Can Meditation Help My Asthma?
I began this adventure to find out if meditation would assisting with my respiratory health.
As a lifetime asthmatic, I am familiar with the respiratory stresses of winter viruses and now we have a COVID-19 pandemic to add to the stress. Many scientific studies have investigated the effect of exercise and meditation on reducing the incidence and severity of an acute respiratory infection. A 2018 study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6014660/
concluded that both exercise and meditation are effective at reducing the incidence, severity, and duration of acute respiratory infection when compared to a control group.
My respiratory difficulties are in part the reason I am a personal trainer. I know first hand the value of maintaining a regular exercise habit. My experience with meditation? None.
I enrolled in a 14 day Level 1: Fundamentals Of Meditation course with Mindworks (https://mindworks.org) Mindworks is an educational non-profit organisation. In response to the pandemic, they are currently offering the fundamentals course for free so check out the link above.
I went into this adventure with an open mind and no expectations. I think that’s important as there are various opinions on meditation ranging from voodoo magic to the total disbeliever. From the outset, the course instructs you to stop looking for magical transformations and just show up for daily practice with no judgement.
The biggest testimony I can give is that as soon as I had completed day 14 I signed up and paid for the Level-2 course. So what did I learn? I am more aware of my thoughts and I have learnt to observe them without judging them. They are just thoughts or perhaps we could say distractions from being present in the moment. I now know that thoughts are not just the voice in your head or memories you recall but are also physical sensations in the body and emotions. As someone who experiences the world most through big emotions, I am learning how to avoid being overwhelmed by these emotions.
My productivity has increased. No small thing during this time of social isolation. So I’m keen to see what other benefits I experience in the coming weeks. As for my asthma, no respiratory infections so far this winter but I’ve not been able to socialise so it wouldn’t be fair to attribute that to meditation alone!
Stay informed and enjoy your fitness training :-)