Meditation goes mainstream

Gary Devine, a Santa Rosa attorney, believes the arthritis pain in his lower back has been relieved in large part by sitting quietly for 15 minutes every morning.

Marjorie Crump-Shears, an actor and former educator in Sebastopol, thinks her blood pressure has stabilized and improved by learning to watch her breath.

What's this? No drugs? No surgery? No special equipment? No health insurance hassle?

Their special fix has to do with a practice called mindfulness-based stress reduction, a form of meditation.

OK, get rid of the stereotypes. You don't have to curl up like a pretzel. You don't have to chant. You don't have to shave your head, sit barefoot, burn incense or wear a robe.

“You don't have to be a Buddhist to meditate,” said Shirley Guillotti, a nurse who has been teaching meditation classes at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa since 1993.

Meditation, the centuries-old mind and body exercise used in many religious practices and designed to lead to awareness and relaxation, has remodeled its psychedelic 1970s Beatles-Maharishi image.

Today, the Dalai Lama's on Twitter and meditation is going mainstream, judging by the one out of 11 Americans who told a government survey in 2007 that they'd meditated in the past year.

As a health practice to relieve pain and stress, meditation has been endorsed by the likes of heart doctor/author Dean Ornish and journalist Bill Moyers. Many hospitals and health centers around the country teach courses in mindfulness and meditation based on a program developed at the University of Massachusetts by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Guillotti's Kaiser class is modeled on Kabat-Zinn's program and is where Devine and Crump-Shears meet weekly in a group of 25 meditators ranging in age from their 20s to 70s.

Guillotti describes her meditation students as “regular folks” who come for various reasons. Many beginners are referred by their doctors and attend purely for health reasons — to lower their blood pressure, minimize migraine headaches and lower blood sugar for a diabetic condition. Others want to learn to meditate, she said, in order to “slow down the mind chatter. They want to find a way to feel less stress in their lives, be less anxious, quiet their minds so that they can sleep better at night and live more in the present moment.”

The National Institutes of Health, which did the 2007 survey on meditation, reported a growing interest in the practice outside of the traditional religious and cultural settings by people meditating for health and wellness reasons.

It's more a recognition of the practice than an endorsement by the federal agency, which calls for more research and states on its Web site: “It is not fully known what changes occur in the body during meditation; whether they influence health and if so, how.”

Santa Rosa cardiologist Sanjay Dahr has been meditating since he was a child in India, and has a lifelong appreciation for the relationship of mind and body. Meditation to him is simply “mind control and mind relaxation,” and while he won't always recommend his heart patients start a meditation practice, he will encourage them to “find a way to relax, to spend time on self, to concentrate and become introspective.”

The need to quiet the mind is obvious, he said, considering that “the risk of acute heart attack is often related to anxiety and stress.”

Crump-Shears says meditation is “that time when I do not do anything but be.” That includes, “Stopping, being quiet, reflecting, hearing, feeling, often praying.” And she thinks it has not only lowered her blood pressure but eased her attention deficit disorder.

“My patience with me is improving,” she said.

Rammohan Rao, a scientist at the Buck Institute in Novato, has also practiced meditation since he was a child and now teaches a weekly meditation class to his colleagues. He's convinced of its ability to help ease pain, improve concentration, strengthen the immune function and prevent depression.

“There's not a single pill or an operating procedure that can produce such immense benefits simultaneously. It is no wonder that people are embracing it and it is becoming mainstream,” said Rao.

His class is the standard meditation model. Participants sit in a comfortable position, close their eyes and focus on their breath. He invites them to “gradually go inward to attain stillness” and then “to gently bring their mind back to their point of focus, the breath, if it happens to wander around.”

Meditation, he said, “is a really simple subject that requires very little instruction outwardly. However, inwardly there is limitless depth one can learn and share from.”

But meditation doesn't take away stress, Rao explained. Rather it helps a person “see and react to stress differently. The person not only has a capacity to transcend the stress, but this person will not evoke the same physical and emotional reactions that are commonly seen in a person who does not meditate.”

Devine, the lawyer, said, “Mindfulness meditation is not a panacea for unhappiness, but a tool to build a healthier outlook on the only thing we absolutely can control — the present. We need to spend more time in the present than our culture traditionally expects us to.”

Along with easing his back pain, he said his daily meditation practice makes him “feel better about myself and my life.”

The act of sitting and letting go of thoughts may sound simple, but getting the mind to slow down doesn't come instantly.

Beginners often get discouraged, said Guillotti, because “they expect all the chatter of the mind to stop immediately. Some students are ready to bolt after the first class.”

Dr. Hope Becklund, a family practice doctor in Sebastopol, said it took her “months and months” of daily practice “before I wasn't fighting the busy chatter.”

Becklund practices for 15 minutes as part of her morning routine. “I sit on the floor on a cushion or in a chair and try to center my thinking,” she said. “Sometimes, I use a candle to focus on.

“I'm an absolutely western traditionalist medical doctor,” she said. “But I also believe in the power of the mind to heal. This is not new-age nonsense or witchcraft. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I know if I haven't meditated, I'm a lot more frazzled.”

Susan Swartz is a freelance writer and author based in Sonoma County. Contact her at susan@juicytomatoes.com.