Dear All,
I recently was talking to a friend on how I would spend time
on the elliptical- sometimes, more than an hour- without getting bored. When I
said, “I would contemplate and focus on various energy points in the body” he looked
at me perplexed. Can we exercise thoughtfully?
Can we mediate, exercise, or even eat mindfully? What about
contemplative prayer? Questions loom; however, the benefits of these techniques
are emerging.
Several buzz words, phrases and
mind/ body exercise modalities caught my attention recently: Mindfulness Based
Stress Reduction (MBSR), Imagery Guided Relaxation, and Contemplative Mediation.
According to an article published in time magazine (February 02, 2014), “if
distraction is a pre-eminent condition of our age, then mindfulness, in the
eyes of the enthusiasts, is the most logical response” In a study published in Journal of Behavioral Medicine (75, 721-28, 2013), MBSR participants experienced reduction in
blood pressure. This data is relevant as sixty million American adults suffer
from borderline hypertension.
Why are we not able to focus on one
thing? Why are we distracted (so easily)? We may not able to answer all these
questions, but, one thing is clear- if we are able to relax more, if we are
able to focus on things, if we are able to calm our body and mind, the result
would, definitely, be different. We may not get “disastrously “ distracted in a
movie theatre or one may not get that “annoyed” if a teenager increases the volume of music in the
car.
I recently had the opportunity to
work with a group of senior high school students on contemplative meditation
and prayer. I was surprised to see 20% of the students could not even close
their eyes for 30 seconds? What amazed me more was the gender difference: they
were all boys. In one of my yoga classes, when the participants (after an
intense mind-body yoga workout) were taken to an imagery guided relaxation,
they responded 100% to the cues: contemplation, rest and relaxation. There may
be differences in the models here: the demography, age, time of the day and pre-contemplation
activities. One thing is clear: mind-body exercises could calm and relax your
mind. Any exercise when done with focus could engage and calm your mind (yoga,
for example)
Work hard with focus to calm and
relax your body and mind.
Healthy regards,
Jay
