Although this all may sound a bit far-fetched, guided meditation has been on the radar of doctors for years, simply because it does have massive benefits which have been proven in numerous medical circles.
The number of people in the world who experience some sort of chronic pain have been in the rise, especially in recent years as humans have become an increasingly more sedentary species.
In 2009, it was discovered that 44% of Americans suffer from one chronic condition, and 13% suffer from more than one chronic condition. And because of this, doctors are increasingly prescribing pain meds which can often times do more damage to the body, even as it quells the pain.
In one study performed in 2016, The Annals of Behavioral Medicine, found that meditation actually treated chronic pain just as sufficiently as most pain medications.
And although the study was just for chronic pain, most of the subjects also reported they experienced an improvement of depression symptoms they were experiencing (Mindfulness Meditation for Chronic Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Hilton et al.)
Which brings up another study, which was carried out by Harvard Medicine in 2016. Instead of treating depression with medications, they set out to see depression, along with high blood pressure, could be treated with mindful meditation, and the results were shocking. Not only did meditation help treat depression, but it was also shown to change the expression of 172 genes in the human body which were responsible for a number of adverse health effects. Participants in the study noticed reductions in the symptoms of inflammation, circadian rhythm disorders, high blood pressure, and issues with metabolism.
This led the doctors on the study to conclude that the mind actually has much more power than we realize when it comes to regulating health. (Scientific Transcriptome Changes Associated with Blood Pressure Reduction in Hypertensive Patients After Relaxation Response Training, Herbert Benson et al).
The main doctor on the study, Dr. Herbert Benson, discussed in an interview that since the 1920’s, American’s have been increasingly more dependent on medications and he doesn’t necessarily think this is the way to treat most diseases, especially the more minor ones which are specifically caused by things like inflammation.
He recommends that until humanity knows the full power of the mind, that things like meditation be employed alongside medication when designing a treatment plan.
Also, as it turns out, every year American’s grow more and more stressed, and a number of doctors believe this is what is leading to the high rate of illnesses lick chronic inflammation, because humans aren’t giving themselves enough of a break as they are always on the go.
And this is why doctors believe meditation works so well for treating these types of diseases. So, if you are experiencing high levels of inflammation and high blood pressure, it may be time to give guided meditation a go.
