Meditation and Improved Health

I was asked to put this overivew together for a PR firm. Journalists frequqently visit resorts and spas having an interest in writing about the mind-body-spirit aspect of their program. A question that is always asked is, “What is the relationship between relaxation and better health?” Sometimes it's phrased, “How does relaxation help someone loose weight?,” which is a question I prefer not to validate.

The relationship between meditation and improved health has been very well (if not grudgingly) documented by modern medical science. Since the description of the “Relaxation Response” by Dr. Herbert Benson, science has been working toward precisely identifying the underlying mechanisms by which meditation and other “spiritual” practices invoke better health. However, in its focus on material aspects, it is as if science is attempting to craft an explanation that can completely sidestep aspects the “superstitious” traditions that often accompany a meditation practice. While success toward this end is possible, it is also likely that the scope of success may be limited unless one considers the fundamental context for why meditation exists in the first place.

“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness,” says the Dali Lama. This sentiment has been expressed in some manner by all of the spiritual geniuses from around the world, across all cultures, throughout all of time. I might embellish it by saying that the purpose of life is to seek happiness, no matter how life presents itself to us . For better or for worse, the human tendency is to create an experience of unhappiness (stress, anxiety, anger, hatred, etc.) when the life experience fails to meet personal, social and cultural expectations. Left unchecked, the unhappiness created by the mind is communicated beyond brain (through well known physiological mechanisms), leading to the actualization of unhappiness in the physical body. This is reflected in muscular tension, high blood pressure and the myriad of stress-induced disease conditions we now know of.

The practice of meditation helps us see how we inadvertently create dysfunctional thought/emotional contexts from our experience. It does so by creating a study space by which we bear witness to that dysfunction-creation process. Meditation/witnessing helps us see how we don't have to be defined or controlled by these dysfunctions, and how this defining and controlling activity can be interrupted. The possibilities for better health and healing now have an opportunity to come forth. It is as if happiness spills out of the brain (through those same physiological mechanisms), to create its own changes in the body.

Meditation does not function like aspirin: it is not so much a curative as it is a “fitness” that requires cultivation. Like a physical fitness program, meditation is a training that is (optimally) performed regularly. It's not unreasonable to think that it should be included as part of a fitness program. Just as our aerobic capacity and muscle strength wanes if we ignore our workout regimen, our ability to distinguish our life experience from the expectations of how we would prefer life to be also wanes unless we give ourselves a frequent chance to notice the differences.

Meditation is not just a long term process: it ultimately becomes our normal way of receiving and being in our life from moment to moment. If the purpose of our life is to seek happiness, then meditation is the tool for conducting that search. And it is that search (and maintenance) of happiness that allows the body to transform and heal.

I recently to a spoke to a friend who is a cancer survivor; he has twice moved through near-death experiences as part of his disease process. He considers his meditation and spiritual practice to include Tai Chi and Chi Kung. When he (once again) mentioned that he literally owes his cancer recovery to Tai Chi and Chi Kung, I asked him if he could describe why he believes that to be so. He said that the enthusiasm of his instructors, the camaraderie and encouragement of his fellow students, his love for the practice and his desire to come to master the “forms”…all that had given him the reason to make it to each weekly class, to live another day, to be enthusiastic about life. Cancer runs rampant in his family history; he was diagnosed with end-stage colon cancer 3 years ago. Today he is cancer free. And while he is quick to admit there are a lot of things in his everyday that brings up feelings of anger for him, he also knows that he does not have to live out that anger.

© Richard Aquino, 2007