health and well-being - ARTICLES - ContemplativeLife2024-03-28T09:34:07Zhttps://community.contemplativelife.org/articles/feed/tag/health+and+well-beingColleges turn to meditation to help you destresshttps://community.contemplativelife.org/articles/colleges-turn-to-meditation-to-help-you-destress-12016-03-19T14:19:57.000Z2016-03-19T14:19:57.000ZContemplative Lifehttps://community.contemplativelife.org/members/JeffGenung<div><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Meditation may be an ancient practice, but it has found a home on modern-day college campuses as schools use it to help tackle student anxiety.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">The American College Health Association found in a 2015<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.acha-ncha.org/docs/NCHA-II_WEB_SPRING_2015_REFERENCE_GROUP_EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY.pdf" target="_blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'inherit','serif'; color: #ffff99; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">study</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that a whopping 85.6% of respondents felt overwhelmed by their responsibilities. And according to a 2015 UCLA Cooperative Institutional Research Program<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/TheAmericanFreshman2015.pdf" target="_blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; outline: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'inherit','serif'; color: #ffff99; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">study</span></a>, only half of students surveyed rate their emotional health as “above average” and some 10% feel frequently depressed.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Last fall, the University of Minnesota — which runs the Center for Spirituality & Healing — put in designated meditation rooms in the school’s housing, and at the University of Vermont, a Wellness Environment (WE) dorm now offers twice-daily meditation sessions. Students at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have been unwinding in the school’s Mindfulness Room, which features a waterfall, since 2014.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2364266?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2364266?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full" height="298"></a></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Mark Reck, interim coordinator of UVM’s Mind-Body Wellness Program, says meditation helps students handle the stresses that come with transitioning from home to school and all the corresponding responsibilities that come with adulthood, and can help improve attention, organization, planning and prioritization.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;"> “College students have the opportunity to cultivate the capacity to manage these transitional responsibilities during a sensitive period in their brain development, with meditation being a rich practice with such cultivation,” he says.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Diana Winston, director of Mindfulness Education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, says, “Many college students are suffering from anxiety and depression … mindfulness can particularly help people to work with difficult thoughts and emotions.”</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Meditation’s popularity has to do, in part, with its simplicity. In the college environment where schedules can be sporadic and money tends to be tight, easy ways to reduce stress come as a welcome relief.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">“Once meditation is demystified and myths surrounding it are clarified, many college students find meditation to be more accessible than they realized and … become more attentive and attuned to automatic habits of mind,” Reck says</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Mary Jo Kreitzer, the director of UM’s Center for Spirituality & Healing, points out that it’s “self-directed” and costs nothing.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">University of Minnesota’s meditation rooms were introduced as a pilot program this past September. The rooms, which are located in residence halls and university apartments, feature soft lighting and comfortable seating.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">“Our hope was to create spaces where students could engage in mindful activities that helped them deal with the everyday stresses,” says Kristie Feist, assistant director of Residential Life at UM.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">CMU’s Mindfulness Room is open 24/7, and offers two guided meditation sessions a week. The school also has programming like “Paws to Relax” — studies show playing with animals can decrease stress — which attracts approximately 150 students per session, Angela Lusk, assistant director of Student Life at CMU, says.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">“Dogs and bunnies from our local Animal Friends hang out with students,” Lusk says. “Both undergraduate and graduate students seem to really enjoy the venue and have even suggested creating more space on campus for this purpose. It takes a community-wide effort to reduce stress and increase well-being.”</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">The room also serves as a space for reflection. Students and alumni have shared “personal stories of failure, resilience and learning” through letters included in the room’s scrapbook. Whiteboard walls serve as a space for notes and inspirational messages.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Madeliene Smith, a graduate student at UM, says her undergraduate classes at the Center for Spirituality & Healing were her “sanity classes.”</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">“It sometimes felt that I was supposed to be overworked because being stressed demonstrated that I was ‘doing something,’” she says.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.25in; line-height: 16.5pt; vertical-align: baseline; outline: 0px; font-stretch: normal; cursor: text; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #ffff99;">Taking mindfulness courses, Smith says, helped her remember that “mental health and well-being was really important, and … meditation encouraged a love of learning.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffff99;">http://college.usatoday.com/2016/03/15/colleges-turn-to-meditation-to-help-squash-student-stress/</span></p></div>How Meditation Went Mainstreamhttps://community.contemplativelife.org/articles/how-meditation-went-mainstream2016-03-18T11:24:02.000Z2016-03-18T11:24:02.000ZContemplative Lifehttps://community.contemplativelife.org/members/JeffGenung<div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 9.95pt 0in; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99; letter-spacing: -.35pt;">And why the ancient practice might still get trendier</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">The idea of meditation seems simple: Sit still, focus on breath, reflect. But the practice of meditating is rooted in a deep cultural history that has seen the practice grow from a religious idea to something that can now seem more stylish than spiritual.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2364298?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2364298?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full" height="214"></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">Though plenty of people still meditate for religious reasons, these days, the practice has joined yoga as a secular and chic trend, as dedicated meditation studios open in cities like New York and Los Angeles. Even Equinox, a fitness company with gyms across North America and in London, is launching a class called HeadStrong in April, which will combine high intensity interval training with meditation. The trend has also caught up with technology, with apps like Headpsace and OMG. I Can Meditate!, both of which have partnered with airlines (Virgin Atlantic and Delta, respectively) to offer in-flight meditation options. Headspace also debuted <a href="https://headspace.com/blog/2016/02/18/introducing-headspace-meditation-pods-making-the-invisible-visible/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">specially designed meditation pods</span></a> that co-founder Rich Pierson says hopes people will use “like Superman used phonebooths, only instead of emerging in tights intent on fighting crime, they’ll come out with a clearer, calmer outlook.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">“It used to be that if you wanted to try Tibetan Buddhism and meditation, you had to travel all the way to Tibet, and if you wanted to try Korean meditation, you had to travel all the way to Korea. But now you can go to neighborhoods in New York and do both in an hour,” says Lodro Rinzler, author and ‘Chief Spiritual Officer’ at the Manhattan studio <a href="http://mndflmeditation.com/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">MNDFL</span></a>, which opened in late 2015. “All of a sudden people are saying this can help you, but Buddhists have been saying, yes, we’ve known this for 2,600 years.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">How that happened is a complicated story, and a surprisingly recent one considering meditation’s ancient origins.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">Some archaeologists date meditation back to as early as 5,000 BCE, according to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meditation-modern-life/201307/overview-meditation-its-origins-and-traditions"><i><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Psychology Today</span></i></a>, and the practice itself has religious ties in ancient Egypt and China, as well as Judaism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and, of course, Buddhism. Meditation’s global spread began along the Silk Road around about five or six centuries BCE, as the practice moved throughout Asia. As it arrived in a new spot, it would slowly transform to fit each new culture. But it wasn’t until the 20th century that it began to move beyond the realm of specific religions, especially in the West.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">As TIME reported in a 2003 <a href="http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1005349,00.html"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">cover story,</span></a> meditation began to be seriously studied for its medical benefits in the 1960s, when a researcher in India named B.K. Anand “found that yogis could meditate themselves into trances so deep that they didn’t react when hot test tubes were pressed against their arms.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">And yet meditation remained on the fringe of science, the kind of topic that was brushed off by many mainstream Western researchers. In fact, Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Herbert Benson waited until late at night to moderate a study on meditation in 1967, at which point he found that people meditating used 17% less oxygen, lowered heart rates and produced increased brain waves that could help with sleep. Benson went on to publish <i>The Relaxation Response</i> and founded the Mind/Body Medical Institute, continuing to pioneer for meditation’s benefits on biology. “All I’ve done,” Benson told TIME, “is put a biological explanation on techniques that people have been utilizing for thousands of years.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">Benson wasn’t the only person in the U.S. who was investigating meditation’s health benefits. Jon Kabat-Zinn, to take another example, learned about meditation while studying at MIT and turned it into a lifelong career, founding the Stress Reduction Clinic at UMass Medical Center in 1979.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">It was around the same time that meditation got the boost that it needed to bring some attention to the science: celebrity status. Transcendental Meditation (TM), which a <a href="http://time.com/vault/issue/1975-10-13/page/89/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">1975 TIME story</span></a> called a “drugless high,” became popular among no less than <a href="http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-09-22/page/1/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">the Beatles</span></a>. As one way to cope with the strangeness of their global fame, they turned to TM, eventually going to India to study. Mia Farrow also went to India to meditate with the Fab Four after her divorce with Frank Sinatra, to study with Maharishi, whom TIME<a href="http://time.com/vault/issue/1969-02-07/page/1/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">called</span></a> “the groovy guru.” The hippie decades of the ’60s and ’70s welcomed troves of meditation and mindfulness centers as well, including the <a href="http://www.esalen.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Esalen Institute</span></a>, site of Don Draper’s final scene in the <a href="http://time.com/3881812/mad-men-finale-review/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">finale of <i>Mad Men</i></span></a>, set in 1970.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">By the 1990s, the scientific and celebrity sides of popular meditation finally met in the middle. The product was a Hollywood-friendly, health-focused concept that had largely shed the hippie implications it had once carried.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">In 1996, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984738,00.html"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">TIME reported on Deepak Chopra’s </span></a>book <i>Ageless Body, Timeless Mind</i>, which had sold 137,000 copies in one day right after Chopra was featured on Oprah. Celebrities continued to spread the word, especially as Demi Moore, George Harrison, Michael Jackson and Donna Karan referred to Chopra as a guru. Athletes also began to tout the benefits of meditation and mindfulness: legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson published <i>Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior</i>, in 1995, and now Stephen Curry, the NBA’s 2015 MVP, practices different kinds of mindfulness exercises. Meanwhile, the studies continued to roll in confirming meditation’s benefits, to potentially slow or <a href="http://time.com/4218125/brain-games-neurofeedback-aging/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">reverse neurodegeneration</span></a>, <a href="http://time.com/4108442/mindfulness-meditation-pain-management/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">reduce pain</span></a> and help <a href="http://time.com/4063368/stress-relief-meditation/"><span style="color: #ffff99; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">manage stress</span></a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">Rinzler, of MNDFL, imagines the studies will only help meditation continue its path to the mainstream. “It’s no longer just your spiritual friend saying you should try meditation,” he says. It’s your doctor.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; line-height: 20.15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="font-size: 14.5pt; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #ffff99;">http://time.com/4246928/meditation-history-buddhism/</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #ffff99;"> </span></p></div>