Meditation for a New You in a New Year
New year, new you. But what’s the best way to go about the new you? An Arizona State University neuroscientist says it’s meditation. But not just any kind. Yi-Yuan Tang has studied the brain for more than 30 years. He says that after only five to 10 meditation sessions, your brain can change for the better, bringing a host of benefits. When Tang started his career 30 years ago in medical school, the emphasis was on the Western approach to medicine: medication and surgery.
“But it doesn’t always work for sure,” said Tang, a professor in the College of Health Solutions. “Then I found another important factor we ignore — the psychological contribution to health and disease. So this time I studied psychosomatic medicine. I found a lot of psychological factors contributing to health and disease. So I had a question: Can we help the patient with this kind of approach?”
When Tang was six, he was in a bad accident. He fell from a third floor, breaking his legs and feet. They became infected. Hospital doctors could not cure him and gave up. His father, a professor, found a traditional medicine doctor who healed Tang. That doctor became one of Tang’s first teachers. Tang went on to learn different body-mind methods and techniques from more than 20 teachers. He has been a long-term practitioner of many Eastern traditions, including traditional Chinese medicine, meditation, tai chi, martial arts and the I Ching.
Excerpted from ASU News
