Before that, everyone thought it was just for the hippies or those 'Californians' types in the movies and not something any civilized person would consider doing.
There are now hundreds of yoga and meditation studios with four or five weekly classes bursting at the seams in every major city each vying for de-stressing the corporate executive, house wife/mother and youth, all seeking to dive into the styles or forms available. (If you dare, you can find a 26 page directory of 'Yoga Style Definitions' Yoga Centres
or Google the latest trend of 'Hot Yoga', that I tried this past summer in North America. Yes, you too can sweat in sauna fashion along with the best of them! Towel not optional but desperately mandatory!) And there are more types of meditation classes locally than you will ever be able to attend. Picking the one that suits you will be the challenge.
Lowered heart rates, increased natural production of serotonin (the chemical or 'happy or feel good drug' the body produces), anti-aging effects and increased flexibility to keep agility and core strength we need to avoid injury as we get older are just some of the scientifically proven benefits. With all of those pluses, what's keeping some of us away?
Perhaps it's a reassuring word to tell the beginner that there are classes that won't have you in poses with your legs wrapped around the back of your neck or have your muscles screaming at you the next day for having accidentally given an advanced yoga class a go. Or that transformational breath work won't have you diving into all your emotional releases during your first a session with complete strangers.
There's also a plethora of online downloadable personal programs for our ipods or iphones or CD's/ DVD's available to us to walk us through all modes of meditation and yoga practices. The key is finding one that is right for us, and sticking with it to take advantage of these benefits scientists are talking about.
The thing is, it doesn't stop here. Health care providers in the U.S. are actually ahead of the game. They have acknowledge, along with Harvard Medical School, that the 'power of the emotions' and the use of meditation CD's can reduce the frequency and some times necessity of post op hospitalization or complications and return visits to the doctor! Studies have proved that when patients are given meditation CD's to help them learn to relax, prior to having an operation, it has long lasting effects and health care system cost benefits.
Imagine that, linking the body and mind and the ability to relax together as the New Medicine! Perhaps Thomas Edison said it best: "The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet and in the cause and prevention of the disease."
Yoga and meditation: healthy food for thought.
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Biography
