Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Transcendental Meditation technique and Menopause

Practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique during midlife transition helps women dissolve fatigue and emotional stress that may trigger menopausal symptoms. At the same time, it enriches our inner life, bringing greater contentment, energy and clarity to help anchor us during this time of change.



Natural relief

Menopause’s unwanted symptoms, such as hot flashes, sleep disturbance, and fatigue, are often treated with therapies such as hormone replacement. Yet, with increased risks of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and blood clots associated with hormone replacement therapy, many women are seeking natural remedies to smooth the transition.

Research has shown that the TM practice has lasting effects that greatly benefit women in their middle years:

Finding our selves

Often the most challenging aspect of menopause is finding new purpose in life. As many women near the end of child-rearing years or reach a pinnacle in their career, they may feel lost or disconnected. TM practice allows us to dive deep within and connect to our inner self, experiencing a well-spring of creativity, happiness and energy.

A spiritual time in life

Women in midlife who practice the TM technique report experiencing increased emotional strength, happiness, and self-sufficiency. Twice-daily TM practice renews enthusiasm for life while allowing them to enjoy inner peace and enriched personal relationships. They “live in the now,” experiencing increased control over their lives rather than feeling that the days and years are simply passing by. These benefits can belong to any woman who learns this easy technique.

Since stress is a trigger for common menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and sleep problems, helping the body handle stress better is likely to help. The Transcendental Meditation program has been shown to reduce anxiety twice as effectively as other relaxation and meditation techniques and is highly effective at reducing stress, a major contributor to menopausal symptoms. Practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique for twenty minutes twice a day has been shown to lower cortisol (a stress hormone), reduce stress, improve sleep and lift mood. Curbing excess cortisol production might also support the body’s production of helpful reproductive hormones such as progesterone, according to some researchers.

In addition, research has shown that the Transcendental Meditation technique reduces heart attack risk in postmenopausal women, as well as reducing metabolic syndrome, a precursor to diabetes. The Transcendental Meditation technique has helped alleviate mood swings and menopausal symptoms in midlife, as well as helping smooth the transition through this time that can be challenging in many ways.



How is TM different from other meditation techniques?

As weightlifting, tennis, and ballroom dancing strengthen specific muscles and produce different overall effects in the body, so do focusing on a candlelight, repeating mantras or trying to dispassionately observe one’s mental content result in different outcomes.

Other forms of meditation require a far greater commitment and can be more difficult to adopt. They teach either extreme concentration (an intense focus on one particular thing, and only that thing) or contemplation (thinking as hard as you can about the present, which is often referred to as mindfulness), but what makes TM so user-friendly is that you don’t have to do either.

According to research, the practice of Transcendental Meditation is unique in many a sense.

For one, TM seems to turn on the whole brain and make it function as a holistic unit. This is a common feature of those people who report peak-performances in business, art or sports.

Another peculiar feature of the TM technique is that there is no difference between brainwaves of experts and beginners — one masters it quickly. In fact, the positive effects of practice are usually apparent already from the very first TM session.



What Happens When You Meditate?
Transcendental Meditation allows the active thinking mind to settle inward to experience a naturally calm, peaceful level of awareness. During TM, the body enjoys a profoundly rejuvenating rest, while the brain functions with significantly greater coherence.

Practicing TM

TM, is 20 minutes, twice a day, of profound rest and relaxation, according to its fans. Meditators use a mantra to guide their minds to a place of stillness that exists within all of us—we're just too stressed and stretched too thin to know it's there. If the goings-on of our buzzing, frazzled minds are like the waves on top of the ocean, the inner quiet is like the silence at the ocean's depths, says Bob Roth, executive director of the David Lynch Foundation, which brings TM to at-risk populations like domestic abuse survivors, inmates, and inner-city students.

However, unlike some other meditation techniques, TM needs to be learned from a certified Transcendental Meditation teacher. To practice Transcendental Meditation, a person must be initiated by a teacher. This involves sessions of formal instruction, followed by a ceremony in which the applicant makes monetary and other offerings and receives his mantra, which is selected by the teacher on the basis of the meditator’s temperament and occupation. There are three subsequent “checking” sessions in which the person meditates under the teacher’s observation.



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