Probably in less time than you surf the web, you could increases your cognitive judgment, your emotional resilience, and reduce your stress through meditation.

Jha, director of the University of Miami’s Contemplative Neuroscience said “We found that getting as little as 12 minutes of meditation practice a day helped the Marines to keep their attention and working memory — that is, the added ability to pay attention over time — stable.”  Our attention is fragile. Jha likens our attention to “a flashlight you can direct to whatever you choose.” “If they practiced less than 12 minutes or not at all, they degraded in their functioning.”
 
One 15-minute meditation may help people make better choices, according to new research from researchers at INSEAD and The Wharton School. The findings are published in the February issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"Most people have trouble admitting they were wrong when their initial decisions lead to undesirable outcomes," says researcher Andrew Hafenbrack, lead author on the new research and doctoral candidate at INSEAD. "They don't want to feel wasteful or that their initial investment was a loss. Ironically, this kind of thinking often causes people to waste or lose more resources in an attempt to regain their initial investment or try to 'break even.'"   Co-author Zoe Kinias said, "First, meditation reduced how much people focused on the past and future, and this psychological shift led to less negative emotion. The reduced negative emotion then facilitated their ability to let go of sunk costs."
 
Then, in the emotional well-being area, one recent study found that a brief mediation practiced for 25 minutes for three consecutive days diminished meditators’ stress level. Published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, this provides an initial indication that brief meditation training reduces stress reactivity, but also increases cortisol reactivity to social evaluative stress. This seems to indicate that brief meditation training fosters greater active coping efforts, resulting in reduced psychological stress appraisals and greater cortisol reactivity during social evaluative stressors. 
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Some people think they may not have enough time available in their life to meditate. Of course the studies show many more benefits for daily regular meditation over months but the above studies show that even a beginner, with as little as 12 -15 minutes can gain benefits with meditation.
The Ishaya Foundation offers a weekend course that can teach you the basics of The Art of Ascension.  

Mental stress has been reported to impair cognitive functions. This may be relevant to the performance of students, office workers, and many others for whom optimal alertness, concentration, and memory are significant variables affecting their performance.

Researchers in India studied the effects of meditation before stress and after stress using computer games as the stressor.  Computer games usually give immense pleasure after a win. However, in the initial stages of the game when a player suffers repeated defeats or constraints, the game becomes very stressful.

The computer games gave a sharp increase in stress levels. The study measured galvanic skin response, heart rate, electromyography, sympathetic reactivity, cortisol, and acute psychologic stress scores.

They found benefits were given to even first time meditators.  Meditation, if practiced before the stressful event, reduced the adverse effects of stress. Memory quotient significantly increased for those that meditated before, whereas cortisol level decreased after both stress and meditation. The practice of meditation after stress may ameliorate some negative effects of stress, however the effect was greater on those that meditated before the stress!

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD sifted through nearly 19,000 meditation studies, they found 47 trials that addressed stress and met their criteria for well-designed studies. Their findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that meditation can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression, and pain.

It’s pretty amazing that there are 19,000 studies on meditation already completed on the effectiveness of meditation.

The Ishaya Tradition techniques/meditation have been practiced for thousands of years and have been verified to be universally true for all. 
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The Ascension Attitudes are priceless for the modern world. The Art of Ascension is ex­treme­ly easy to prac­tice and quick­ly frees any­one from stress. This opens life to maxi­mum cre­ativity, enjoy­ment, health and success.

According to Drug Addiction Now, the new trend in treating addiction includes meditation to help people overcome dependence during rehab as well as after rehab. A possibly not so surprising figure, is that 40-60% of those who seek treatment relapse.  The addition of meditation to their program has the opportunity to change that figure.
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A 2004 Study published in Molecular Psychiatry indicates that when the addict gets a fix, they get a dopamine rush and later a crash due to extremely low dopamine, and hence need another fix.  However a 2002 Study of John F Kennedy Institute found that meditation boosted dopamine by 65%. 

A 2006 Study from the University of Washington followed 78 addicted inmates.  They found that including meditation in their treatment program made it 6 times more effective than the more traditional chemical dependency treatment plan.  A second study followed 286 in post rehab.  One third of the group used meditation, another third used the 12 step program and another third a “relapse prevention program”.  The relapse prevention program had 17% relapse, the 12 step program had 14% relapse, and the meditators had 9% relapse after 1 year.

A meta study from October 2016 published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction shows ten benefits that help treat addiction when one is more mindful (becoming more aware, on purpose, in the present moment, in a non-judgmental way).

1. Structural Brain Changes in at least 6 areas of the brain that are associated with learning, memory, self-regulation, and more.
2. Reduced Autonomic Arousal which increases relaxation response and brings on blissful states
3. Perceptual Shift so that people change their relationship and responses to their thoughts and feelings
4. Increase in Spirituality which helps buffer against loneliness and help in re-evaluating priorities in life
5. Greater Situational Awareness allows the practitioner to enter into a form of effortless communication with the present momentwhich is understood to improve (amongst other things) decision-making competency, job performance, and the ability to anticipate how a particular situation might unfold
6. Values Clarification because the practitioner begins to appreciate more fully that life can only unfold and be experienced in the present moment, and that fantasizing about the future or ruminating over the past is ultimately a futile and fatiguing process.
7. Increase in Self-Awareness which in turn helps to improve ability to identify and label negative mood states and thinking patterns 
8. Addiction Substitution because the blissful state from meditation can substitute for the addicted person’s buzz addiction, in other words, substituting a negative addiction for a positive one.
9. Urge Surfing refers to the ability to observe the urge but not react to it which allows them to deal with their cravings in a new way
10. Letting Go pattern is positively correlated with acceptance, non-reactivity, self-compassion, subjective wellbeing, and eudemonic wellbeing 

 
“What happens is when you meditate, your brain starts to shift,” said Christina Nadeau, meditation instructor at Outer Banks Meditation & Mindfulness in Corolla, North Carolina. “You start looking at something in a different perspective. The body is processing all those toxins. Your toxicity levels go down; your blood pressure goes down; your immune system gets better; you are able to make natural chemicals like dopamine and serotonin.”
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Meditation also helped Stacy Thrash with the physical symptoms she experienced during addiction recovery. “The physical craving in the body gets worse if you resist it,” she said. “We’re used to running from our emotions. When we’re able to respond to something differently, it comes and goes. A headache doesn’t last forever.”

Are you worried about your brain-power as you get older?  Studies have shown that with age, most people experience cognitive decline, specifically, dwindling attention span, impaired memory, and greater reaction time. 

Experiments from 2007 demonstrated that those who meditate are better at paying attention.  Those studies inspired the likes of Google, Target, Intel, General Mills and many more to sponsor meditation related education for many thousands of their employees.  Some of these companies even have meditation rooms on site for their employees to use during the work day.  Results tabulated at Intel for those who meditate, show on a scale of 1 to 10,

• A two-point decrease in stress 
• a three-point increase in overall happiness and well-being
• a two-point increase in new ideas, mental clarity, creativity, ability to focus, quality of relationships at work, and level of engagement in meetings, projects, and team efforts

Plus, NBC News reported that a school in San Francisco began a daily 30-minute meditation break in 2015, which resulted in suspensions decrease by 75 percent, as well as an improvement in academic performance overall.

And now, just published in 2018, a 7 year study on effects of meditation following sixty 22-69 year old meditators.“"This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention," according to lead author Anthony Zanesco, a psychologist at the University of Miami. 

The study began with an initial retreat.  From testing following the retreat, they concluded the training enhanced the participants' emotional well-being, ability to deal with stress, and they performed better on tasks related to focus and sustaining attention. This alone is significant for people dealing with depression. 

Seven years later, forty of the sixty reported that they continued to practice meditation. Evaluations showed that their mental improvements held up for the most part.  In fact, the more the older participants meditated, the better they maintained the benefits already mentioned. This is in stark contrast with people taking medication for depression who see efficacy loss and require stronger doses of their medication with additional medications being added to attempt to maintain relief.

According to the study, those who meditated at least one hour per day showed no cognitive decline. 

The message seems pretty clear. Rather than spending time worrying about cognitive decline, finding and committing to a regular practice 20 minutes 3 times per day would be a more productive use of one’s time.  

Lisa May, author of a 2016 study said recently, “Most people are used to the idea that we can change our experience with chemicals, but sometimes we forget that we can change the chemical activity of our brains depending on how we use our brains. The way we choose to engage our minds—our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and practices—shapes our brain chemistry, our habits, and our future experience.”

A simple practice such as The Art of Ascension retrains the brain, teaches non-judgement and acceptance and develops the skills for directing attention, all which assist in changing our relationship to pain.

Over the last 10 years, over many tests, researchers found that when meditators are stimulated with pain, which is compared before vs. during meditation, meditators typically report either a drop in pain intensity (how strong the pain is), pain unpleasantness (how bothersome the pain is), or both.

Dr. May has been on a mission to discover how meditation reduces pain.  She designed a test with experienced meditators involving the administration of naloxone which inhibits opioid pathways. In 2014, Mind and Life funded her study as well as a similar study by Dr. Fadel using novice meditators.

The 2 separate studies of experienced and non-experienced meditators achieved the same result when opioid pathways were blocked. The results were completely unexpected!  

Researchers set up a pain test.  After testing and determining that the meditators received at least 15% reduction in pain through meditation, they gave them a second test and administered naloxone, which blocks opioid pathways.  Researchers expected either less reduction in pain or no change.  However, they were amazed to find naloxone produced significantly greater reductions in pain intensity and unpleasantness than the control groups. Naloxone has been used in pain research for over 30 years and has never been shown to improve pain.  

The results suggests that endogenous opioids are clearly not the chemical the brain uses to reduce pain during meditation. Therefore, the treatment of chronic pain may be more effective with meditation due to a lack of cross-tolerance with opiate-based medications.  This seems to be good news and indicative of more success for patients with PTSD as well as patients with previous opioid addictions in using meditation for pain reduction.

​Different types of meditation have been shown to result in psychological and biological changes that are actually or potentially associated with improved health [1].

Meditation has been found to:

1. Produce a clinically significant reduction in resting as well as ambulatory blood pressure [2, 3] 
2. Reduce heart rate [4] 
3. Result in cardiorespiratory synchronization [5] 
4. Alter levels of melatonin and serotonin [6] 
5. Suppress corticostriatal glutamatergic neurotransmission [7] 
6. Boost the immune response [8] 
7. Decrease the levels of reactive oxygen species as measured by ultra weak photon emission [9] 
8. Reduce stress and promote positive mood states [10] 
9. Reduce anxiety and pain and enhance self-esteem [11] 
10. Have a favorable influence on overall and spiritual quality of life in late-stage disease [12] 
11. Decrease in anxiety and improvement in positive mood, spiritual health [13]
12. Tolerate pain [13]

With so many biological and psychological changes seen as a result of meditation, it seems like the only question that remains for each person is which meditation and how often!  Finding a practice that you will do regularly is very important because regularity is key.  

If you are looking for a practice, check out our free webinar to learn more about The Art of Ascension.
 
 
 
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/
2. Barnes VA, Davis HC, Murzynowski JB, Treiber FA. Impact of meditation on resting and ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate in youth. Psychosom Med. 2004;66:909–14. [PubMed]
3. Anderson JW, Liu C, Kryscio RJ. Blood pressure response to transcendental meditation: A meta-analysis. Am J Hypertens. 2008;21:310–6. [PubMed]
4. Solberg EE, Ekeberg O, Holen A, Ingjer F, Sandvik L, Standal PA, et al. Hemodynamic changes during long meditation. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2004;29:213–21. [PubMed]
5. Cysarz D, BІssing A. Cardiorespiratory synchronization during Zen meditation. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2005;95:88–95. [PubMed]
6. Solberg EE, Holen A, Ekeberg O, Osterud B, Halvorsen R, Sandvik L. The effects of long meditation on plasma melatonin and blood serotonin. Med Sci Monit. 2004;10:CR96–101. [PubMed]
7. Kjaer TW, Bertelsen C, Piccini P, Brooks D, Alving J, Lou HC. Increased dopamine tone during meditation-induced change of consciousness. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2002;13:255–9. [PubMed]
8. Davidson RJ, Kabat-Zinn J, Schumacher J, Rosenkranz M, Muller D, Santorelli SF. Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosom Med. 2003;65:564–70. [PubMed]
9. Van Wijk EP, Ludtke R, Van Wijk R. Differential effects of relaxation techniques on ultraweak photon emission. J Altern Complement Med. 2008;14:241–50. [PubMed]
10. Jain S, Shapiro SL, Swanick S, Roesch SC, Mills PJ, Bell I. A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation versus relaxation training: Effects on distress, positive states of mind, rumination, and distraction. Ann Behav Med. 2007;33:11–21. [PubMed]
11. Bonadonna R. Meditation's impact on chronic illness. Holist Nurs Pract. 2003;17:309–19. [PubMed]
12. Williams AL, Selwyn PA, Liberti L, Molde S, Njike VY, McCorkle R, et al. A randomized controlled trial of meditation and massage effects on quality of life in people with late-stage disease: A pilot study. J Palliat Med. 2005;8:939–52. [PubMed]
13. Wachholtz AB, Pargament KI. Is spirituality a critical ingredient of meditation? Comparing the effects of spiritual meditation, secular meditation, and relaxation on spiritual, psychological, cardiac, and pain outcomes. J Behav Med. 2005;28:369–84. [PubMed]

Studies abound showing the improvements in the immune system for those that meditate.  Here’s an overview of just a few:

1. Meditation shifted gene expression that related to stress, inflammation and wound healing.

A study by a team of researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, University of California at San Francisco studied 20,000 genes in 3 groups of retreatants, non-meditators on a vacation retreat, experienced meditators, and novice meditators.  
 
Everyone experienced improvement in mood up to a month later. Novice meditators experienced significant boost over depression even 10 months later. 
 
All the groups showed shifts in the expression of genes related to stress, inflammation and wound healing.  Experienced meditators showed greatest shift in these as well as telomerase activity.
 
One of the research leaders,Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, said, “Based on our results, the benefit we experience from meditation isn't strictly psychological; there is a clear and quantifiable change in how our bodies function. Meditation is one of the ways to engage in restorative activities that may provide relief for our immune systems.”
 
 
2. Meditation can directly improve immune response
In a study combining meditation, breathing, and cold water therapy, trained students were injected with Escherichia coli, a bacteria that normally induces violent sickness; yet they had no symptoms from the e coli injection 
 
Review of 20 studies showing improvement in immune response through meditation:      

• Reduced markers of inflammation, high levels of which are often correlated with decreased immune functioning and disease.
• Increased number of immune system’s helper cells that are involved in sending signals to other cells telling them to destroy infections.
• Increased telomerase activity; (telomerase deterioration leads to cancer and premature aging).

 
3. Regular meditators show reduced need for medical treatments.
A large study of insurance statistics of 2,000 meditators over a 5-year period indicates meditators had 55% less medical care utilization, both in-patient and out-patient, compared to controls matched for age, gender, and occupation. The group had lower sickness rates in all categories of disease, including 87% less hospitalization for heart disease and 55% less for cancer. The difference between the Meditators and non- Meditators was greatest for individuals over 40 years of age.
 
There are 3 possible ideas floating as to why immune systems are so much better with meditation:
1.   Decreased Stress, Increased Emotional Regulation
2.   Targeted Brain/Immune System Communication
3.   Activation of the Second Brain (the Gut)

​Are you one of those people that are too busy to meditate?  

Studies suggest that people with jam-packed schedules and intimidating to-do lists stand to benefit most from meditation, which can help reduce stress, improve focus, and even increase one's ability to relate to others.

Like a car that never gets maintenance, the mind can also need some downtime to continue running on all cylinders.  You never know when you’ll need to solve a tough problem, focus intently on a task, or search for creative inspiration for a project.

Still, the idea of sitting in a quiet room seemingly “doing nothing” for a few minutes each day can sound absurd unless you understand what might really be happening on the physical and psychological level.

So here’s a peek at what is happening “under the covers” when you meditate:
1. Meditation helps us gain perspective.
Being able to observe your thoughts as a spectator helps you to realize that thoughts and experiences are temporary, which is known as decentering.
In one study of people with severe depression, gains in decentering ability were linked with a reduced rate of relapse and better outcomes in terms of life satisfaction and overall feelings of well-being.

2. Meditation can also reduce stress by helping us deal with negative feelings we might otherwise ignore.
It is common in our western culture to push aside those feelings that we judge, completely ignoring them.
A large review of studies involving close to 3,000 people found that mindfulness meditation was linked with a reduction in feelings of depression, anxiety, and even physical pain.
 
3. Meditation may also help improve our memory, 
Researchers at University of California at Santa Barbara studied undergraduate students. 2 groups of students took a GRE exam twice. One group of 48 students met 4 times per week to meditate for 2 weeks prior to the second GRE exam. Another group of students focused on nutrition during that time.  After retaking the course, the average score of the meditating class improved from 460 to 520.  There was no change in the group that focused on nutrition.

4. And it may strengthen our ability to relate to others.
A group of researchers at Stanford University showed that meditation can increase positive social interaction

5. People with a steady meditation practice also see decreases in blood pressure.
A study of 200 people over 5 years, half following a healthy life-style, the other half meditating regularly, found the meditators not only reduced their blood pressure, but reduced their chance of heart attack by half over the healthy life-style folks!

6. Meditators experience less fatigue.
For a small study in 2016, researchers had over a dozen participants aged 24 to 76 spend a week at a spiritual retreat. The researchers scanned the brains of their participants before and after to observe the behavior of two chemicals linked with mood — dopamine and serotonin. Following the retreat, the participants' saw marked improvements in their perceived physical health, while negative feelings like stress and fatigue decreased. 

7. Meditators may get sick less frequently than those who don't meditate regularly.
For a recent study, researchers split people into two groups and had one complete an eight-week meditation course. After 8 weeks, the researchers injected both groups with the flu vaccine and checked their immune response by measuring flu-fighting antibodies their bodies produced. The meditators showed significantly more antibodies than those who did not meditate, suggesting meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function.
An insurance study of 2000 people showed that meditators had fewer hospital visits, fewer heart attacks, and spent substantially less on medical bills than meditators. 

8. There’s also some evidence that suggests that regular meditation can help prevent or repair genetic damage.
One study in distressed cancer survivors who completed a meditation program showed that the meditator's telomeres — special protein complexes that help protect our DNA — had grown longer. Whereas, the non-meditators grew shorter. It is currently believed that the length of telomeres relate to aging.  

These all seem like worth wile benefits for anyone, anywhere, anytime! We'd love to hear from any of our readers who used to think they were too busy to meditate...until they began!

A new and very large study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry supports the premise that increased inflammation may play a role in depression. 

Whatever its cause, depression and anxiety is on the rise. Anxiety disorders affect 40 million adults in the United States every year- that’s 19% of the population!  It's not uncommon for someone with an anxiety disorder to also suffer from depression or vice versa.  1 in 13 globally suffers from anxiety. 
 
Everybody feels stress and anxiety in different ways. But when stress becomes excessive, it can contribute to high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, physical inactivity, and overeating — all of which contribute to heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
 
Coventry University conducted a review of decade of studies to conclude that Mind-body interventions reduce cytokines and pro-inflammatory gene expression.  According to the researchers, the benefits of MBIs can be interpreted as reversing the molecular signature caused by the effects of chronic stress, which is correlated with a higher risk of inflammation-related diseases, accelerated biological aging, and early mortality.

These mind-body interventions (MBIs) include various types of mindfulness, meditation, yoga, tai chi, and Qigong.  The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) defines mind-body interventions as practices that "employ a variety of techniques designed to facilitate the mind's capacity to affect bodily function and symptoms.”

Lead investigator of the recent MBI systematic review, Ivana Buric, from the Brain, Belief, and BehaviorLab at Coventry University, said “Millions of people around the world already enjoy the health benefits of mind-body interventions like yoga or meditation, but what they perhaps don't realize is that these benefits begin at a molecular level and can change the way our genetic code goes about its business. These activities are leaving what we call a molecular signature in our cells, which reverses the effect that stress or anxiety would have on the body by changing how our genes are expressed. Put simply, MBIs cause the brain to steer our DNA processes along a path which improves our wellbeing."
Some evolutionary experts say that pro-inflammatory gene expressions triggered by fight-or-flight also provided a short-term boost in immune responses and protection for our hunter-gatherer ancestors but this response is perpetuated in modern day by anxiety related stress.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center published a study titled “Neural Correlates of Mindfulness Meditation-Related Anxiety Relief” and concluded that anxiety was significantly reduced in every session that subjects meditated. Brain imaging found that meditation-related anxiety relief was associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and anterior insula, areas of the brain are involved with control of worrying. 

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles said, “Given that anxiety is in fact a ‘head game,’ it would follow that it could also be managed by techniques that focus on distraction, refocusing body sensations, and thinking differently.”

The good news is that utilizing a regular, daily practice you can reverse the effect of stress and anxiety, inflammation and many forms of depression.  We do emphasize daily and regular, because this may be the most important criteria of your practice.  Choose one that you will use regularly.  

Many of us that now use the Art of Ascension tried many practices before we came to it.  We found that Art of Ascension is simple and can be used anywhere, anytime and personally, the one that we knew we could do regularly.