Meditation and Mental Health
As I see it, mental health problems are among the most vexing social and medical problems of our era. Medications and professional psychotherapy are proven to be effective. But even when empirically-based treatments can be accessed, there is an urgent need for new, affordable and accessible treatment options.
That’s where meditation and yoga come in. Yoga is a system of spiritual discipline that originated in India over 5,000 years ago. Yoga today is largely understood to be a set of physical stretches, which are commonly practiced in US gyms and fitness centers, but the ancient classical texts available on the subject indicate that it is much more. In fact, prior to the last hundred or so years, most of yoga consisted of relaxation and meditation, to ease our minds, not just to build up our bodies.
In that spirit, our practice, Upper East Health, is cosponsoring the teaching of relaxation and breathing techniques to take the practitioner into a state of deep relaxation and meditation. We are partnering with the Art of Living, a large NGO in which the founder of the Art of Living, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, teaches that regular practice of these techniques may substantially improve one’s mental health and decrease stress.
We will be teaching this in a very relaxing place – my favorite place in fact! -- at the far end of Martha’s Vineyard. Our first seminar is geared towards mental health professionals and will be held the last week of June, 2022. For more information, go to our website, and see the flyer below:
