Tuesday February 17, 2015 7:33 PM UPDATED: Tuesday February 17, 2015 7:54 PM

Lower stress, cardiovascular disease risk by meditating.

Taking a few minutes to relax each day could help you lower your risks of cardiovascular disease.

Meditation is a practice often using deep breathing, quiet contemplation or sustained focus on something benign, such as a color, phrase or sound that helps you let go of stress and feel peaceful and maintain a relaxed state of mind.

Think of it as a 20- or 30-minute vacation from the stress in your life, said Richard A. Stein, professor of medicine and director of the exercise and nutrition program at New York Universitys Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.

Stress is your bodys natural alarm system. It releases a hormone called adrenaline that causes your breathing to quicken, and your heart rate and blood pressure to rise.

But that fight or flight response can take a toll on your body if its sustained over a long time.When we were cavemen, that adrenaline helped us be ready if a tiger was going to attack, Dr. Stein said. Today, all the tigers are in our heads.

For people with cardiovascular disease, meditation provides a technique for reducing stress and focusing on things they can do to be healthier, Dr. Stein said. Meditation is a way of allowing you to come to balance in your life, Dr. Stein said. It can also help you to sleep better, which is a very important restorative part of physical health.

Recent studies have offered promising results about the impact of meditation in reducing blood pressure. A 2012 study showed African-Americans with heart disease who practiced Transcendental Meditation regularly were 48 percent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke or die compared with African-Americans who attended a health education class over more than five years.

Find the Method That Works for You There are countless types of meditation, so its important to find an approach that you feel comfortable with, Dr. Stein said.

Read more:
Meditation And Heart Health

A new study suggests that if youre having trouble sleeping, meditation may be the way to go.

UCLA researchers, working with colleagues from USC, recruited 49 adults aged 55 and older who had moderate sleep problems.

Half of them enrolled in a six-week sleep education course that included lessons on sleep habits, relaxation methods and establishing bedtime routines.

The other half enrolled in a mindful meditation course. Mindful meditation trains people to be aware of their thoughts and emotions but avoid reacting to or becoming distracted by them -- a common problem that can keep people up at night.

The study found that those enrolled in the meditation course reported better quality sleep and fewer bouts of insomnia than those who got the sleep education classes. And according to the researchers, the improvements were on a par with those conferred by clinical sleep therapy or sleeping pills, though without the side effects.

Researchers say the results suggest that meditation could be a good alternative treatment for sleep problems, at least in the short term. They have yet to study whether the practice confers long-term sleep benefits.

The authors noted that previous research has shown that "a movement-based meditation, Tai Chi, can improve sleep quality in older adults," adding that, "to our knowledge," this is the first attempt to explore the use of a "non-movement form of meditation for sleep problems in older adults."

The research was conducted by scientists from UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, in collaboration with USC's Keck School of Medicine.

The study was published Monday in the online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center offers free guided meditations online, as well as online courses.

Original post:
Trouble sleeping? UCLA researchers say meditation might help