Meditation

Overview

Mayo Clinic offers meditation as a treatment for various medical conditions. Meditation can relax and rejuvenate the mind and body, and helps many patients refocus and gain happiness and inner peace. More than 200 Mayo patients have participated in meditation treatment, and their responses have been overwhelmingly positive.

Mayo's approach to complementary and alternative medicine treatments such as meditation is evidence-based. Treatment recommendations are based on continuous research by Mayo physicians and scientists to identify the most effective therapies.

Meditation may help relieve such conditions as anxiety, depression, pain, stress and insomnia. Combined with conventional medicine, meditation may also improve cardiovascular health, rheumatologic conditions and digestive problems.

Patients are usually referred by their physician to the meditation program at Mayo. Your symptoms, medical history and mental health will be assessed by a physician with experience in meditation practice. The meditation method often taught at Mayo Clinic is paced-breathing meditation.

Meditation is not effective for everyone. Depending on your situation, the physician may offer stress management techniques or other options to improve your sense of well-being. Sometimes, patients are referred to other medical specialists.

Physicians and other professionals who specialize in complementary and integrative medicine sometimes combine meditation and other complementary therapies and wellness programs into a patient's treatment plan. Recommendations complement, rather than replace, conventional Western medicine.

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About Meditation

Meditation, a form of relaxation, has been practiced for thousands of years and has multiple benefits. Meditation can help with focus, improved concentration, relaxation, inner peace, stress reduction and fatigue. Anyone, regardless of spiritual belief or personal orientation, can practice and potentially benefit from meditation.

Many different forms of meditation — including mindfulness, concentrative meditation, and paced-breathing — produce beneficial results. In mindfulness meditation, the person is focusing on and accepting the present moment, task or action. In concentrative meditation, the person focuses all awareness on an object, sound or thought. Paced-breathing meditation combines slow, deep breathing with aspects of mindfulness and concentrative meditation.

Key to these meditation methods is helping the patient focus on the present — eliminating random thoughts of everything but the moment at hand. Meditation can be practiced individually, in groups, in different settings, and for different lengths of time.

Read more about meditation at MayoClinic.com.