Herb Benson said:
-choose a word, phrase, thought or prayer and repeat it throughout the day
Deepak Chopra taught:
-repeat your mantra over 20-30 minutes twice a day
Andy Weil gave me:
-478 breathing
The common theme is to develop some form of repetition activity, verbal/auditory and eventually linked to breath. As Dr Weil Guided my fellowship class, breath/respiration is the easiest body system to control. (see video) As you gain control over the voluntary portion (taking a deep breath) of this system, eventually control comes over the involuntary system (breath/blood pressure/heart rate). Thus the reason why modern scientists have embellished breath work as part of high blood pressure treatment. The problem with delivery of modern treatment plans to newly diagnosed hypertension is time. It is faster to write a prescription than to teach relaxation response, meditation or just plain "living in the moment". It's also easy to crank up the heat over the phone....if the home blood pressure readings don't go down, increase the dose, maximize on the medicine then add another. If only the drugs from the pharmacy came with an instruction manual on the above techniques to be done when taking pills.
I have had to soften the idea of meditation (all 3 techniques in my opinion) to my patients for making it more appetizing a practice. If I say meditation - some people bite. If I say prayer - most adults mention being holiday church goers. If I say spirituality - lost and sometimes repulsed. Like the DrOz show, if the pathology of disease or treatment is illustrated visually in layman's terms, it makes understanding and initiation of treatment more empowering. My passion is being physical. I love running, cardio, yoga, hiking....nature. What better way to adopt a meditative practice than to combine it with a very tangible movement activity. I like to change the performance of classic weight training to a modern cross fit type of activity. I believe at any age we can adopt and perform repetition and link it to movement.
A little plug for hiking. A nice way to say walk. But walk is not associated with weight loss or exercise. Those of you who count steps and calories know 30-60minutes of exercise pales in comparison to the calories burned with total steps per day. Anyone who has calculated the calories burned on a treadmill with know moderate to intense running will burn a small amount of calories in an exercise session. Adding up walking before, after and during the day will lead to a bounty of weight loss after a 12 week boot camp. If walking steps helps with getting back health, repetition of mantra/breath/word should be easy to combine. Wouldn't it be nice to rev up a single action to make a bigger impact?
Thus was born DrRic's Meditative Hiking. I learned a walking technique while taking a Harvard course and it was breezed through in less than 15 minutes but the concept stuck with me. I found peace with hiking in Yosemite and but the Half Dome trail was long and tough (and my first big hike) so I added the breath finger technique and I credit that to getting me back down the 7 miles of return trail. I also felt astoundingly high (was it the summit of Half Dome or the meditative movement .....I don't know). Regardless of the for feeling good, why not do a little more intentional walking this summer, a little intentional breath/finger tapping (no one will ever know!) a little more "unplugging" and get out the blue sky brown trail and green foliage. Nature has a way of taking over after about 30 minutes (Shin Rin Yoku) no matter what mood rules you upon entry.
Bottom line is no matter what your religious upbringing, spiritual diversity, time for exercise, feeling of being outdoors are; you can use standard medicine to lower your blood pressure numbers or you can incorporate and adopt lifestyle change to decrease risks for disease AND get rid of your medicine!
