The practice of meditation is believed to create a state of improved physical relaxation, mental calmness, and total body balance. All this in the interest of improving fitness, health and wellness.

In this new age, meditation is also being used to help combat various chronic diseases and health problems, such as:

• stress
• anxiety
• insomnia
• depression
• chronic Pain
• physical/emotional symptoms associated with chronic illnesses ~ heart disease, cancer

Meditation that is used as a type of mind-body medicine, focuses on the interactions of the brain, mind, body and behavior, with the intent to use the mind to affect physical functioning in its promotion of health and fitness.

During meditation, your attention is focused on a single subject, with the goal of suspending all other thoughts that would otherwise occupy your mind. This has been shown to induce some changes in the body, notably the autonomic nervous system.

The autonomic nervous system regulates heartbeat, sweating, breathing, and digestion, as well as other. And all this regulating is done automatically.

Most types of meditation have four elements in common:

• quiet location
• focus of attention ~ mantra, an object or breathing
• specific posture ~ sitting, lying down, standing, walking, or in other positions
• open attitude ~ letting distractions come and go naturally without stopping to think about them

Mindfulness Meditation and Transcendental Meditation (TM) techniques are two common approaches to meditation.

Mindfulness meditation originated in Buddhism and is based on the concept of being mindful, or having an increased awareness and total acceptance of the present. This is seen as helping by learning to experience thoughts and emotions with increased balance and acceptance.

TM originated in the Vedic tradition in India and it uses a mantra (repeating word, sound, or phrase) to prevent distracting thoughts from entering the mind. Thus allowing the mind to settle into a quieter state and the body into deep rest state, ultimately leading to a state of relaxed alertness.

Meditation is a fantastic compliment to any fitness regime ~ maintain calm focus on movement (exercise) task without mental distraction.

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