Mini-Meditation for Health and Beauty

I must report that I don't live the most exciting of lives. Last night I was catching up on my reading while my dearly beloved was watching football. I was looking through my AARP magazine and ran across a blurb on taking a breather for stress reduction and it reminded me of a simlar blurb in the June 2006 edition of Alternative Medicine.

I'm always looking for nuggets to report on in this blog as I feel very impassioned about self care tools that will sustain health and provide a higher quality of life. These two articles fill the bill and are worthy of being repeated here.

This mini-meditation exercise involves taking three to five minutes to breathe deeply. Sit in a comfortable chair, feet flat on the chair. Inhale slowly taking five to seven seconds to inhale through your nose. Each inhalation should be a "belly" breath; meaning that if you had your hand on your belly, each inhalation would extend your belly and push your hand up. As you exhale slowly, your hand would sink back into your belly as your belly recedes. You can either exhale through your nose or through your mouth. The important thing is to do it slowly.

Unfortunately, most of us have forgotten that we used to breathe through our bellies just as babies do quite naturally. Most of us breathe shallowly in our upper chests.

Taking a breather twice a day reduces muscle and emotional tension and temporarily lowers blood pressure and heart rate. It also delivers additional oxygen to cells. Dr. David Katz,MD, cited by AARP, also reports that there is some evidence that brief, regular deep breathing can reduce food cravings, and may improve sleep quality and enhance energy levels.

Dr. Judity Orloff, MD, cited in Alternative Medicine, approaches the mini-meditation from the perspective that peace emanating from within promotes stress reduction, energizes, and restores composure when aggravated.

In addition to the deep and slow breathing, she also adds placing your palm over your heart and visualizing a positive experience that you have had and then focusing on a feeling of love and peace that can be felt flowing throughout the body.

Adding her technique of focus will accentuate the benefits of the mini-meditation as well as put you in a better frame of mind for the rest of the day.