Meditation and Stress Relief

Every time your heart beats, it sends blood filled with oxygen and nutrition through the arteries to reach your entire body. By the time you reach age 80, your heart will have done this more than three billion times. Your entire cardiovascular system, which includes the heart and blood vessels, works in harmony to send blood to every part of your body. When stress occurs, your body releases hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine), which causes your heart to pump faster, your arteries to constrict, and raise your blood pressure. Prolonged periods of stress can cause permanent damage to the cardiovascular system.

Researchers have suggested at least six different ways that psychological stress can kill you, all of which involve some sort of damage to the heart or arteries.[1] Cardiovascular disease (CVD) occurs when damaged arteries impact the amount of blood reaching the heart, making it so the heart itself is not getting enough blood. One common cause of CVD is stress.

The American Heart Association and other professional organizations recommend non-drug lifestyle changes as the first line of treatment for people with high blood pressure and as part of treatment for cardiovascular diseases. Transcendental Meditation (TM) has been suggested in a variety of studies to help reduce blood pressure, hypertension and other symptoms of psychological stressors.[2][3] (MORE)

Source: Huffington Post