Regulate the GUT microbiome with Long-term deep meditation

I love this article from News-Medical life sciences by Emily Henderson B.Sc

It is so wonderful that there is so much research going into meditation and that It is becoming more mainstream. I have loved meditation for years and practice it daily. It helps calm the mind and body and now we have regulation of the gut microbiome that supports immunity and better health.

Long-term deep meditation may help to regulate the gut microbiome for better health

 Regular deep meditation, practiced for several years, may help to regulate the gut microbiome and potentially lower the risks of physical and mental ill health, finds a small comparative study published in the open access journal General Psychiatry.

The gut microbes found in a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks differed substantially from those of their secular neighbors, and have been linked to a lower risk of anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular disease.

Research shows that the gut microbiome can affect mood and behavior through the gut–brain axis. This includes the body's immune response, hormonal signaling, stress response and the vagus nerve-;the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which oversees an array of crucial bodily functions.

The significance of the group and specimen design is that these deep-thinking Tibetan monks can serve as representatives of some deeper meditations. Although the number of samples is small, they are rare because of their geographical location.

Meditation is increasingly being used to help treat mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, traumatic stress, and eating disorders as well as chronic pain. But it's not clear if it might also be able to alter the composition of the gut microbiome, say the researchers.

In a bid to find out, the researchers analyzed the stool and blood samples of 37 Tibetan Buddhist monks from three temples and 19 secular residents in the neighboring areas.

Tibetan Buddhist meditation originates from the ancient Indian medical system known as Ayurveda, and is a form of psychological training, say the researchers. The monks in this study had been practicing it for at least 2 hours a day for between 3 and 30 years.

None of the participants had used agents that can alter the volume and diversity of gut microbes: antibiotics; probiotics; prebiotics; or antifungal drugs in the preceding 3 months.

Both groups were matched for age, blood pressure, heart rate, and diet.

Stool sample analysis revealed significant differences in the diversity and volume of microbes between the monks and their neighbors.

Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes species were dominant in both groups, as would be expected. But Bacteroidetes were significantly enriched in the monks' stool samples (29% vs 4%), which also contained abundant Prevotella (42% vs 6%) and a high volume of Megamonas and Faecalibacterium.

"Collectively, several bacteria enriched in the meditation group [have been] associated with the alleviation of mental illness, suggesting that meditation can influence certain bacteria that may have a role in mental health," write the researchers.

These include Prevotella, Bacteroidetes, Megamonas and Faecalibacterium species, the previously published research suggests.

The researchers then applied an advanced analytical technique to predict which chemical processes the microbes might be influencing. This indicated that several protective anti-inflammatory pathways, in addition to metabolism-;the conversion of food into energy-;were enhanced in the meditation people.

Finally, blood sample analysis showed that levels of agents associated with a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, including total cholesterol and apolipoprotein B, were significantly lower in the monks than in their secular neighbors by their functional analysis with the gut microbes.

Although a comparative study, it is observational and the numbers of participants were small, all male, and lived at high altitude, making it difficult to draw any firm or generalizable conclusions. And the potential health implications could only be inferred from previously published research.

But based on their findings, the researchers suggest that the role of meditation in helping to prevent or treat psychosomatic illness definitely merits further research.

And they conclude: "These results suggest that long-term deep meditation may have a beneficial effect on gut microbiota, enabling the body to maintain an optimal state of health."

Living on purpose

 During my meditation and movement practice this morning, I contemplated the meaning and expanse of living on purpose, or I could say the thought hit me like a freight train.

As can only happen in these energetic spaces, I was flooded with the concept:

ON PURPOSE...Intentionally, my reason for being and doing.

Purpose...the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. (noun)...Verb: Have as one's intention or objective.

So many of us struggle to find our purpose and I can honestly say that I am not sure if I have or haven't,  however I do believe it has something to do with what we chose to focus on, our intent, and we get to chose on a daily basis. It is therefore a good practice for me to mediate and move every morning to chose and be clear on what my focus or intent for the day will be.

I have chosen to focus on more love, and to live on purpose (intentionally). Meaning I have chosen to live my life with the purpose of opening up to more love for myself and to spread and share more love with others and through my work, I intend to help open the hearts of humanity to the love of the soul. I am choosing to see the miracle in everyone and everything.

Is that my purpose??? 

All I can do is to wake up every day and live on purpose and chose to do so all day. And for now that purpose is love, and I believe that with this intent and focus, I will be more fulfilled and it will lead to a deeper how and an even deeper purpose and my purpose will continue to unfold in more miraculous ways.

Are we limiting ourselves?

 I had an interesting discussion this morning which led me to think about the ways we limit our experiences and life by what we attach to.

We get attached to certain ideas and belief systems and when those are challenged we tend to resist. and block the chance to experience a shift in our energy and perception. Through our ego/pain body we experience life in a distorted manner.

I see this is many things, like meditation. We may have pre-conceived ideas of what meditation is and therefore feel like we never get it right or that we can't or don't know how to meditate. Anytime you are just riding the waves of thoughts and feelings and not attaching or going down the rabbit hole with any of it, you are experiencing a form of meditation. That is why a long walk in the woods or on the beach or a nice bicycle ride leaves you feeling energized and or relaxed.

With our thoughts and ideas about how things should be, we limit experiencing how things actually are and we may even block ourselves from 'seeing' clearly.

How are you limiting yourself and your experiences and your true expression? 

I invite you to take some time to explore this. 

Buddha Maitreya Teaches about "Soul Therap"

Buddha Maitreya Teaches about "Soul Therapy"
Nepal, 2008  
www.soultherapy.org  
 
"All of my life, I have worked in relationship to meditation, I have been meditating since I was a baby, I meditate all the time. I live in state of meditation. There is not anything I do or talk about that is not based on the reality and the effect of meditation. This is not normal for most people. Most people think meditation is something you do maybe one hour out of a day, maybe once a week in a temple, but I believe that we, as human beings, are born to meditate all the time, to have a clear open mind, to have clear emotions, to be in the moment, present in this very moment. Not thinking about the past, not worrying about the future but being so much present in the moment that the past heals itself and the future creates itself. And all we have to do is be present in the moment.  
 
"Meditation brings this about. It allows you to stop thinking in negative ways or desiring ways about how the future will be or how things should change or how you can control them. It allows God to bless the world, God to bless your daily life, God to use you as a vehicle for God to express. All meditation does is allow you to be humane, to be good by your own action, to use your will to be goodwill in action. To allow every moment and every word that you express in this world to be a meditative, thought-form building , loving, compassionate expression, allowing every aspect of your life to be transformed into the very love that you are learning and you are developing.  
 
"Through your daily meditation, you will find that it's your very nature, Buddha nature within, that will grow within you becoming more the compassionate person that you really are and developing those same healing abilities that you find in Saints, that you find in other people that you believe to be powerful and holy, are locked inside of you and able to express, able to heal other people and bless other people and change them in the process of their negativity.
 
"The binding of that darkness of their negativity is what the Soul heals. It redeems it, it does not judge it, it does not question as to how it got there. It simply radiates a light into it, transforms it from negative to positive, using the very energy of negativity to transform it into a positive reality but it requires meditation of the Soul. It requires realizing that every word and action that you take has to be something that is part of your compassionate God consciousness and allows that expression to incarnate into this world, incarnate into the children, into the building, into your business, into your activity in every area of the world.
     
"So all of this, all of your healing, you may be sick, you may have emotional problems, you may have all kinds of conditions in your life that bring about fear, a sense of tragedy, a sense of lack of wellbeing. But through meditation and the blessing of meditation allows this to slowly but surely be redeemed and to be released from your shoulders as though it's a personal problem and allows it to be passed on to God's Plan and let it be worked out as God's creation. So your entire life can be used as a tool for God to awaken God's realty into this world.  
 
"No human being is small person. No human being is soulless and negative and full of evil. Every human being is filled with potential light and potential ability to express God's complete consciousness in this world and bring about changes in the government, changes in your daily life, changes in your children that you think are completely impossible to change as though they are born this way. But I believe in rebirth and redemption and that every living Soul, every living thing, animals included, trees, vegetables, everything is included in the making of the Soul and its manifestation into the Soul of the planet."