Meditation: Does it Alter the Mind and the Body?

Meditation: Does it Alter the Mind and the Body?

BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!! 9:00 am starts flashing on your alarm clock and you immediately run through your "to do list" for the day. It's a long list, filled with classes, meetings, homework, meals, exams...etc. Being the master of multitasking, I have a tendency to perform various tasks at once. As a result, my concentration level decreases while my stress level increases. How can this lack of concentration and stress level be fixed? Many people turn to meditation, but does this practice actually work? And if so, how does meditation work to change the mind and the body?

Meditation is defined as "...engagement in contemplation, especially of a spiritual or devotional nature...an attempt to concentrate mind on a single form or an idea or an aspect of divinity at the exclusion of all other forms and the ideas. The mind is focused inwards, and this effort of concentration acts as stimulus to gain access to the knowledge of the object of meditation" (1). The practice of meditation involves both psychological and physiological changes. For example, the altering of breathing patterns and thought processes. But does meditation guarantee mental and physical change?

Meditation forces an individual to gain complete control of their inner self. But, what exactly is the inner self? The subconscious is an integral constituent of the internal mind. It is located deep in the core of the mind, acting as the center of emotions, behavior, creativity, and imagination. In addition, subconscious maintains good health (2). Does meditation allow an individual to open the hidden doors of the subconscious mind? What is the difference between the subconscious and conscious mind? You can think of the conscious mind as known knowledge while the subconscious mind is unknown knowledge. Meditation taps into the subconscious mind and uncovers veiled realities about the inner self. To investigate whether meditation affects the mind, studies were performed on subjects practicing meditation techniques. In conclusion, the experimenters discovered an increase in productivity, improved relations at work, increased inner potential, increased strength of self-concept, and reduced anxiety (3). All these factors can be thought of as being an element of an individual's subconscious mind because it involves behavior and thought procedures. Moreover, the focus of one image steers an individual away from multitasking and toward greater concentration. In a sense, an individual becomes more aware of their inner self as a result of focused attentiveness.