We now know that there is a direct relationship between where our attention is focused, what mental tasks we are performing and the resulting electro-chemical brainwave patterns. Differing mental processes such as problem solving, sleeping, dreaming and changing emotions produce different brainwave patterns.

These brainwave patterns change when we take conscious control of our attention and deepen as we consciously isolate our attention on any single focus. The term commonly assigned to consciously controlling where our attention is focused and the resulting brainwave activity is meditation.

It's benefits are many and varied. Meditation can boost your immune system, improve airflow for asthmatics, help manage chronic pain, lower cholesterol levels and dramatically speed healing. Many of these result come from a decrease in stress and anxiety, which is one of the primary results of meditation.

In addition to reduced stress and anxiety, the psychological benefits of meditation include increased self-esteem, better power of concentration, reduced irritability and reduced depression. There is also evidence that meditation may help increase creativity and even intelligence!

We can add to these benefits the fact that by been done underwater, and because of the extra silence and peaceful sensation, increases the feeling of connection and calmness. The silence experienced underwater help us to reach, keep and maintain the focus in our personal goals and objectives. But for this to be more effective it would be more appropriate to take it as a new acquired habit by repetition.

A research on the effects of meditation includes the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University. Some of these insights have emerged in the lab of Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Davidson and his team observe Buddhist monks as they meditate while being scanned by MRI machines.

What the researchers see are brains unlike any they have observed elsewhere. The monks’ left prefrontal cortexes- the area associated with positive emotion- are far more active than in non-meditators brains. In other words, he explained, the monks’ meditation practice, which changes their neural physiology, enables them to respond with equanimity to sources of stress. Meditation doesn’t lobotomize meditators; it simply allows them to detach from their emotional reactions so they can respond appropriately” (Business Week Magazine; August 30; 2004). (download and read more about meditation in our free report 'The Science Behind Meditation)