The Vital Importance of Rest
For those interested in their health – whether this is in the interests of fertility or more generally -, the benefits of meditation are powerful. One of the aspects of life that has been largely neglected in our society over the last 20 or 30 years has been rest. We are working harder than ever for longer hours and resting less. It sounds simple – but its implications are very significant. The good news is that Vedic Meditation provides a solution to the lack of rest, giving meditators the equivalent of 6 hours extra sleep in just two periods of twenty minutes.
I attended a lecture last September at Oxford University. Professor Russell Foster, leader of the Circadian and Visual Neuroscience Group in the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology (part of the University of Oxford) set out the importance of rest very clearly: in 1900, most people were sleeping for 8.5 hours per night; today, the average is 6.5 hours. He stated categorically that the developed world is in a state of long-term fatigue. Our bodies are not adapted to this level of over-stimulation and lack of rest and because of this, diseases, both mental and physical, are showing up more and more. Stress-related illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, anxiety and panic attacks, insomnia (ironically, being over-tired and stressed can interrupt normal sleeping), and even cancers can be the result of lack of proper rest. Studies at the University of New South Wales have shown that the cells of people who are rest-deprived actually go into an inflammatory state – and in that state, there can be errors in cell-replication, leading to tumours. So, rest is not a luxury – it is a vital part of life.
It is during periods of rest that our bodies have the chance to shed the stresses we accumulate every day. There is also little doubt that for those trying to conceive a child, stress can be a major factor that determines success. This makes perfect sense, of course: if our bodies sense that we are in danger (and that is what stress truly is: a set of danger signals called ‘PCCs’ being triggered repetitively in the body), then Nature may decide that this is not the moment to put the body through the demanding process of conception and pregnancy.
This can all sound a bit alarming – unless we know that there is a solution readily available, and there is. Vedic Meditation has been scientifically proven to be much more restful than deep sleep. It is, if you like, a dynamic form of rest, in which the body rejuvenates itself. Stress is shed rapidly and the fight-flight chemicals in the bloodstream (such as cortisol) are replaced in minutes with bliss chemistry (such as endorphin, serotonin, dopamine and anandamide).
Vedic meditation is a very ancient technique which comes from India and was brought to the West just over 50 years ago. Millions of people now enjoy its benefits. Since its arrival in the West in the late 50s, this easy-to-learn and simple-to-practise technique has been studied by Western methods and the claims that have been made for it over many centuries in India have been verified time and time again. Studies have shown long-term Vedic meditators to be 58% less likely to suffer cancers and 87% less likely to suffer heart disease.
