Doctor Recommends
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By Dr. Jeff Hersh / Daily News Correspondent
QUESTION: My neighbor’s doctor recommended she take up meditation to help her medical problems. I am pretty skeptical. Does meditation really help?
ANSWER: The short answer is probably yes. There have been a bunch of studies looking at the medical benefits of meditation. There has been some question about how some of these studies were conducted -- many accepted volunteers for the meditation patients and compared them to control subjects who did not meditate -- but there are now many studies that have shown benefits of meditation for a variety of medical problems.
No study has shown that meditation alone can completely replace medical treatments for everyone for any particular condition, but for many people the requirements for certain medications can be decreased or even eliminated.
Therefore the best way to look at meditation is as a complementary alternative treatment to be used in conjunction with other treatments as recommended by your health care provider.
The underlying idea behind meditation is that you concentrate on the here and now, clearing your mind of stress and worries. It is believed that many medical conditions are either partially caused by or exacerbated by stress, and so relieving stress would logically give some patients benefit. In this sense, meditation is just one of several mind-body therapies which include hypnosis, support group counseling and biofeedback therapy, as well as other alternative therapies.
One reference I found broke meditation into different categories:
• Concentration meditation where you focus your mind on a single physical object or idea (such as a mantra, breathing/body scan or focus on a non-judgmental look at your thoughts
• Motion meditation where the concentration is accompanied by some movement exercises (such as yoga, tai chi or qi gong)
• Reflection meditation where you reflect on the meaning and purpose of your life (prayer falls into this category, as does reading poetry or listening to music)
The benefits of meditation have been studied for a variety of medical conditions which include (and this is not a comprehensive list): anxiety, depression, psoriasis, high blood pressure, stress-related allergies/asthma, heart disease and many chronic pain conditions such as migraines/other headaches, back pain, fibromyalgia and arthritis.
Meditation may not be for everyone, and the benefits from meditation will differ from person to person. On the other hand, I have not seen any study that showed meditation caused any significant ill affects -- so it is a potential therapy with a big upside for many people, and probably not a big downside for anyone who feels it is helping them.
The type of meditation you decide to use should be one that fits your personality and lifestyle. You can then decide how you would like to learn about this style of meditation. This may be done through classes, by reading about it or by one-to-one instruction. Again, the method you use to learn about your choice of meditation should be one you are most comfortable with.
If you decide to use meditation, you should set realistic goals for yourself. No treatment will work if you are not compliant with it, so you will need to set aside time to meditate. You will also need to stick with it long enough to achieve benefits.
Just as prescription medications do not achieve instant cures, nor are they effective if you are non-compliant with taking them, meditation requires you to practice it for a period to allow time to see if and by how much you benefit from it.
This may be a factor in the method you decide to use. Classes or one-to-one instruction may make it easier to stick it out during the initial learning period, allowing you to find out whether this form of therapy is helpful to you.
The take-home message is that meditation is an effective adjunct therapy for many people with many different conditions, and one you should at least consider adding to your overall health care. Some studies have even shown increased life expectancies in people who meditate.
1. Look into the different forms of meditation that are out there
2. Decide how you want to pursue learning about the type that seems right for you
3. Then stick with it for long enough to decide if it is beneficial
