Health Benefits of Living With Awareness
In this video I talk about the health benefits of living from Awareness. Have you noticed that we are often told to ‘Go home and get some rest' if ever feeling unwell.
Visit a doctor, work with a health practitioner or seek advice from a friend and one of the most common recommendations you’ll receive if feeling unwell is to give your body rest. It seems an easy enough task. Relax. Take some time off, put your feet up and chill out so your body has a better chance to heal. Despite ‘get some rest’ appearing to be a simple thing to do on the surface, most people I meet don’t know how to calm down, disengage from doing and let their body ‘be’.
One of the main causes of stress is our habit of excessive thinking. The interconnection between the mind and body is scientifically proven, and so our physical form is constantly responding to and experiencing what we are thinking about and feeling. This means if you go home to rest but take your busy mind with you, then your body won’t necessarily end up getting much respite at all. Yes, you may physically lie down in your cosy bed or on your comfortable couch, but if your mind keeps mulling things over at a million miles per hour, you will very often find that healing is hindered and your physical conditions continue.
Scientists and doctors agree stress is harmful to health. Stress has been found to lower the immune system, trigger inflammation and increase blood pressure. It plays a key role in cardiovascular disease and digestion disorders, speeds up the growth and spreading of certain cancers, and interferes with sleep leading to chronic fatigue and insomnia. More heart attacks happen at 9 a.m. on Monday mornings than at any other time of the week, with many experts citing the stress associated with having to face another week at work being the potential cause of the ‘Monday cardiac phenomenon’. The list of stress-related physical symptoms and conditions goes on and all point to the fundamental conclusion that getting your stress levels under control can be quite literally life-saving.
Stress, by far, is the biggest preventable cause of the majority of physical diseases and premature deaths on the planet. At the same time, meditation is known to be the most effective cure available for significantly reducing stress. Yet, despite these facts staring us in the face there are still relatively few methods of meditation used to actively support the healing of the body, with even fewer techniques having been specially designed to target the mind-based causes of stress and ill health.
