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Writer's pictureGary Bonnell

The Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness to Manage Stress

Updated: Jun 5, 2022

Our inner conflicts generate the most harmful form of stress. Stress allows our weakest genetic predispositions to manifest in our body's structures.


Unfortunately, we all have negative genetic predispositions that arise as we age. The aging process itself is exaggerated as a result of the continuing stresses that are generated by our deeply held inner conflicts. As children and young adults, we have been taught through family and peers to navigate and mitigate most daily aggravations. It is the humiliations we suffer in the process of that learning period that lives in the deep aspects of our subconscious mind. As such, we are largely unaware of the profound effects our subconscious emotional behavior patterns have on each and every moment.

First, it is important to know WHAT we are as humans. We are threefold beings: a sensory-based physical form, an evolving human spirit and an eternally constant soul. The three aspects effortlessly collaborate as one sentient being.

Our physical body is the seat of our instinctual intelligence; our constantly evolving human spirit is the seat of our intuitive intelligence; our eternally constant soul is the seat of our super-conscious mind.


Modern science has now confirmed what mystics have known for thousands of years. As three fold beings, we have three distinctly different brains:

  • Our gut contains approximately 500 million neurons, which are connected to your brain through specialized nerves channels. This is our instinctual brain, the place where we experience a "gut feeling."

  • Our heart has its own nervous system that communicates directly with our cranial brain. This "heart brain" is composed of approximately 40,000 neurons that are exactly like the neurons in the brain. This is our intuitive brain where we experience a circumstance or condition, as person, place, or thing as "series of hunches."

  • Our eternal souls are our direct connection to Universal Mind - Creator. It has been postulated that the seat of our soul, our cranial brain, has more possible synaptic connections within its structure than there are atoms in creation. The cortex alone contains about 20 billion nerve cells and over 300 trillion synaptic connections.

Our brains communicate through specialized nerve channels the mystic refer to as nadis. There are three major nadis that connect our brains - one on the right side of the spinal column; one on the left side and one in the center of our spinal column. These channels also connect the seven primary energy centers of the metaphysical body - the chakras.


Meditation and Mindfulness practices clear the channels between energy centers allowing our three brains to be fully synchronized in our human experience.


These are the ten science-backed benefits of daily mediation:

  • Stress Reduction

  • Anxiety Management

  • Depression Management

  • Lowers Blood Pressure

  • Strengthens Immune System

  • Improves Memory

  • Regulates Mood

  • Increases Self-Awareness

Neuroscientists have also shown that practicing Mindfulness affects brain areas related to perception, body awareness, pain tolerance, emotion regulation, introspection, complex thinking, and sense of self.


Definition of Meditation: meditation techniques are thought of in two broad categories - focused concentrative Meditation and open monitoring or Mindfulness meditation. Focused methods of sitting meditation employ the use of mantras, while mindfulness mediation is observing one's thought landscapes in a non-judgmental manner. Another form of focused meditation is the practice of pranayama. Pranayama is the practice of breath regulation. It's a main component of all forms of yoga. In Sanskrit, “prana” means life energy and “yama” means control. The practice of pranayama involves breathing exercises and patterns. See the post here, Pranayama - Effective Focused Meditation.

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