Health benefits of yoga and meditation

• Most meditation techniques aim to train attention and awareness to help bring thoughts under control.
• Studies show how helpful a regular meditation practice can be for relieving pain, anxiety and stress.
• Although a series of University of Wisconsin studies have found meditation can benefit patients with chronic inflammatory disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, more research is needed to understand its role in the treatment of chronic health conditions.
• Researchers have found that mindfulness meditation can reduce high blood pressure, stroke risk, heart disease and chronic pain, ABC News reported.
• As with meditation, studies find that regularly doing downward dogs and warrior poses can help manage stress and anxiety.
• There's even some evidence that yoga can help fight cancer-related fatigue, manage high-blood pressure and ease chronic pain, especially joint pain.
• For example, studies by the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle found that after several weeks of taking yoga classes, subjects reported fewer backaches and greater lower-back mobility.
• Since meditation - and yoga for that matter - promote relaxation, it can definitely help manage the emotions that bubble up after hearing bad or disturbing news.
• There's some evidence that a few moments of quiet reflection is especially helpful for people who suffer from anxiety and depression to begin with.
• And the group dynamic of a yoga class can bring people together and not feel so alone after a tragedy.