Finding a natural treatment for arthritis symptoms can help you lift your spirits and find inner peace. It costs nothing, has no side effects, and doesn’t require you to see a medical doctor.

This treatment is called meditation, and it has recently gained medical approval in many sectors. The benefits of meditation go way beyond relieving the pain of arthritis. Research shows that it can also relieve other symptoms of arthritis:

• Anxiety
• Stress and depression
• Fatigue
• Insomnia
• It balances the immune system, allowing the body to heal and prevent disease.

Other Possible Benefits of Meditation:

• Increased brain wave activity in specific areas involved in attention and control of the nervous system;
• Slows heart and breathing rates;
• Lowers blood pressure;
• Lowers cortisol levels;
• Increases the body’s production of melatonin (needed for a healthy sleep);
• Reduces fatty build up in artery walls as effectively as heart medications; and
• Moderates the immune system’s response.

Although meditation clearly offers benefits for people with arthritis, more research needs to be done to answer the following questions:

• Does meditation make people feel better, but not affect the underlying disease?
• Can it actually modify disease progression?
• What is the correct “dose” to get an effect?
• How intense should the practice be?

Many doctors today are recommending meditation; it is taught in many clinics, hospitals and HMOs, and is endorsed by universities such as Harvard and Stanford. It is becoming an accepted therapy for many conditions; some insurance providers are even paying for it because it doesn’t require medications, special equipment, or lengthy doctor’s visits.

Meditation Awareness Techniques:

Meditation involves using a number of awareness techniques to help quiet the mind and relax the body:

• Concentration techniques:  Helps to quiet the mind by focusing on the silent repetition of a word, a sound, or the feel of your own breathing.
• Transcendental meditation: This type uses a holy phrase called a mantra and all thoughts or feelings that arise during the meditation are allowed to pass by. If your mind wanders, it is quickly brought back to the object of meditation or the area of attention.
• Mindfulness meditation: Develop a nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. Start with a one-pointed focus and further expand it to include other thoughts, emotions and sensations throughout your body. This approach is taught in many stress-reduction programs.

Meditation’s Effectiveness:

Although meditation won’t take away the pain, it can move physical and emotional pain away from being your main focus. Meditation is a method of becoming more awake to your senses and learning how to respond instead of react to situations in your everyday life. It takes at least 20 minutes of daily practice to achieve the discipline to remain still, physically and mentally, and to not react to any stimulants in the world and in your own mind and body. Repetition and stillness are at the core of meditation. Lots of other techniques are available including yoga, tai chi, qui gong, as well as praying the rosary.

However, only a few of the hundreds of studies on meditation have looked at arthritis or related conditions. Many studies have shown meditation to significantly lower stress, chronic pain, and anxiety, which is believed to be associated with many types of arthritis.

Meditation is also effective when combined with other mind-body techniques. A 1998 University of Maryland study of 28 women with fibromyalgia (a chronic condition characterized by fatigue and pain in your muscles, ligaments and tendons) found that an eight-week program of mindfulness meditation in conjunction with the Chinese movement therapy, qi gong, and counseling in other pain management techniques, resulted in significant improvement in a person’s ability to cope with depression and pain.

There is also a possibility that meditation will help with psoriatic arthritis. In a study where people with psoriasis underwent ultraviolet light therapy, skin lesions cleared up significantly faster in those given a mindfulness-mediation tape to listen to compared to those who were not.

For those with arthritis, the ability of a meditation practice to relieve pain and change the quality of one’s life has great potential and all it takes is a few moments daily to quietly refocus and be in a moment of peace.

Source: Arthritis Today: www.arthritis.org