Meditation/Psychology - Essay Example

Meditation In the past few years, there has been a revival of homeopathic and new age medicine. This could be due to rising health insurance costs, inadequate treatment at medical facilities, and other possible sociocultural reasons. Research into the therapeutic aspects of the mind has yielded many different types of exercise, one of the most popular being meditation. Meditation is often used in conjunction with exercises and therapies such as Yoga. Meditation is a type of exercise which includes sound mindfulness and can be considered a form of introspection.

Meditation involves focusing your senses from the outside world inward by systematically limiting sensory input. It has its roots in many cultures and religions/philosophies such as Hinduism and Buddhism. There are many different variations of mediation which have an underlying theme of controlled breathing, mental visions, and promoting overall spiritual wellness. The controlled breathing can create certain effects on the body such as moving it into a state of relaxation while causing stress levels and hormones to decrease.

Also, when a person meditates, they enter a state of hypoarousal. In this we see a decrease in oxygen consumption, lowered heart rate, and lowered blood pressure. The mental visions and introspection promote a healthy mind and allow a person to isolate themselves from the world in addition to processing information from the day as well as attempt to achieve a state of higher being. In the spiritual context, meditation is used in order to get closer to one’s respective deity or deities. Meditation requires a certain degree of mental discipline and control.

From a psychological perspective, everyone has anxiety. Each school of psychology addresses this from a different viewpoint, however each revolve around a theory which helps explain why we are anxious. As human beings, we typically focus on what is causing our anxiety and debating on the type of personality a person has depends on the extreme to which the person worries. The process of trying to block unwanted thoughts during meditation is done through processes known as habituation and systematic desensitization.

Habituation is where you become less respondent to external stimuli and systematic desensitization is where the decrease in a stimulus over time due to exposure. Both are ways in which a person can learn to become more disciplined in not acknowledging stimuli when meditating. Although there are determined benefits in physiological responses, there is no proof that supports anything about mental hallucinations or being able to achieve a higher state of mental being due to the fact that this topic is so subjective.

This is why the practice of meditation requires a high degree of mental discipline and fortitude in order to maintain concentration. References Feldman, G., Greeson, J., & Senville, J. (2010). Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48(10), 1002-1011. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2010.06.006 Patrik, L. E. (1994). Phenomenological method and meditation.

 Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 26(1), 37-54. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.