Meditation helps to balance a person's physical, emotional, and mental states. It is easily learned and has been used as an aid in treating stress and pain management. It has also been used as part of an overall treatment for other conditions, including hypertension and heart disease.

  Meditation has been practiced for several thousand years. It is only during the past three decades that scientific study has focused on its clinical effects on health. During the 1960s, reports reached the West of yogis and meditation masters in India who could perform extraordinary feats of bodily control and altered states of consciousness. These reports captured the interest of Western researchers studying self-regulation and the possibility of voluntary control over the autonomic nervous system. At the same time, new perfections in scientific instrumentation made it possible to duplicate and substantiate some of these reports at medical research institutes. Health care professionals who were often dissatisfied with the side effects of drug treatments for stress-related disorders embraced meditation as a valuable tool for stress reduction, and today both patients and physicians enjoy the health benefits of regular meditation practice.