Giving the Brain a Rest

John Ratey is associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a widely acknowledged expert in neuropsychiatry.

In his book 'A User's Guide to the Brain' he writes this:

'To promote health and well-being, we must help the brain rest. One way to accomplish that is through meditation. Meditation is a focused awareness, achieved by sitting quietly and turning one's attention inward.............Logic and language are cast aside. Distractions are ignored. Gradually, the mind becomes quiet and deeper levels of awareness are reached.

The body has a physical reaction to this altered state of consciousness. Sympathetic nervous system activity decreases and metabolism slows down. Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rates fall, and electrical skin conductance and blood flow decrease. These reactions in the body have been found to help reduce high blood pressure, relieve chronic pain and migraine headaches, and soothe depression and anxiety. The brain's own electrical activity changes, too. Instead of supporting a decentralized storm of signals, large numbers of its neurons fire in a pleasing synchrony.'

And all this without a prescription and a tablet! It's interesting to read this and good to know it, but it's much better to experience it.