Five Benefits of Learning about Mental Health

Mental health is a term used in reference to a person's emotional and psychological well-being. Mental health problems may include serious depression, anxiety, hallucinations, violent behavior or suicidal thoughts. A person with a serious mental health problem is unable to cope adequately with life and cannot be coaxed into 'snapping out of it'.

Approximately 60 million people in the United States experience mental health problems each year. One in seventeen lives with serious mental health conditions and less than a third seek treatment. Here are five reasons why you should learn about mental health.

The first step in fighting mental illness is education. Mental health problems, as stated above, are common. If you learn about symptoms and warning signs and familiarize yourself with different diagnoses and treatments you will be better able to cope with any mental health issues that arise in your life or in the lives of those people you care about. Early identification is the key to recovery. Mental health treatment can involve a combination of medication and therapy. Diet, exercise, sleep and social support also plays a role in recovery. Being able to recognize the symptoms of various mental health problems is crucial in the early identification and subsequent treatment of any mental health problem.

Mental health awareness and subsequent treatment reduces medical costs. Numerous studies have shown that when people seek mental health care, their use of medical services declines. People with untreated mental health problems visit a medical doctor twice as often as people who receive care for their mental health problems.

Untreated mental health issues negatively affect one's overall health. Excessive anxiety and stress can greatly contribute to physical problems including, high blood pressure, heart disease and ulcers. Living under the strain of anxiety and stress can also weaken the immune system - making people much more vulnerable to all types of physical ailments ranging from the common cold to cancer. Improving your understanding of mental illness is the most effective way of battling stigma towards those who have been diagnosed with a mental health condition. Mental illness can be very hard for some people to understand which can very easily lead to prejudice and discrimination. People who have friends or family members with mental illnesses benefit from learning about mental health because it helps them to understand the causes of the problem and the suitable treatment options available.

Just as people can have physical problems, so can they have mental health problems. It is very important that we as a society accept this fact and teach our children from a young age that not feeling well psychologically or emotionally is 'OK' and that there is help available. Mental illness is a part of life as millions of people are affected each year. Education is the key to bringing mental health issues out of the shadows. De-stigmatizing mental health problems will help those who suffer from emotional and psychological problems in getting the help they need so that they can lead healthy and happy lives.

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Weight Loss - The Mental Process

When you go on a diet and decide you want to lose some weight, most people think "I'll stop eating so much, maybe do a bit of exercise and be my ideal weight in just a few days". Sadly, these people end up disappointed and usually heavier than when they started.

Dieting is not just a physical process but a mental one too.

If you do not have the mental processes right then your diet will be a struggle and possibly fail. By having the right mental approach and being in control of your brain you can turbo charge your way to your ideal weight.

So how do you get in control of your brain then?

Before I reveal that, you need to know that you are made up of two parts.

You have your conscious mind, which is your ego - the part that chatters on all day.

Then you have your sub-conscious, which is the part that grows your hair, your nails, pumps blood around your body and so on.

This is a very powerful thing to know, because most people fail in their diets because they do not have the sub-conscious mind working with them, and so it sabotages their efforts.

Consciously you want to lose weight, but sub-consciously you enjoy the extra weight for various reasons, e.g. security, lack of attention from the opposite sex, etc.

The first step in making any change is awareness. This means you become aware of the way your brain works and how you think about yourself and weight loss.

For example, lots of people will say, "I'm struggling to lose weight" or "I hate dieting" or something along those lines.

The words you use program your sub-conscious mind. When you say things like this you are giving a strong message to your subconscious mind which takes it all on board.

The same if you say, "Why can't I lose weight?" or "Why am I always eating so much?" or anything like this your sub-conscious mind will give you the answers and tell you why! And how will that make you feel - not so good I imagine!

Being in control of your mind means being in control of what it says to you - it doesn't operate on its own doing what it wants, it operates in a pattern that it has learnt over the years from you. And the nice thing is, this habit - you can change it!

So the first step is to become aware of what you say to yourself when you talk about your dieting and weight. What do you say? Think about this now ...

Is it positive and encouraging? Or is it not?

Over the next week, listen to how you talk to yourself about your weight, your appearance and your diet.

Now you are more aware of what you are saying to yourself about dieting and losing weight, you can start to reprogram yourself and get rid of those patterns.

When you hear yourself say something that is discouraging or negative about yourself stop yourself immediately and change it into something positive and encouraging - something that makes you feel good.

When you start doing this you will soon notice that your diet becomes so much easier and the weight disappears!

11 Points for Mental Health Care Reform

Due to greater understanding of how many Americans live with mental illnesses and addiction disorders and how expensive the total healthcare expenditures are for this group, we have reached a critical tipping point when it comes to healthcare reform. We understand the importance of treating the healthcare needs of individuals with serious mental illnesses and responding to the behavioral healthcare needs of all Americans. This is creating a series of exciting opportunities for the behavioral health community and a series of unprecedented challenges Mental health organizations across the U.S. are determined to provide expertise and leadership that supports member organizations, federal agencies, states, health plans, and consumer groups in ensuring that the key issues facing persons with mental health and substance use disorders are properly addressed and integrated into healthcare reform.

In anticipation of parity and mental healthcare reform legislation, the many national and community mental health organizations have been thinking, meeting and writing for well over a year. Their work continues and their outputs guide those organizations lobbying for government healthcare reform. .

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY

1. Mental Health/Substance Use Health Provider Capacity Building: Community mental health and substance use treatment organizations, group practices, and individual clinicians will need to improve their ability to provide measurable, high-performing, prevention, early intervention, recovery and wellness oriented services and supports.

2. Person-Centered Healthcare Homes: There will be much greater demand for integrating mental health and substance use clinicians into primary care practices and primary care providers into mental health and substance use treatment organizations, using emerging and best practice clinical models and robust linkages between primary care and specialty behavioral healthcare.

3. Peer Counselors and Consumer Operated Services: We will see expansion of consumer-operated services and integration of peers into the mental health and substance use workforce and service array, underscoring the critical role these efforts play in supporting the recovery and wellness of persons with mental health and substance use disorders.

4. Mental Health Clinic Guidelines: The pace of development and dissemination of mental health and substance use clinical guidelines and clinical tools will increase with support from the new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and other research and implementation efforts. Of course, part of this initiative includes helping mental illness patients find a mental health clinic nearby.

MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

5. Medicaid Expansion and Health Insurance Exchanges: States will need to undertake major change processes to improve the quality and value of mental health and substance use services at parity as they redesign their Medicaid systems to prepare for expansion and design Health Insurance Exchanges. Provider organizations will need to be able to work with new Medicaid designs and contract with and bill services through the Exchanges.

6. Employer-Sponsored Health Plans and Parity: Employers and benefits managers will need to redefine how to use behavioral health services to address absenteeism and presenteeism and develop a more resilient and productive workforce. Provider organizations will need to tailor their service offerings to meet employer needs and work with their contracting and billing systems.

7. Accountable Care Organizations and Health Plan Redesign: Payers will encourage and in some cases mandate the development of new management structures that support healthcare reform including Accountable Care Organizations and health plan redesign, providing guidance on how mental health and substance use should be included to improve quality and better manage total healthcare expenditures. Provider organizations should take part in and become owners of ACOs that develop in their communities.

MENTAL HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE

8. Quality Improvement for Mental Healthcare: Organizations including the National Quality Forum will accelerate the development of a national quality improvement strategy that contains mental health and substance use performance measures that will be used to improve delivery of mental health and substance use services, patient health outcomes, and population health and manage costs. Provider organizations will need to develop the infrastructure to operate within this framework.

9. Health Information Technology: Federal and state HIT initiatives need to reflect the importance of mental health and substance use services and include mental health and substance use providers and data requirements in funding, design work, and infrastructure development. Provider organizations will need to be able to implement electronic health records and patient registries and connect these systems to community health information networks and health information exchanges.

10. Healthcare Payment Reform: Payers and health plans will need to design and implement new payment mechanisms including case rates and capitation that contain value-based purchasing and value-based insurance design strategies that are appropriate for persons with mental health and substance use disorders. Providers will need to adapt their practice management and billing systems and work processes in order to work with these new mechanisms.

11. Workforce Development: Major efforts including work of the new Workforce Advisory Committee will be needed to develop a national workforce strategy to meet the needs of persons with mental health and substance use disorder including expansion of peer counselors. Provider organizations will need to participate in these efforts and be ready to ramp up their workforce to meet unfolding demand.

http://www.thenationalcouncil.org/cs/mission_and_vision

Easy Ways to Help Raise Self Esteem

For many people self-esteem is a problem that can be a lifelong issue and one that can seriously impact both personal and professional relationships. While many would seek to raise their self-esteem, they may find that this is easier said than done, as this is a tremendously sensitive and delicate issue. In order to raise one's self-esteem, it is critically important to understand the nature of self-esteem and how it develops as well as the important link between self-esteem and success.

Generally, self-esteem is relate to your view of yourself, how others view you, your abilities and your accomplishments. Low self-esteem develops when an individual feels that they will fail at tasks they attempt or when they think that others do not think highly of them and their accomplishments.

Self esteem touches every aspect of our lives; both public and private. Therefore it can impact how we interact with our families, our co-workers and those we are involved with on a social level. Even hobbies can be affected negatively or positively by self-esteem. Due to the fact that self-esteem is an integral part of developing a happy, successful life and career, the lack of self-esteem can result in very serious situations. Low self-esteem has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways that an individual can go about raising their self-esteem. In situations in which low self-esteem is resulting in thoughts of self-harm or harm to others, it is critically important to obtain counseling in order to address these issues. In milder situations, low self-esteem can be treated in a variety of manners that involve relative privacy.

One of the most successful ways to treat low self-esteem is by addressing and reviewing those issues in the past that may have resulted in a negative mindset. In many cases, the root issues may have involved either accomplishments that were attempted but not achieved or perhaps an individual from the past who caused hurt with belittling comments. Whatever the root issue may happens to be, the key to overcoming low self-esteem involves taking the time to recognize the impact the issue has had on your current life and then casting it away from you. Imagery techniques can be particularly useful in this context. Imagine tossing the source of your low self-esteem far away from you.

Other techniques that are frequently used to raise self-esteem involve detailed record keeping. You may be quite surprised to find that you are good at a number of things. Toward that end, make a point to keep a record of all your accomplishment; even if they may seem minor or insignificant. Review these regularly and eventually your low self-esteem will be replaced with high self-esteem.

Want To Improve Your Health? Improve Your Circulation With Yoga

Yoga has been shown to improve the health of those who practice it, in many ways. These include mental and physical health as well as, for some, spiritual aspects of their lives. Yoga can have dramatic effects on the lives of many people.

And one area where that can be evident is in general blood circulation. Yoga exercises are very good for improving blood circulation and for anyone suffering from a circulatory problem it is well worth considering taking up Yoga, after a suitable consultation with your doctor. And blood circulation is important to so many aspects of our health.

All the tissues in our bodies need to move regularly to function properly. Witness what happens to those who are bedridden and suffer all sorts of problems related to their inability to move around enough.

The practice of Yoga ensures a good flow of blood to the tissues of our body. This in turn ensures a supply of oxygen because blood carries oxygen. And this helps improve the functioning of our organs and our general health. It will help in many areas of our general physical and mental health.

And those who suffer from some mental problems such as reduced memory may well also find that the regular practice of Yoga and the resultant improvement in oxygen supply to the brain from improved blood circulation results in some improvement to their specific mental problems.

This can be true in so many areas of our lives. Yoga can be beneficial during pregnancy for example, and there are many women who suffer from circulatory problems during pregnancy. The practice of Yoga can help maintain the womans overall health and mental well being and this may well in turn give her better physical ability and confidence to help her with the delivery.

And there are all sorts of other physical conditions which can be improved with improved blood circulation which results from the practice of Yoga. Perhaps you will find that blood pressure problems improve, or back pain may improve or even just that you get a better nights sleep.

There are many benefits to be found from a disciplined practice of Yoga, many stemming from improvements in the overall circulatory function. There are even some particular Yoga exercises called Inversions which are especially developed to improve stamina and the strength of the upper body, and these also help improve blood circulation.

Inversions keep your legs above the level of your heart which in turn affects the flow of blood. They should be done after long periods of standing. There are some who should avoid inversions, such as pregnant women, and anyone suffering from a specific medical problem should of course consult their doctor first.

Yoga is a discipline like any other, and so the benefits you get from it will depend on the degree to which you practice Yoga, however if you do so regularly, dont be surprised to find your overall health increasing.

And there are many Yoga exercised that can improve overall health by improving the circulation. Consult your instructor if youd like to learn more about the effects of Yoga on circulation, and find out more about the specific Yoga exercises to help you improve your circulation.

Foods That Can Improve Mental Health

Mental health can be attributed to many things, and one of those things is diet. This has warranted the most attention from the mental health community than perhaps any other form of therapy. Nutritional awareness and increased popularity of non-pharmaceutical solutions to health problems has led to a great deal of press and some pretty strong claims on both sides of the mental health argument.

1. Eating Patterns

It's no secret that eating habits are related to mood - people tend to eat when they are sad or depressed for example. Things like poor nutrition, a failure to eat on an appropriate schedule and other factors are common to both.

2. Low Carbohydrate Diet

Certain diets have a discernible impact on mood and mental health. The popular low carbohydrate diets that are often vaunted as a great means of promoting weight loss, for instance, may increase the risk of depression. This is because foods rich in carbohydrates tell the body to produce chemicals including tryptophan and serotonin. These substances create a sense of well being in a person and their absence can have a dramatic impact on mood. Many people who cut carbohydrates from their diets may experience depressive symptoms as a result of the shortfall in these substances. The impact of carbohydrate intake on depression remains somewhat unclear. Of course, it does serve as an example of the way our bodies interplay with food can influence our emotional state.

3. You Are What You Eat

We have all heard the old clich? that you are what you eat. As with most oft-repeated phrases, its popularity is largely based on its accuracy. What we take into our body does have a profound impact on how well it functions. Although we often tend to think of mental health problems as being divorced from the physical realm, they do originate in the body. It only makes sense to consider how various nutrients and dietary habits may affect depression and other mental health concerns.

4. Vitamins

Certain vitamins also seem to be linked with depression. The B vitamin group, in particular, is often mentioned alongside depression. This is because B vitamins are key to the functioning of our nervous systems. Vitamin B6 is one example. Research has demonstrated that those suffering from depression often have very low levels of Vitamin B6 in their systems (as well as low levels of the aforementioned seratonin). Although most citizens living in industrialized nations generally to manage sufficient dietary impact of B6, certain medications (including birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy drugs) actually interfere with B6 ingestion.

5.Overhaul Your Diet

Far too many people eat out. It might shock you to actually discover how many calories are in a single hamburger these days. Eating a healthy and well-rounded diet consistent with recognized nutritional recommendations may be a good way of battling depression. A failure to restrict your diet to healthy choices may make you fat, and being fat might make you more depressed - being depressed makes you eat, and the vicious cycle continues. Break the cycle!

Some people believe that our brain becomes inactive when we sleep. If that were so then we should not have any dreams. Dreams are evidence that our mind remains active, even when we are asleep. This simply means that our mind is active 24 hours a day without any rest at all. Just imagine how our bodies would behave if we were to go through 24 hours of physical activity.

Although research may show that 30% of mental illness may occur without a trigger of stress, it also shows that a majority - 70% - of mental illnesses occur with stress. The research may have failed to look at the other 30%, mentally ill who may not be 'acknowledging' stress at a given moment. This gives us a pessimistic view of mental illnesses. We are made to believe that we can do nothing about them.

We are also told that mental illnesses occur because of our genes, our upbringing, our personality, our temperament, our lifestyle and we can do nothing about them. Stress or no stress, we are told, if we have all these factors loaded in our personal history, we are prone to have a mental illness. Some psychiatrists adhere to this belief strongly. This belief is then put across authoritatively as the "gospel truth" of science. Naturally, this brings up a sense of low self-esteem and helplessness in the person who is suffering with the illness. We are then made to believe that medications are man-made answers to mental illness, which is a curse of nature.

Prayer, which was until recently considered unscientific, has now been shown to have beneficial effects on patients.1 Similarly, the current belief in psychiatry is that mental illnesses can be treated by medical professionals only and the person who is mentally ill has no control over their lives. The medical system works in a way in which the doctors themselves have limited choices other than prescribing drugs.

The patient has no choices worth mentioning. From the legal perspective, a person who is mentally ill is considered not capable of taking any responsibility for their actions. This is one of the most unfortunate aspects of mental illnesses. People who are mentally ill also have a sense of responsibility in many areas of their lives.

The role of emotions in mental illnesses has been totally ignored by scientists. Yet researches do show that separation from mother,2 losses3 - including deaths,4 traumatic events, especially when they occur over the previous three months5 can trigger mental illnesses. What has been looked at is the history of such events in a person's life. What is ignored is the emotional upheaval it causes in a person's body and mind.

Emotional expression ameliorates the effects of trauma.

6 Repetitive upheavals in the body are simply not forgotten. Release of emotions by emotional expression explains the role of counselling and confession. We tend to believe, erroneously, that everything will settle with time. Things do settle with time - but not everything. It is these issues and their emotional effects, that cause mental illnesses and psychosomatic illnesses. It is obvious that whenever we undergo any emotional experience, our nervous and hormonal systems are shaken-up. The nervous system and the hormones together control the activities of various parts of the body. If the neurohormonal expression is allowed to go through completion, a physiological calmness occurs in the body. This has a scientific basis.

7 For people who attend church regularly, a common experience is the sense of calmness on entering a church. Coupled with music, incense and sermons spoken in a low, soft tone, a sense of calmness dwells on the person. There is scientific evidence to suggest that going to church helps a person remain healthy.

8 More interesting is the fact that there is little research to state that music or aromatherapy help to bring about mental health. Yet experience shows that they have a calming effect. Only recently have papers started to be published in scientific journals bridging the gap between spirituality and science.

9 It has now been researched that people who are religious in orientation have a lower rate of strokes than those who are not religious.

10 The whole area of mental illness is about losing a sense of freedom. When we find ourselves bound to emotional issues of our life, that we cannot rid ourselves of, we lose our freedom of thinking. This creates stress in our mind and our body bears the brunt of it. This loss of freedom brings up a sense of fear or a sense of helplessness. Both such feelings bring up a sense of insecurity. A person loses confidence in their own worth. Self-esteem becomes low. With lack of confidence and low self-esteem, comes poor decision-making. A person suffers with all these conditions when suffering with a mental illness.

This changes the behaviour of the person. The behaviour is affected by the way the person feels and thinks. If the person feels fear for a long time, the chances of becoming phobic and paranoid increase. Withdrawal from social situations occurs. The family members observe the person to be unwell. Such a person is then asked to see a doctor. With the person's self-esteem low, vulnerability increases.

This does not mean however, that the person becomes totally irresponsible towards their own well-being. Many times the person wants to do 'something' to get better, but the health system has limited resources to offer much in terms of growth of the person, except medication. When a mentally ill person goes to seek help - confidence, self-esteem and sense of freedom are already lost. Instead of helping the person become independent, there is a tendency to make the person dependent on medication.

Medication plays its role in controlling the condition or state of illness. It does nothing to improve the quality of life permanently. To improve their quality of life, the person needs to take responsibility for their own well-being. This is encouraged in some of the organisations, which are being run by the sufferers themselves. GROW is an example of such an organisation. Are there any alternatives to medication in mental conditions? A doctor can only prescribe drugs to "control" the mental condition.

The current trend in some other parts of the world is to encourage people suffering with mental illnesses to take responsibility for their own well-being, along with medication. Psychotherapy11 and self-help is encouraged. The usage of medication in such situations is minimised or eliminated.

In psychiatry, we know that the suicide rate among physicians is higher than in the general population and psychiatrists are at a greater risk among physicians, than other specialists.

12 Research shows that psychotherapy is more economical than medication alone in treating mental illness.

13 Conditions like schizophrenia are also being treated without medication in some parts of the world.

14 It is also a known fact that the more positive the attitude we have, the more balanced are the chemicals in our body.

15 This would be more acceptable for those who see the positive role of religion on mental health. Some authors have suggested that the medicine of the future is going to be "prayer and Prozac."

16 Mental health is a preventative activity. Do we need to suffer first before we take steps to deal with it? If we could only assume responsibility for our own mental health, we may not have to suffer. The best medicine in this case is certainly prevention.

We live in a free society. The freedom to suffer is also one kind of freedom. We also have the freedom to look for answers to minimise our suffering.

Weaving Mental Health First Aid into Workplace Wellness

Every month Anne LaFleur sends employees in her office a quiz about various wellness topics. When the topic was depression, she received twice as many responses as usual from co-workers.

When LaFleur, vice president of human resources at a credit union in Pawtucket, RI, took a Mental Health First Aid course in February, she quickly understood the reason for the high level of interest in mental health issues. The training also helped her identify people in her office who may be suffering a mental health problem and taught her how to provide help and refer people to self-help and professional resources. "The training made me realize that mental health issues are very common, yet one of the least talked about problems," LaFleur says.

More than one in four people suffer from a diagnosable mental health problem in any given year. Mental illness likely costs businesses more than $79 billion a year, $63 billion of it in lost productivity. The statistics point to the significant need to incorporate mental health into burgeoning employee wellness programs, which have received a shot in the arm with the passage of federal healthcare reform legislation.

Mental Health First Aid has proved to be an ideal program to promote improved mental health in workplaces across the country.

LaFleur is one of more than 6,000 people certified in Mental Health First Aid since the training was introduced in the United States two years ago by the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare along with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

Those who participate in the 12-hour Mental Health First Aid course learn a five-step process to assess a situation, select and implement appropriate interventions and help a person developing signs and symptoms of mental illness or in crisis receive appropriate care. Participants also learn about the risk factors and warning signs of specific illnesses such as anxiety, depression, psychosis, and addiction.

Evaluations show that the evidence-based Mental Health First Aid program saves lives, expands people's knowledge of mental illnesses and their treatments, and reduces the stigma associated with mental illness by helping people understand and accept mental illness as a medical condition. One trial of 301randomized participants found that those who took the training had greater confidence in providing help to others, greater likelihood of advising people to seek professional help, and decreased stigmatizing attitudes.

Unexpectedly, the study also found that Mental Health First Aid improved the mental health of the participants themselves.

"By understanding the signs and symptoms of depression, I learned to recognize this in myself," says Kellie-Ann Heenan, director of human resources at a company in Lincoln, RI.

Heenan, who had the training in February, has an adopted son from Russia who suffers from a number of emotional issues.

"The tools I learned made it easier to connect with him and better understand where he's coming from," she says. "In the end, the training improved my own mental health."

LaFleur has also applied the lessons she learned in the course to her home life.

"My kids are in their 20s and they go through the typical ups and downs," says LaFleur, "I use my Mental Health First Aid training to see how my kids are feeling." LaFleur says she was surprised by the range of mental health issues covered in the course.

"We looked at how to deal with both crisis and non-crisis situations, and it made us very aware of the terminology we use that may not be socially correct," she says, noting that describing co-workers as "crazy" or a "nut case" may be hurtful to people going through an emotionally trying time.

The training proved to be particularly helpful to Lynn Corwin last January when two fellow employees walked into her office in a panic. They told Corwin, director of human resources at the organization, that a co-worker was extremely upset about the recent earthquake in Haiti. The distressed young woman had a close friend in Haiti and had been unable to contact the person for five days. Fearing the worst, the woman was having difficulty managing her emotions, let alone being able to work.

While the two workers had no idea how to deal with the situation, Corwin sprung into action.

"I used what I learned in the course to calm the woman down and talk with her about how she's feeling," says Corwin. "I explained to her that it was OK to be upset, and to not be embarrassed about it."

"The training left me with a greater sense of confidence about how to deal with a variety of people issues that come up in every office," concludes Heenan. "There's such a stigma around mental health and people don't want to talk about it, so having the information gives me confidence that I'll be able to handle these types of situations when they arise."

About Meditation to Improve Mental and Physical Health

Meditation is a group of mental training techniques. You can use meditation to improve mental health and capacities, for spiritual development, to improve your motivation for your goals and also to help improve the physical health. Some of these techniques are very simple, so you can learn them from a book or an article; others require guidance by a qualified meditation teacher.


WHAT IS MEDITATION

Most techniques called meditation include these components:

1. You sit or lie in a relaxed position with closed eyes.
2. You breathe regularly. You breathe in deep enough to get enough oxygen. When you breathe out, you relax your muscles so that your lungs are well emptied, but without straining.
3. You stop thinking about everyday problems and matters.
4. You concentrate your thoughts upon some sound, some word you repeat, some image, some abstract concept or some feeling. Your whole attention should be pointed at the object you have chosen to concentrate upon.
5. If some foreign thoughts creep in, you just stop this foreign thought, and go back to the object of meditation.

The different meditation techniques differ according to the degree of concentration, and how foreign thoughts are handled. By some techniques, the objective is to concentrate so intensely that no foreign thoughts occur at all.

In other techniques, the concentration is more relaxed so that foreign thoughts easily pop up. When these foreign thoughts are discovered, one stops these and goes back to the pure meditation in a relaxed manner. Thoughts coming up, will often be about things you have forgotten or suppressed, and allow you to rediscover hidden memory material. This rediscovery will have a psychotherapeutic effect.


THE EFFECTS OF MEDITATION

Meditation has the following effects:

1. Meditation will reduce stress and give you rest and recreation.
2. You learn to relax.
3. You learn to concentrate better on problem solving.
4. Meditation often has a good effect upon the blood pressure.
5. Meditation has beneficial effects upon inner body processes, like circulation, respiration and digestion.
6. Regular meditation will have a psychotherapeutically effect.
7. Regular meditation will facilitate the immune system.
8. Meditation is usually pleasant.


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYPNOSIS AND MEDITATION

Hypnosis may have some of the same relaxing and psychotherapeutic effects as meditation. However, when you meditate you are in control yourself; by hypnosis you let some other person or some mechanical device control you. Also hypnosis will not have a training effect upon the ability to concentrate.


A SIMPLE FORM OF MEDITATION

Here is a simple form of meditation. By this meditation technique, you should concentrate in an easy manner. This will allow foreign thoughts to pop up. These are handled one by one as they appear. You proceed as follows:

1. Sit in a good chair in a comfortable position.
2. Close your eyes and relax all your muscles as well as you can.
3. Stop thinking about anything, or at least try not to think about anything.
4. Breath out, relaxing all the muscles in your breathing apparatus.
5. Repeat the following in 10 - 20 minutes:

-- Breath in so deep that you feel you get enough oxygen.
-- Breath out, relaxing your chest and diaphragm completely.
-- Every time you breathe out, think the word "one" or another simple word inside yourself. You should think the word in a prolonged manner, and so that you hear it inside you, but you should try to avoid using your mouth or voice.

6. If foreign thoughts come in, just stop these thoughts in a relaxed manner, and keep on concentrating upon the breathing and the word you repeat.

As you proceed through this meditation, you should feel steadily more relaxed in your mind and body, feel that you breathe steadily more effectively, and that the blood circulation throughout your body gets more efficient. You may also feel an increasing mental pleasure throughout the meditation.


THE EFFECTS OF MEDITATION UPON DISEASES

As any kind of training, meditation may be exaggerated so that you get tired and worn out. Therefore you should not meditate so long or so concentrated that you feel tired or mentally emptied.

Meditation may sometimes give problems for people suffering from mental diseases, epilepsy, serious heart problems or neurological diseases. On the other hand, meditation may be of help in the treatment of these and other conditions.

People suffering from such conditions should check out what effects the different kinds of meditation have on their own kind of health problems, before beginning to practise meditation, and be cautious if they choose to begin to meditate. It may be wise to learn meditation from an experienced teacher, psychologist or health worker that use meditation as a treatment module for the actual disease.
http://www.abicana.com