Supernatural Botanicals

As it turns out, meditation does more than relax the mind and body, it also kicks pain to the curb.  Wake Forest University School of Medicine confirms what we meditation-enthusiasts have known for years…that many of the body’s problems can be alleviated by meditation.  They concluded in a recent study that people who had a pain-inducing heating device placed on their legs were able to reduce the hurt by 40%, simply by meditating.  In comparison, morphine only decreases pain by about 25%.

Subjects in the study used the “focused attention” technique.  You can achieve this by closing your eyes, breathing through your nose, and concentrating on the air coming in and going out.  The more you practice, the better it works.  It also sharpens your focus, lowers your blood pressure, and zaps stress.

Nothing improves your mood quicker than great music.  Jeff Gold’s Escapes Music for Relaxation is tranquil and relaxing comfort music, ideal for creative inspiration, music therapy, healing, massage, yoga, or just winding down.   We listen to this CD in Supernatural Botanicals’ workshop, and find it to be great music to work to, relaxing the mind and allowing the creative inspiration to flow.  It’s fabulous!  Check out Jeff Gold’s website to listen and purchase to his fantastic music.

Visualizing something that you want to have or want to experience can bring great joy into your life. We may not be in the position right now to do or have what we want, but we can visualize it. This is the next best thing to actually having it or doing it. Our minds don’t know the difference in visualization and actually having or doing a thing, so it will respond in the same way it would if you where actually experiencing that which you are visualizing.

Meditation.  It’s a beautiful thing.  Now hang on, don’t grab your latte and go running for the door just yet.

Meditation, perhaps to your surprise, is not only reserved for the deep-thinking, tree-hugging, granola-eating individuals of the world.  And those of us who practice meditation regularly, we have all been on that side of the fence at one point, too.  Many of us have thought it was too new-agey or down right flaky, that is, until we tried it.

Meditation can be simply sitting in a quiet room, concentrating on your breath slowly in and out, for no longer than a minute.  Yes, even one minute can bring great benefits to your life.  Consider the wonderful benefits below, then contemplate at least one minute of time just for yourself today.  After all, you’ll never know until you try..so dig right into the concept of taking a minute of  “me” time and start to notice how you feel.  Who knows, you just might have a craving for granola afterward!

Here are just a few of the hundreds of benefits meditation offers:

Physiological benefits:
1- It lowers oxygen consumption.
2- It decreases respiratory rate.
3- It increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
4- Increases exercise tolerance.
5- Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation.
6- Good for people with high blood pressure.
7- Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
8- Decreases muscle tension
9- Helps in chronic diseases like allergies, arthritis etc.
10- Reduces Pre-menstrual Syndrome symptoms.

Psychological Benefits:

1- Builds self-confidence.
2- Increases serotonin level, influences mood and behavior
3- Resolve phobias & fears
4- Helps control own thoughts
5- Helps with focus & concentration
6- Increase creativity
7- Increased brain wave coherence
8- Improved learning ability and memory
9- Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation
10- Increased emotional stability

Spiritual Benefits:

1- Helps keep things in perspective
2- Provides peace of mind, happiness
3- Helps you discover your purpose
4- Increased self-actualization
5- Increased compassion
6- Growing wisdom
7- Deeper understanding of yourself and others
8- Brings body, mind, spirit in harmony
9- Deeper Level of spiritual relaxation
10- Increased acceptance of one’s self