​Many military historians believe battles, even wars, have been won or lost in the warrior's mind, long before any physical conflict is initiated. Learning how to circumvent the debilitating psychological influence of stress is key to military success as well as military personnel’s well-being.
To train future soldiers, the U.S. Military is using new technologies and ancient traditions, like yoga and meditation, to retrain their brains, help them be better soldiers, and prevent trauma.
 
Historically, one purpose of meditation has been to reduce stress, however, the Army's long-term goal is to use it to mitigate the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.  The University of North Texas and Bruce J. West, Army Research Office, published a study in June 2018 that studied 2 forms of meditation to determine which has more effect on stress levels. They found that the long-term practice of meditation has the effect of making permanent the meditation-induced physiologic changes. Moreover meditators show a stronger executive control, that is, the ability to carry out goal-oriented behavior, using complex mental processes and cognitive abilities.

Here’s a review of some of the recent meditation studies and uses in all the branches of the US Military:

Army
"Soldiers are experts at standing at attention," according to Jha; however, maintaining this type of mindful attention under the intense physical and emotional demands of deployment is a far more difficult task. 
A University of Miami-led research study, led by principal investigator and neuroscientist Dr. Amishi Jha, and funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, has shown that meditation positively support active-duty Soldiers in protecting and training their own minds and helping better prepare Soldiers for high-stress combat situations while also improving overall cognitive resilience and performance. 
"I would like to emphasize that these practices are powerful, but that they only work if they are exercised daily," said Jha.

Marines
In 2014, a research team recruited 8 Marine Infantry platoons at Camp Pendleton.  4 platoons underwent standard military training, while the other 4 had a 20 hour meditation course added, along with a requirement for 30 minutes daily meditation.  After their training was completed, they went through a mock ambush attack.  The meditating group of Marines breathing and heart rates returned to normal faster than the others. Other results indicated that the meditators moved from the fight-or-flight status faster than the other marines.

Navy
Elite navy SEAL training that includedmeditation showed more activation of the insula, related to awareness, pain and emotion; and increased gray matter volume and better synapses in pre-frontal cortex. Soldiers showed better biofeedback tests of muscular and neurological reactions to stress after 10 days of meditation/yoga and the practices helped relieve stress as well as increase awareness. They were able learn a foreign language better, learn complex technical weapons systems better and were better marksmen. 

Are you looking for ways to deal with stress or ways to be more effective in your life?  As you can see from above, learning a meditation practice and using it regularly can make a change in your life.  Find a meditation that you will do daily. 
We like to recommend The Art of Ascension as it is so simple and so effective.  You can meditate without any special postures, it requires no special equipment, and can be done anywhere.

Everyone knows that yawns are “catching”.  Did you know it is possible to ‘catch’ emotions from others – even when we’re not consciously paying attention?  Even if you're not aware of it, it's likely that your emotions will influence someone around you today.

From as early as the 18thcentury, research ascertained that people mirrored smiles or frowns they saw on someone else's face. But, modern research tools have taken it to another level. From 1984-2003, Dr. Christakis plotted the social connections of 5000 people to study the spread of emotions.  When he plotted the happiness or unhappiness of residents of one town over time, he found an interesting pattern.  "We were able to show that as one person became happy or sad, it rippled through the network," Christakis says.For instance, Christakis' research indicated that if you start to become happier with your life, a friend living close by has a 25 percent higher chance of becoming happy themselves; a spouse experiences an 8 percent increased chance and for next-door neighbors, it's 34 percent chance of being happier. And yes, the happiness or sadness even spread to people to those not directly connected.

Let’s not forget, we live in a digital age.  So those connected through online social networks show similar patterns of emotional contagion. The first to prove emotional transfer via text was a 2008 study named, “I’m sad, you’re sad”. It also determined that certain traits of the text communicate the emotion indirectly: sad participants used fewer words, agreed less with their partner, used less punctuation, and responded less quickly than happy participants.

A 2013 Facebook study, 689,000 people were subjected to emotional content in their feed.  The feed was manipulated over a week with happy, sad, or neutral feed.  The study showed that the recipients’ responses and further posts were likely to be similar in emotion to their feeds. The study showed that the emotional contagion could impact the recipients for several days.   The implication, though not proven with this particular study, is that it effects the recipients’ offline behavior as well as their health. 

Emotional contagion even impacts the work environment. Dr. Barsade study showed that a negative group member disrupted workers and reduced their efficacy, while having a positive team member increased cooperation with fewer group conflicts, and lead to heightened task performance.

Now you may be wondering what all this has to do with meditation.  Here’s a few studies that along with your active choice to become more conscious could make you a positive catalyst in your world:

1. This study and others show that those who meditate have higher EQs; they also show improvements in characteristics of emotional intelligence — namely, general mood, stress management, adaptability, intrapersonal awareness, and reality testing.  Importantly, the measure of these improvements appeared to be dependent on how much the participants meditated. That is, those who meditated on a regular basis reported higher EQ and lower perceived stress than peers who meditated less often.
2. Another interesting study from 1993 proved that meditators can impact an environment. A meditation course was planned in Washington DC to be held for 30 days.  The class size began the first week with 800 participants and grew until the final week, 4000 meditators were on location.  Before the class, they went to the Chief of Police and told him the by-product of this course would reduce crime in the city by over 20%.  The Chief of Police said that would only happen if there were 20 inches of snow.   

According to the FBI, before the course began, violent crime was on a steady increase.  However, within a week of the course beginning, crime began to fall.  By the last week of the course, violent crime fell by 23.3%. After the course ended, crime began to rise again.  There are 53 studies showing that groups of trained meditators can prevent crime, violence and war. The size of the group only needs to be the square root of 1% of the population in order to impact an area.
 
It is physically impossible for any one person to do a hundred tasks at once.  However, you have the respon­sibility to change just one person in the entire Universe! The good news and the terrible news is exactly the same -- it is up to you.  You don’t even have to know exactly how your part fits into the whole. It isn’t necessary! By making an active choice to become conscious and participating in a committed practice of meditation, all you have to do is live your own part and your world will trans­form around you.