At Headwaters Health, mindfulness meditation is a prescription for wellness.
The health benefits of mindfulness meditation.
Science has shown that mindfulness meditation can positively affect a range of health conditions, including cancer, depression and PTSD and aging. "We show that mindfulness meditation impacts measurable brain circuits more so than helpful relaxation practices, and that these brain circuit changes help us understand how mindfulness meditation improves health.” Dr. David Creswell - Carnegie Mellon University,
Reduces inflammation.
Chronic inflammation is at the core of many health problems, including heart disease, cancer, depression and diabetes. Mindfulness meditation is shown to lower inflammatory cytokines, specifically interleukin-6, which is a biomarker that can indicate unhealthy levels of inflammation in the body.
Reduces stress.
NIH-sponsored clinical trial led by a Georgetown University Medical Center researcher has found objective physiological evidence that mindfulness meditation combats anxiety. Patients had sharply reduced stress-hormone and inflammatory responses to a stressful situation after taking a mindfulness meditation course. -- Patients who took a non-meditation stress management course had worsened responses.
Pain Management.
Mindfulness-based pain relief shows promise as a supplement, or alternative to drug treatments. In their review, Zeidan & Vago (2016) found the mechanisms of mindfulness-based pain relief to be distinct from placebo, and associated with the experience level of meditators. Less than a week of mindfulness training can reduce subjective pain intensity and unpleasantness.
Improves mood.
Mindfulness training holds promise for treating mood disorders partly because it may lead to changes in patients' brains, improving connectivity among some brain areas and changing tissue density in key regions, research suggests. "Mindfulness changes the brain by allowing people to access this present-moment pathway...This is vitally important for working with sad mood states." Zindel Segal, PhD
Improves digestion.
The key to improve digestion is to reduce sympathetic drive. This is effectively done through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation is shown to help reduce stress hormones and promote relaxation to improve attention and reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety and worry.
Headwaters Health Mindfulness Meditation training uses Unified Mindfulness, a system of meditation that’s easily researchable by science, with clear terminology and rigorous precision around concepts and procedures. A direct result of this research and precision is that the process of learning and teaching mindfulness has been thoroughly systemized in a way that makes it accessible to anyone interested.
The U.M. system is used by leading institutions like Harvard and Carnegie Mellon for their research on meditation.