Meditation for stress relief
In Chinese Medicine, meditation was always praised very high. Huang-Di, also known as the Yellow Emperor, began ruling China in 2697 BC. When, after ruling many years he became weak and sick, he went into isolation and healed himself with fasting, prayer, and meditation. The same way as the Yellow Emperor healed himself a few thousands of years ago, we will be able to heal our bodies and start ruling it again by its ruler – The mind.
In almost any condition, when the body start deteriorating, stress plays a huge part, often the most important triggering part in a disease onset. Being able to hold yourself in the positive thankful mode, is super important for your wellbeing. You do not always have to be in that mode, but meditation plays here as a sort of “check up”, stop as if you are stopping yourself forcefully in same way as police may stop you/slow you down while you are passing that checkpoint on I-5 while driving north from San Diego to LA.
Contrary to many beliefs, there are many ways to meditate.
Which way is more healing for you – I will leave it up to you to decide.
In our fast moving social-political realm, being able to distract yourself from the media and negatively “charged” news, meditation can be considered as an absolute necessity for your quick brain cleanse.
The purpose of this article is not that it must teach you the right way of meditation – so many others around here, but merely explain the benefits of one and inspire you to practice it daily.
I truly believe if we all meditate daily, our collective minds can change the world to become a better and more peaceful place to live.
The meditation that I practice with my patients during treatment is quick, potent, and works great for reducing stress and re-aligning the mind back to balance. Ideally, it should be done (in the beginning) in a quiet room without bright light. You are welcome to sit, however, in the beginning, it would be more beneficial for you to lie down to “catch” the idea of Qi Gong breathing – simply known as a deep abdominal breathing.
If you have your favorite music on a background – fine, as long as it’s meditative in nature. I found that Sanskrit chanting in female voices would be ideal to start with – ancient language paired with female (yin) voices would provide better depth, at least in the beginning.
“Close your eyes, and imagine a small balloon inside of your abdomen, when you breathe in, you are filling the balloon with air, when you breathe out you are flattening the balloon. Try not to use your chest when breathing, this movement only occurs in the abdominal area, take a few minutes to practice this breathing exercise first.
Once you have established a rhythmic breathing, you can start imagining a beautiful nature scene around you. It may be any nature scene that you have traveled to or experienced once. It can also be an imaginary place. You have to keep breathing and start observing the beauty of that scene – the breath of the wind in the trees, sound of waves or a creek. You should start feeling an invincible shield that nature gives you with its absolute protection and safety.
When you have started feeling this shield, your whole abdomen should start feeling the warmth. Now – imagine colorful golden air circulating in your abdomen – it warms up your intestines,
goes on the back to recharge your kidney, it’s powerful enough to cleanse your liver and nourish your stomach.
When you start feeling that warmth feeling, send the nature around you your gratitude and love with a humble inner smile. And breathe deeply again.
Love and gratitude resolve all negativity, you are all connected now.
Please, send this warmth to your heart now. You are at peace with yourself and the universe now. You are loved .“
You will find that practicing this meditation before sleep, upon rise and anytime during day will change the way you are handling stress.
You may find yourself practicing belly breathing more and more – ultimately, it may become your second nature breathing while you are at relaxed state. We are all born with this breathing. Babies can go from a tantrum to a complete stillness within few minutes because they use only abdominal breathing.
Meditation/Qi Gong with acupuncture produces 50% more pain reduction for my patient.
An eight week study conducted by Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) determined that meditation literally rebuilds the brains grey matter in just eight weeks. It was the very first study to document that meditation produces changes over time in the brain’s grey matter.
So, please, protect your brain from “over-frying”, Alzheimer, increased blood pressure and many other diseases – meditate!
Always yours in health,
Dr. Anna Krasheninnikova.
Acupuncture | Chinese Herbal Medicine | Nutrition | NAET | NET | Moxibustion | Cupping/Gua Sha | Tui Na/Massage | Acupuncture Face Lift