now the hard science has caught up: a comprehensive scientific study showing that deep relaxation changes our bodies on a genetic level has just been published. What researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered is that, in long-term practitioners of relaxation methods such as yoga and meditation, far more ”disease-fighting genes” were active, compared to those who practised no form of relaxation.

In particular, they found genes that protect from disorders such as pain, infertility, high blood pressure and even rheumatoid arthritis were switched on. The changes, say the researchers, were induced by what they call ”the relaxation effect”, a phenomenon that could be just as powerful as any medical drug but without the side effects. ”We found a range of disease-fighting genes were active in the relaxation practitioners that were not active in the control group,” Dr Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the research, says. The good news for the control group with the less-healthy genes is that the research didn’t stop there.

Read the full article by Anastasia Stephens, SMH > 7 Health Benefits of Meditation

In a number of religious traditions, it is believed that meditation can improve compassion. Now, a study in the journal Psychological Science finds hard evidence to back that claim.

Recent research has already suggested meditation can help individuals lower stress and ease physical disorders such as hypertension or arthritis. The new study extends those beneficial effects to interpersonal harmony and compassion.

Researchers from Northeastern and Harvard universities, led by David DeSteno, Ph.D., invited participants to complete eight-week trainings in two types of meditation. After the sessions, they were put to a test.

Read the full article by Rick Nauert PHD > Psych Central News

Many antihypertensive medications and lifestyle changes are proven to reduce blood pressure. Over the past few decades, numerous additional modalities have been evaluated in regard to their potential blood pressure–lowering abilities.

However, these nondietary, nondrug treatments, collectively called alternative approaches, have generally undergone fewer and less rigorous trials.

This American Heart Association scientific statement aims to summarize the blood pressure–lowering efficacy of several alternative approaches and to provide a class of recommendation for their implementation in clinical practice based on the available level of evidence from the published literature.

Read the full AHA Scientific Statement > Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure

A new study suggests practicing transcendental meditation (TM) improves brain function and reduces symptoms among students diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Researchers investigated the effects of the meditation practice on task performance and brain functioning in 18 ADHD students, ages 11 to 14 years old.

The study was conducted over a period of six months in an independent school for children with language-based learning disabilities in Washington, D.C., and is published in Mind & Brain, The Journal of Psychiatry.

Read the full article by Rick Nauert PHD > Psych Central News

Previous studies have linked better health outcomes among heart patients who practiced meditation compared to those who did not, but none of those trials could definitively credit the brain-focusing program with the better health results. In the latest trial to address those limitations, however, meditation does appear to have an effect on reducing heart attack, stroke and even early death from heart disease, at least among African-Americans.

Read the full article by Laura Blue > Time