Meditation offers many health benefits.

By Lucy Jokiel

Living on the beaches of the North Shore of Oahu in the 1960s, “Tom” practiced the message of Timothy O’Leary to “drop out and tune in.” Tom says he sought a spiritual way of life through meditation and LSD, marijuana and methedrine. “Every day, I shot up some meth, read my guru’s meditation lessons, and then sat down to meditate.” It didn’t work.

Meditation offers many health benefits

In 1971, Tom hit bottom with despair and desperation from his drug addiction. It led him to a 12-step recovery program, and he has been clean and sober ever since. Only then did he reap the benefits of drug-free meditation. “Meditation has led me to a life of true happiness and joy for living,” says the 65-year-old Big Island resident. “Living life to the fullest with an attitude of gratitude has become my mantra over the years.”

Tom has immersed himself in week-long meditation retreats all over the world. “I was blessed to meet His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, several times,” says Tom. “Meditation has trained me to be a channel to share love and compassion with all those who cross my path.”

A growing body of research is showing that meditation can help improve the odds of success in overcoming addiction, as well as help relieve depression, insomnia, hypertension, chronic disease, physical pain and stress. Neuroscientists say that meditation seems to reduce stress and improve health by affecting the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system, which regulates many body organs and muscles and controls functions such as our heartbeat, sweating, breathing and digestion.

Meditation encompasses a group of mind-body techniques, including mindfulness meditation, tai chi, qi gong and yoga, which trace their roots to Eastern philosophies that have been used by many different cultures throughout the world for thousands of years. The words “medicine” and “meditation” share the same root meaning – they both come from the Latin mederi, which means “to cure.” But meditation is not a replacement for conventional care or a reason to postpone seeing a doctor about a medical problem.

Although few of us will ever attain the status and meditation skills of the Dalai Lama, many of us can practice meditation to put the brakes on the frenzied pace of our technology-driven lives. Pressured by the need to get more done and get it done faster, we turn to greater connectivity with the outer, digitalized world. In the process, we often lose awareness and connection to our inner world of emotions, feelings, thoughts and beliefs. Practicing mindfulness during quiet periods of sitting and breathing deeply allows us to let go of our negative thoughts and reconnect to ourselves and others.

In 2008, Richard Davidson, M.D., a Harvard-trained neuroscientist, studied the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on well-being and health. He recorded the altered brain activity of Tibetan monks during meditation and discovered high-frequency gamma waves associated with heightened attention and perception. Davidson’s colleague, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, has done studies showing that the brain activity of ordinary people beginning meditation shows similar changes, although not as strong, as the monks who devote their lives to practicing meditation.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health is conducting ongoing evidence-based research to judge the efficacy and effectiveness of meditation to develop standardized treatment protocols for specific mental and physical health disorders. In the meantime, you can judge the effects of regular meditation on your own life.

“You don’t need to acquire a black belt in meditation, visit seven heavenly realms or possess direct contact with angels,” says Tom. “You just have to be present in the moment and always be in service to others. Through meditation, I have discovered that we can be happy right here, right now. My serenity is only and always a breath away.”