Last month an interesting story was written by J. D. Heyes of The Epoch Times, detailing research done at Carnegie Mellon University which demonstrated how just 25 minutes of mindfulness meditation a day, for three consecutive days, can mitigate psychological stressors.

The study was conducted on 66 healthy subjects, split into two groups.

One group underwent mindfulness training and for three consecutive days, for 25 minutes at a stretch.

The other group participated in cognitive training for three days, focusing on analyzing poetry.

What they found was very interesting:

“The participants who received the brief mindfulness meditation training reported reduced stress perceptions to the speech and math tasks, indicating that the mindfulness meditation fostered psychological stress resilience. More interestingly, on the biological side, the mindfulness meditation participants showed greater cortisol reactivity.

“When you initially learn mindfulness mediation practices, you have to cognitively work at it – especially during a stressful task,” said Creswell [J. David Creswell, associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences]. “And, these active cognitive efforts may result in the task feeling less stressful, but they may also have physiological costs with higher cortisol production.”

Wonderful news, and yet another news story reporting on how meditation can help reduce stress in our lives.

The story goes on to mention how meditation is being recommended by many experts as a better alternative to stress reduction than medication:

“Data from the American Psychological Association reveal that 77 percent of the people in the United States report feeling stressed. Money and work get most of the blame for creating stress in their daily lives, and 48 percent admit that it influences their life in a noticeably negative way. Meditation may not work for every person experiencing stress, but experts suggest it should be considered as an option.”

Stress is certainly a big issue in many peoples lives, and can cause serious health issues.

Our hope is that more people wake up to the wonderful gift that meditation can be, and start practicing today!

Read the full article here for even more on how just a few moments of meditation a day has been found to have profound, near-instant benefits on stress reduction.

Has meditation helped reduce stress in your life? Feel free to comment and let us know your response.