0 Meditation Helps Students Focus Overcome Stress

A recent survey of over 200,000 incoming college freshmen shows emotional health of students at its lowest in 25 years. Due to pressures of classes, financial issues, and worries of poor job prospects, student stress and anxiety levels are at record highs and climbing. Yoga and yoga may provide relief for many anxious students, helping them calm down, stay balanced, and even perform better in classes. Recent studies on a specific meditation practice offered by Isha Foundation show improved mental and emotional health, as well as creativity and focus, for those who practice regularly.

Isha Foundation's signature program is called Inner Engineering, in which participants learn a powerful 21-minute meditation. In a 2010 survey of 536 participants who practice the meditation regularly, 86% reported reductions in stress and anxiety with 80% of respondents saying they experienced improved mental clarity. 87% of practitioners in the study also felt they had increased emotional balance, and 70% reported increased concentration and productivity.

A separate EEG study* of the brain activity of meditators demonstrated dramatic changes in electrical wave patterns in the brain after just 21 minutes of the practice. These results included marked increases in the slow frequency delta and theta wave patterns characteristic of deep relaxation, and increased activity in areas of the brain important for alertness and focus. The study also found marked increases in synchronization of wave patterns in the right and left sides of the brain. Referred to as 'whole-brain synchronization,' this phenomenon is commonly associated with more efficient and effective mental processing capabilities, including heightened mental clarity and sharper discrimination, better learning ability, and increased creativity.

The Inner Engineering practices have benefited students at colleges and universities across the country, including UCLA, Penn State, USC, University of Michigan, Dartmouth, Stanford, Wright State, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. Some students have even started meditation clubs at their universities to help support each other and continue their practices to relieve stress on campus. Pragyan Sharma, an Inner Engineering participant and recent graduate shares about his meditation, "I enrolled for IE when I was six months into a masters program at NYU. Inner Engineering empowered me with an unshakable inner balance and an enhanced mental clarity that helped me prioritize and manage my studies, internships, health and relationships effortlessly. I noticed that I became more productive and focused because of IE than I ever was." Sharma adds, "Today I have the job that I wanted and I am even preparing for my second masters!"

Sadhguru Vasudev, yogi, visionary humanitarian and founder of Isha Foundation, explains about stress, "Your work is not tension, your work is not stressed; it is your inability to keep your system, your body, mind, your energy and your emotions in a certain way. It is your inability to keep yourself in a certain level of comfort and wellbeing. So, what we are referring to as meditation is not only a remedy for this, it is also an opportunity for a person to move into a dimension where there is no such thing as stress within you."

Meditation for clarity, health and joy is called Isha Kriya and can be accessed at www.BeBreatheBlossom.com. Read More @ Source