5 Ways Mindfulness Heals & Repairs Your Body
When we think of mindfulness or meditation, the words conjure images of a quiet, private time of tranquillity and peace. But how exactly, does mindfulness helps your body heal from a host of chronic illnesses?
Mindfulness meditation has received great buzz for the past few years. Due to the insurmountable scientific evidence that it works, it has been incorporated in our health care system, from prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, through cure, palliative care, and even health administration and medical training. Furthermore, mindfulness meditation is widely used by cancer survivors to reduce the risk of their disease reoccurring.
Healing the Body through Mindfulness
Meditation curbs the anxiety and stress associated with the disease. Research by the University of Wisconsin showed that those who participated in mindfulness training have increased brain activity suggesting they were handling negative emotions like anxiety and frustration more effectively than the group that was on the waiting list for the course. There was right-sided to left-sided movement within the prefrontal cerebral cortex that is involved in the expression of emotions. Whilst scientists can only speculate about the relationship between these brain changes and the health benefits associated with mindfulness meditation for now, the research adds to growing evidence that meditative practices can alter the body at a fundamental level, even at the genetic level.
It promotes better community. The study also found that the people who completed the eight-week training in mindfulness showed a significantly stronger antibody response in their immune system after given a flu vaccine than did those who were on the waiting list. Whilst meditation does not directly address the disease, it boosts your body’s capacity to heal and repair itself.
It makes you be-friend pain and fear. Pain and fear are almost indispensable to chronic illness. Cancer, heart disease and diabetes are among the most common causes of death, which come with painful symptoms and health consequences. The mind-body awareness that comes with mindfulness meditation can have immediate effects on health and well-being. As crazy as it sounds, it’s possible to befriend your pain or your fear through constant practice. Another benefit of mindfulness in facilitating healing is that it allows you to have less emotional reactivity and more stability of mind. Not overreacting emotionally brings greater mental clarity, whilst having stability of mind makes you better able to cope with the experience of illness and all it involves. All these contribute largely to your healing. In another study of people who had anywhere from one month to 29 years of mindfulness meditation practice, researchers found that mindfulness meditation practice helped people disengage from emotionally upsetting pictures and enabled them to focus better on a cognitive task as compared with people who saw the pictures but did not meditate.
Mindfulness practice alleviates inflammation. A study by UCLA and Carnegie Mellon University showed that participating in a meditation programme reduced expression of genes related to inflammation, measured in immune cells sampled from blood draws. The mindfulness training also lowered C-reactive proteins in participants, which is an indication of inflammation — a core element of many diseases.
It may prevent the onset of a disease. Not only does mindfulness meditation facilitate healing, but prevention as well. Most of us know that there’s clear association between stress and illness. Acute illness, such as an upper respiratory infection or gastrointestinal irritability, is often exacerbated or triggered by stress. And there’s where mindfulness come. Meditation, along with other relaxation therapies, reduces stress reactivity and makes the body less prone to developing acute illnesses and infections.
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