Prayer and meditation can play a significant role in your overall health and well-being. Each is a safe and easy way to reduce stress that can lead to medical complications ranging from anxiety and high blood pressure to allergies, asthma, chronic pain and cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. Prayer usually follows religious orientation while meditation is considered an alternative medicine therapy.
Basics
No matter what type of prayer or meditation you practice, common threads run through the basics. In most cases, you must use techniques to relax your breathing so that each breath is deep and uses your diaphragm to expand your lungs. Through a religious prayer, a mantra or by focusing on an image, you focus your attention on positive spiritual matters to relax. Typically, your body should be relaxed, releasing tension in your shoulders and neck muscles to facilitate even breathing.
Physiology
You can measure your heart rate and blood pressure when you're engaged in prayer and meditation to gauge its effectiveness. With experience in the practices, you may see changes in your EEG readings that show you lowered your pulse rate and decreased oxygen consumption and blood lactate levels. You may exert control over your autonomic nervous system and may be able to change other metabolic activities.
Mysteries
Prayer and meditation's benefits and healing powers remain a mystery to the scientific community. The connection between body and mind may not easily be explained through medical measurements and testing. The healing properties of prayer and meditation rely on unseen energies that trigger physical vibrations, as proposed by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity. According to The Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice, 99 percent of family physicians believe that prayer can heal, though they often can't explain why.
Effects
Spirituality and the practices that accompany your beliefs often are expressed through prayer and meditation. According to the National Cancer Institute, spirituality is merely the belief that there is something greater than you. While few studies prove a direct connection to healing and spirituality, the practices will provide you with a more stable emotional state and increase your will to live and conquer illnesses. At the very least, you will be better able to cope with a disease, have a more optimistic outlook toward your recovery and live through your treatments with hope and dignity.
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