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Sandy Newbigging, FHT Accredited Course Provider and Author of Body Holistic | Self help Body calm Sandy Newbigging, FHT accredited course provider and author of Body Calm, talks about meditation and using the mind-body connection to heal and stay healthy ou don’t need a doctorate from YCambridge or Harvard to know your mind is constantly causing changes to occur within your body. Simply watch a movie that’s a bit of a tearjerker and the undeniable evidence of the mind-body connection can fast end up rolling down your face. Bear Rest in your serene self witness to injustices and you can feel your If you are feeling unwell and visit a doctor, blood boil. Your stomach can churn when The secret source of stress work with a health practitioner or seek contemplating concerning thoughts, and Although stress is often named as the advice from a friend, one of the most you can nd your mouth watering at the main cause of ill health, it isn’t the reason common recommendations you’ll receive is mere thought of a food you enjoy. Yet despite why people get sick. This is because to give your body rest. It seems an easy- the proof being proli c, it is easy to neglect stress is actually caused by inner con ict. enough task. Relax. Take some time off, put the mind when helping the body to heal and Furthermore, for con ict to be present your feet up and chill out so your body has a stay healthy. within your mind, body or life, there exists better chance to heal. Despite ‘get some rest’ Stress is cited as one of the biggest causes the presence of the two opposing forces of appearing to be a simple thing to do on the of the majority of physical diseases. It affects resistance and attachment. By this I mean surface, most people I meet don’t know how the immune system, triggers in ammation, whenever you encounter a stressful situation, to calm down, disengage from doing and let increases blood pressure and plays a key role it is not the event itself that makes you their body ‘be’. in cardiovascular disease, digestion disorders stressed. Instead, it is the disharmony arising Central to Body Calm is the invitation and insomnia – to name but a few. At the from an inner con ict between a reactive to rest in your conscious awareness. The same time, meditation is known to be one resistance to something you don’t want and ‘CALM’ part of the name actually stands of the most effective ways to signi cantly an unseen attachment to something you for ‘Conscious Awareness Life Meditation’. reduce stress. Yet, again, despite these facts think you need. For example, imagine you By meditating using the Body Calm staring us in the face, there are still relatively are running late for an appointment and are technique you can become more aware of few methods of meditation used to actively feeling stressed. The resistance might be in the consciousness that is present within support the healing of the body, with even relation to people thinking badly of you and you. Over time you can discover your fewer techniques having been specially the attachment might be getting a speci c consciousness has no outer edges, is always designed to target the mind-based causes of outcome from the meeting. In this case, it present and beyond the physical body. It is a stress and ill health. is your inner con ict about being late that serene and secure state of being that you can is making you feel stressed, not being late. return to any time, where all is wonderfully Body Calm – a meditation-based Within the context of reducing harmful well and calm is continuous. It is my hope self-healing system forms of stress, Body Calm aims to heal these that by using Body Calm, the phrase ‘go Body Calm is a system for self-healing hidden causes of con ict. home and get some rest’ takes on an entirely and sustained health. To describe it at Recognising that stress is caused by the new meaning for you and that once you its simplest, Body Calm offers a life- inner push-pull con ict of resistance and return, you stay for good. changing philosophy, quick-start cures for attachment is an extremely empowering resolving sources of stress, and an enjoyable revelation. It stops you being a victim of The proven benefi ts of meditation technique that cleans up the circumstance and puts the power to be calm meditation communications happening between rmly in your own hands, which helps your Meditation techniques such as Body Calm the mind and body to help bring about a body to be healthier. This is vital because stimulate the relaxation response, which is healthier belief system. Based upon a decade you may not be able to control life to make it known to decrease physiological stress and of discovery at my clinics, academy courses always pleasing and pleasant. However, when psychological distress. Over the past few and retreats, I’ve also mapped the human you notice you’re stressed, you can take steps years there have been thousands of studies body to create ve directories listing the to actively reduce resistance and appease published on the effects of meditation probable mind-based causes of a whole host attachment, returning yourself to a more on physical health and here are just a of physical conditions. restful state. few examples… 12 Issue 116 Spring 2016 INTERNATIONAL THERAPIST www.fht.org.uk Self help | Holistic eight-week period. Incredibly, meditation was found to impact 1,561 genes in novice meditators and 2,209 genes in experienced meditators.3 These ndings are signi cant Central to Body because upon closer scrutiny of the genes that were impacted in the meditators, they Calm is the were ones associated with slowing the rate of cellular decay. Again, this suggests that invitation meditation can slow ageing. to rest in your Meditation and pain relief Recent research conscious has also shown that meditation awareness inhibits and Meditation and sleep relieves pain Insomnia is experienced by millions of perception, with people worldwide. Not only can it be some studies frustrating to be unable to get to sleep but, nding that due to a lack of good quality rest, insomnia meditation reduces pain-related neural can lead to a whole host of physical activity in different parts of the brain, conditions because the body is given little including the anterior cingulate cortex, opportunity to carry out its maintenance insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and repair projects. In one study by the and thalamus.4 University of Southern California, it was Chronic tension-type headaches (CCTH) found that across two groups, the people are the most common type of headache, who meditated showed improvements in and stress is widely known to be a major sleep quality compared with those in the trigger. In one study examining the effect control group who didn’t meditate.7 Meditation and anti-ageing of meditation on headaches, it was found In another randomised controlled trial One study that the severity, frequency and duration of of meditation and chronic insomnia, 45 conducted by CCTH were signi cantly different in regular individuals were asked to meditate over the University of meditators compared with non-meditators.5 an eight-week period.8 California during Overall, people who meditated were found to The results again showed a three-month bene t from early relief in chronic that those who meditated meditation retreat tension headaches. reported signi cantly greater found that there reductions in ‘time awake’ was an increase Meditation and cancer and ‘insomnia severity’ when in telomerase It is common for those facing a cancer compared with the control activity in diagnosis to feel both scared and somewhat group that didn’t meditate. meditators.1 Telomerase is the enzyme that helpless as to what they can do to help maintains and builds telomeres, which affect the body heal, beyond traditional medical Sandy C. Newbigging how your cells age. These tiny caps on the interventions. In a recent study by the is the bestselling author of DNA help to stop it unravelling, and research University of Calgary, Dr Linda Carlson led six books including Body shows longer telomeres help to protect us a team of scientists in exploring the effects Calm, published by Hay from disease. Quite remarkably, the study of meditation and group therapy on patients House (available at www. found that meditation could slow the ageing with breast cancer.6 The study compared hayhouse.co.uk). He is the process of cells. The implications of this the telomeres of patients doing regular creator of the Mind Detox are massive because if the telomeres stay meditation and group therapy sessions with Method, accredited by the FHT, and the healthy, your cells are more able to stay patients who only attended a six-hour stress- Mind Calm and Body Calm techniques; and healthy, your body stays healthy and you can management seminar, which represented also founder of The Calm Academy (www. literally live longer. standard treatment. thecalmacademy.com), where he trains CALM Other research has found that meditating While the scientists found that telomeres Meditation Coaches. Sandy has recently regularly can even offset the age-related shortened in the control group that only launched the Calm Clan (www.calmclan. thinning of the prefrontal cortex of the did the single seminar, very encouragingly, com), a membership website open to anyone brain, which suggests that meditating helps they didn’t shorten in the group that did interested in meditation, self-empowerment 2 parts of your brain stay healthier for longer.
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