I love this book: Meditation as Medicine: Activate the Power of your Natural Healing Force, by Dr. Dharma Khalsa and Cameron Stauth. Dr Khalsa is medical director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Foundation in Tucson. Meditation as Medicine gives a detailed yet easy to comprehend medical and scientific view of how the human body works, and follows that up with useful exercises and meditations to help improve our health. It is a great layperson’s read – I’m serious! – about how the endocrine and nervous system work, about our hormones, and just why using the voice (in prayer or mantra) or the fingers (in music or art or mudra) and the eyes, breath and arms impact our heart and brain and well being and can restore the body’s proper functioning.
I have an acupuncture practice in Old Town Alexandria and I give these postures and meditations to willing clients to help correct issues. The movements are simple – the hardest part being that they are repeated for sometimes hefty lengths of time. One client found herself suffering unusual fatigue, muscular ache and hair loss. With acupuncture and a kriya (meaning a set of simple postures) to help the thyroid, she recovered energy and optimism and a healthy head of hair.
I highly recommend the book as an interesting tool to better understand your body and to learn simple actions that, performed with purpose, can optimize your health.
