Generally speaking, meditation can replace medical treatment only in very advanced practitioners, so it is necessary to consult your physician prior to starting to see how it can best suit your needs. Because meditation and mindfulness practices are increasingly known in the medical sphere many physicians can recommend local community services that offer meditation classes.;
, It may be simple stress management, injury healing or helping the body recover from an illness. Generally, the biggest obstacles to healing or health improvement is either fighting or rejecting the condition you suffer, or trying directly to improve your condition - which is essentially the same as rejecting it, just in another style. These are both very effective obstacles both to meditation and improving your health.


In nearly all meditation traditions, the most important states to develop for good health or health improvement are those of kindness, acceptance and a letting be. These are always the most important as meditation is simply a dual process of letting go, or more properly, getting out of the way of the body's natural health and immune systems so they can work more effectively, as well as encouraging and developing conditions for them to act at peak levels.
 The best forms of meditation for health are sometimes not the simple styles of sitting on a cushion. Moving forms such as Qi Gong, Tai Chi and very gentle forms of stretching like yoga, can be more effective.


For viruses such as colds and flus, excessive sitting can reduce your circulation and therefore make your immune system less effective when it is already working on an illness.

While the rest and relaxation that can be gained through sitting meditation is certainly important, it is wise to balance your practice or incorporate moving forms to boost your immune health. For pain management, lying down to meditate can be the most effective, for stress or mental health, most postures are fine. For physical health, moving forms such as Qi Gong and Tai Chi are about the best forms available as they have been developed over thousands of years in some cases, and are excellent for health in age related contexts.
 The problem that prevents most health improvement or injury healing meditations doing their work, is that people can often treat illness or pain as the enemy, or the body as a traitor for getting ill. There are plenty of other patterns this may occur in, but ultimately, for these processes to work, you have to allow things to be in order for your health to improve naturally.


Your immune system is also boosted by these practices of kindness and generosity, so it is ideal to reflect on your good qualities to give yourself inspiration.
 Once you have meditated for some time and the mind becomes peaceful, you may ask yourself for advice - this is a same function in a way as dreaming, where the mind sometimes sends you a "wake up call" about your lifestyle to act on in your dreams. Meditation is a more inviting method where you can ask yourself how you can improve your health. Sometimes it may point to aspects of your environment that can cause a sense of depression or illness, and sometimes it can present itself as a feeling, such as being tired and overworked. Sometimes the mind itself tells you something directly - such as to stop eating certain foods that it can no longer digest well, or that it is becoming allergic to.


However, it is always wise to get a second opinion from your physician on any advice your mind offers. Sometimes people are convinced they know what the answer is and so tell themselves what they really want to hear, which isn't necessarily what they really need.
 For general health, sitting posture is ideal, for recovering from illness, moving meditations such as Qi Gong or Tai Chi are particularly beneficial.
 Take a good few minutes scanning your body starting wherever feels comfortable for you. You may move head to toes or toes up to the head, or in a circular movement clockwise or anticlockwise. Use these moment to become aware of and relax any tension you can find.
 Locate and imagine all illnesses as blockages in your body, like a traffic jam on the freeway or a dam in a mountain stream. Choose any symbolism that seems apt to you. Often it will take on its own form of representation which gives you clues how you can act. In can also appear as a more clear and distinct physical sensation or tension for those who are more sensation strong in their awareness.
 You might imagine the rocks of the dam starting to roll away as the water starts to flow through them, or the tension turning into vapor.
 This should be done very gently - sometimes it will happen all on its own if the illness is caused by stress or lifestyle problems. Sometimes however, it needs a little imagination and improvisation, such as imagining it flowing into a box which you mentally post to outer space, or transforming it into something else like a beautiful flower which you plant in the garden, or into little birds which fly away.


Another common practice that is quite effective is you can also imagine it flowing out as you breathe out.
 Sometimes, you may feel like five minutes is sufficient and doing this everyday for your health can make a remarkable improvement to your immune health. Sometimes, the body may simply want to take a lot longer, and that is fine too.
 For pain management, choose the most comfortable posture for you. Part of the skill of pain management is setting the foundation first as it makes far less work.
 At this stage, don't focus too much on the direct area of the pain. This allows the mind to expand slightly more than just focussing solely on the aches and pain - in many cases this reduces the pain to quite a moderate extent allowing it to be more manageable.
 This is very difficult for beginners and takes a lot of practice, but for chronic long term sufferers this is a skill which becomes more and more important and effective for pain management.


You may use words or just develop the feeling by thinking about something that inspires kindness and compassion in you, then when it is strong enough, gradually transfer that feeling to the pain. It is very important to come to the stage where you understand that the chronic pain, or your body, is not the enemy.
 It can appear in any form that is apt to you, such as a warm massage like feeling; a cooling, soothing feeling; a warm glow in a beautiful colour or anything that you feel is appropriate.
 You may continue to do this for as long as you like, but even a few seconds can make a big difference to healing and pain management.
 Often people mentally encapsulate the injury or feeling with tension - something they are not always aware of, but stems from rejecting or trying to fight or get away from the injury. The problem is this makes the injury heal much slower and makes the pain, far worse. Continue to relax any tension as it becomes evident, this may involve giving it a gentle massage with your hands if necessary.
 This completes the session. This type of meditation can be practiced as often as you wish. It is very difficult to practice because it requires the practitioner to develop kindness towards something people inherently want to get away from.
 It is recommended to become quite aware of the feelings in your body as often physical tension creates mental stress, and mental tension can create physical tension. It is important to balance the two.
 Often people who suffer extreme anxiety, work related stress and panic attacks frequently find tension in the chest, shoulders and arms. By relaxing these parts of the body, it typically removes a great deal of the stress that causes panic attacks.


Long standing practitioners of this form of meditation often find that is resolves their stress, anxiety and panic attacks because it gives them not only a direct skill to handle it, but also the knowledge and understanding of experience that these stressful events can be gently reduced and prevented from spiralling out of control. It essentially gives them the power to direct their attention more beneficially.
 This is often just wishing yourself well because when you no longer are fighting yourself, you find the mind is vastly more motivated and cooperative in working with you to put an end to stress and tension.
 A very good one is to imagine the past and future being put away for the time being, so that for the time you meditate, you don't have to be concerned with them. While it may mean after your meditation you have to pick them up again and carry on working, it gives you a rest time that you can use whenever you need it.
 As mentioned above, the mind can often be very creative in giving you solutions to resolves problems in your family, school or workplace.
Consult your physician.
Reflect on how meditation can help you.
Choose the right style for your needs.
Always be kind.
Ask yourself for advice.
Choose a comfortable posture.
Close your eyes and relax.
Start to visualise.
Start to improve the flow.
Direct the flow out of your body.
Practice often.
Relax your body throughout the session.
Spend a few minutes scanning the body.
Soak this body with kindness.
Imagine a healing energy.
Allow this energy to soak the injury.
Be aware of any tension.
Wish the injury well as you finish.
Spend a few minutes relaxing your body.
Relax any tension in the body.
Practice kindness meditations.
Use ground rules.
Ask yourself for solutions.
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