The benefits

Vedic meditation helps by providing a natural, effortless experience of the sufferer’s innate inner happiness, Vedic meditation not only gratifies this unconscious craving for happiness and balance, but also nourishes the levels of ego, feelings, thought and action that spring from the cause. Stress and trauma can be enough to trigger ourselves to look at substances to bring about temporary happiness. By reducing our stress levels, improving our decision making and response to stressful events, we start to become satisfied by the happiness and balance we create from within. Learning this technique alongside other conventional methods such as the 12 step programme can be particularly powerful.

ADHD tends to be diagnosed when children are young and may become more noticeable when life-changing events occur. Symptoms can improve with age, but many adults can still experience symptoms. They can also experience difficulties with sleep and anxiety.

It’s still not fully understood about the cause of the condition, but there are some medications, like Ritalin, which have a pacifying effect, indicating there is some sort of neurological imbalance occurring. As with most medications, side-effects can cause sufferers to seek alternative help.

The nature of learning meditation puts the meditator in a de-stimulating state, all thanks to the customised mantra or sound that is thought in the mind. With consistent practice, the excess stimulation will disappear.

Chemical balance within the brain can be restored so the automated systems within the body can function optimally. The mantra effect, is usually immediate and calms the mind, body and nervous system. During meditation, within the first 3 minutes, the body activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the state we can rest and recover in. In time, the need for meditations may drop as the root cause of the condition begins to fade away. This must only be carried out with supervision of a medical professional.

By practicing Vedic meditation, we are allowing our nervous system to experience calmness & perspective. In time the fear response, which is what happens when we are anxious becomes less & less frequent & we begin to feel more safe.

This is probably one of the most common reasons as to why someone would take up a meditation practice.

Burnout is a state of chronic stress, or what we call chronic background stress and can be managed very effectively with a regular Vedic Meditation practice. My students are able to reduce their resting heart rate, relax muscles, improve blood flow, rebalance hormone production and reach a calmer mental state. All of this improves sleep, and if you are getting efficient sleep, everything becomes a lot more manageable and enjoyable.

Burnout is the accumulation of stress in the nervous system, chronic background stress accumulates until the body and mind do not feel safe in the parasympathetic state and an individual will spend the majority of their day in the sympathetic state (their body thinks it’s running from a wild animal)

Symptoms of burnout can include: fatigue, sleep issues, depression, a sense of failure and increased reliance on unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

Perfectionists and high-achievers are in particular danger of developing burnout, but it can affect anyone who finds little time to rest.

This is a state that cannot be maintained, I suffered with burnout myself and just assumed it would sort itself out. It did not. From my experience, and many others, the symptoms start to compound an life become even more difficult.

When we meditate, we rest three to five times deeper than the deepest part of sleep. It enables us to repair so deeply that we can recover from our chronic, deeply-felt stress and begin functioning normally again. We get to put ourselves in the Parasympathetic on command twice per day.

Our hormones balance, our cardiovascular health improves, our cognitive functioning becomes restored, and any depressive symptoms tend to lift. As this happens, our energy levels rise, and our ability to engage with people and work is vastly improved.

Rather than simply facilitating a return to the same unsustainable habits, Vedic meditation for burnout improves our sense of perspective and self-worth, helping us to make lasting positive change.

As you become clearer and more capable, you will still be able to be a high achiever, but you will likely do so within the context of a calmer, fuller, more balanced life, instead of relying on stress to get you performing.

The loss of happiness and interest, compounded with continuous negative thinking can be extremely debilitating. Depression is the unbalanced production of, or receptivity to hormones and neurotransmitters, which is linked to our stress response. We already know meditation reduces stress in our system, which in turn reduces the frequency of our stress response. Studies have shown that after eight weeks of meditation, participants demonstrated a 40-55% reduction in symptoms of PTSD and depression.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop after being involved in, or witnessing, traumatic events; whether that’s a car accident, giving birth, being sexually assaulted, a fire, a terrorist attack, or being in a war. It may be years before symptoms emerge, but for sufferers they are frightening and overwhelming.

When PTSD occurs, it’s because the driver of the anxiety response - the amygdala - has become overactive and is releasing way too many neurotransmitters. Suddenly we become fearful of things that would never bothered us before.  

As a result, the adrenal glands tend to get overstimulated. If the trauma happened repeatedly, then it’s very likely the hippocampus (the region in the brain responsible for the consolidation of information) will have been damaged too, causing memory problems and other blunted cognitive functioning.

Learning Vedic Meditation can set us free of past traumas, by allowing our bodies to heal at the deepest level, calming our overactive response system, and rebuilding inner confidence.

Most people that come to learn Vedic meditation have already tried using apps like Headspace and Calm. They have either been successful and wanted to take their meditation practice to the next level or they had no luck with their meditation styles.

This practice is far easier and much more efficient at reducing stress levels.

Vedic meditation lets us experience a deep state of rest, several times deeper than sleep. In this restful state, we are able to cleanse away not only stress from today, but stress we've experienced in the past. With consistent practice, we simply become more resilient to stress and are able to recover from its effects faster. Most people live in an excited state, meditation brings balance by allowing is to enter the de-excited state.

Vedic meditation is a powerful way to gain inner peace. This often reveals itself when a persons reactivity level to uncontrollable events becomes de-excited. A calm sense of understanding begins to filter through to a persons awareness.

This has been a goal of creatives and spiritual seeks for thousands of years. Human beings are, you could say, designed or evolved to focus on the negative, which brings out stress and anxiety. It’s a mechanism that has allowed for the human being to survive. This natural predicament combined with the nature of our modern world makes inner peace more difficult to achieve.

With regular meditation, we experience transcendence, which is known as the fourth state of consciousness in the Vedic tradition. In this experience, we start to discover that we are part of something bigger than our body and ego.

We start to experience a sense of total fear-less-ness, which means anything we perceive in our relative world ceases to affect us in the same way. We become the ocean and the ever changing nature of life are the waves on the surface of that ocean.

Vedic meditation helps to grow intuition by letting go of the common mental distractions. Low self-esteem, anger or anxiety can cloud someones judgments, which reduces their ‘gut feeling’ ability to see issues properly. When we learn to let go, we become more relaxed and happy to make intuitive decisions.

Vedic meditation acts quickly to reduce the noisy thoughts in our mind so you can start to think more clearly. The personal mantra I teach on the first session of meditation training is a powerful tool to go beyond thinking so the nervous system can calm down.

We begin to pick up on more subtle information, that before we would have overlooked.

We become far more confident in our decision making capabilities.

With Vedic meditation we begin to understand what it means to truly know ourselves. Meditation lifts the fog of stress and incessant thoughts to create clarity so we can look inwards to find the real understanding of our own being.

The more we begin to understand our sense of Self, the more we operate from a place of peace, happiness and contentment. This peace, happiness and contentment, further enables us to live with greater love, compassion, wisdom, intelligence, creativity and optimal engagement with the world.

But first we must begin the process of clearing up our minds and release the accumulated stress and trauma from our nervous system.

Vedic Meditation enables the mind to gain direct access to the deeper, quieter, more powerful and intuitive levels of thinking. This experience systematically expands consciousness and infuses the mind with creativity and intelligence, bringing improvements in all aspects of mental performance and perception.

Our brains govern everything we do, so it makes sense by eliminating stress and enlivening our brains that we’ll be more successful and productive in all we do. Vedic Meditation increases IQ, creativity, memory and learning ability, promoting higher moral reasoning, emotional stability, maturity, alertness and reaction times, this will make you standout in the workplace and be at the top of your game.

After meditating, the mind is fresher, quieter and happier. Awareness naturally moves to a higher default setting where feelings of inner contentment and bliss become the norm. You begin to respond in a completely different way to demands and pressure.

Medical research estimates as much as 90% of all health problems are caused or aggravated by stress. Meditation eliminates stress physiologically and awakens our bodies healing response. Many Vedic meditators see improvements with digestion, migraines, immune system, allergies and high blood pressure to name a few.

When we’re less stressed, healthier, happier and living more in the moment, unsurprisingly we are a lot easier to be around. We start attracting better people into our lives and become able to give more to our personal and business relationships, which become more harmonious and fulfilling.

If you have trouble sleeping, then you have probably tried some sleep meditations, Yoga Nidra or some relaxing sleep music. These can be useful, but there’s little evidence they improve your ability to fall asleep, whilst also creating a dependancy.

Vedic meditation works at the level of our nervous system, clearing out stress, noise & stimulation, helping us to relax. The quality & efficiency of our sleep improves, making it easier to fall & stay asleep!

A winning combination of good rest & twice daily meditation decreases fatigue & increases energy, saying goodbye to insomnia and the need for relaxing sleep music and sleep meditations.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)

Vedic Meditation has stress relieving functions that make it a great tool to help treat Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The boost of energy people receive from meditation enables someone to become more functional. Although, I have observed in CFS students that they can feel fatigued for a few weeks after starting a practice. I tend to start them off with 10 minute meditation twice per day and then gradually build them up to 20 minutes.

The meditation welcomes the Parasympathetic nervous system to come online, which means the body starts to feel safe again. The immune and digestive systems have a chance to function normally again. With consistent meditation, you’re increasing the opportunity to activate the parasympathetic response.

This will bring a balance of hormone levels and rise in endorphin production, which will reduce that overwhelmed feeling.

The recovery process is rarely ever fast, but this practice will provide you the support you’ve been missing. It helps you feel more positive and creates a sense of joy and optimism along the way.

This is something I have lived through and recovered from and meditation was the biggest piece of my recovery jigsaw puzzle.

There are numerous factors that cause migraines, stress and fatigue certainly appear to play their parts. The hormonal imbalances brought about by pregnancy and the menopause raise the likelihood of a migraine occurring in women. The personalised mantras we use help to soothe and balance our nervous systems, meditation reduces the stress and fatigue and if you feel like an aura is going to start, you can be tactical and meditate, which will prevent the migraine from starting. If you don’t get auras, the meditation will help with pain management and relieve the intensity of the migraines.