I used to think it was normal to get sick three or four times a year; every season change would find me commiserating with my friends about the nasty new bug that was going around. I even had to get my tonsils removed in college because the severe sore throats I kept getting were interfering with my singing.
That all changed the day I learned meditation. Once I began meditating twice a day, I did not get sick again for eight and a half years! That’s right—I skipped anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-two total illnesses during that time. Not a cold, not a flu, hardly even a sniffle before my immune system would come to the rescue. (In fact, when I did finally get sick, almost nine years later, it was the night after my bachelorette party, so I feel I earned that one.)
What about you? How many times a year do you come down with something? How much does that cost you in time away from work, missed opportunities, delayed deadlines, and self-imposed quarantine from family?
Nature didn’t intend for us to be sick, tired, and stressed most of the time; in fact, our bodies are equipped with a powerful internal pharmacy designed to keep us healthy. However, stress can overwhelm our bodies and prevent our immune systems from running optimally. When you use your daily Z Technique as a time for stress release, you can use your sleep as a time for sleep. If your brain is not so busy running stress-removing functions during sleep, it has more energy available for immune function. In short, meditation helps get you out of a chronic low-grade fight-or-flight response that puts your immune system on the back burner while your body prepares for an imaginary predatory attack. Once your body realizes there are no large cats lurking nearby, it can convert that wasted energy into an optimal immune response to whatever illnesses you may be facing.
The immune system can be activated by a lot of different things: viruses, bacteria, even the overproduction of mutated cells that lead to cancer. Setting aside time for meditation can calm your nervous system and reinvigorate your immune system so it’s ready to act when you need it. This is good news for your daily life, of course, because no one actually likes getting sick. A healthier you also has a positive impact on your professional and creative life, because your mind is agile, your body is functioning as it was designed to, and you aren’t missing work, meetings, calls with clients, or other important responsibilities.
You perform better when you’re not sick. I know this sounds incredibly obvious, but just because we know intuitively that something is the best course doesn’t mean we always follow through on it. We have all sorts of means of keeping ourselves well, from avoiding handshakes to bathing in hand sanitizer, but if you keep falling ill regardless, it’s worth considering adding another proactive and precautionary measure to your toolbox. I had the honor of teaching a group of physicians and Ph.D. researchers at one of the world’s top hospitals, and the results were extraordinary. Many other hospital groups look to their example, so my hope is that we can start to give doctors more tools to handle their own extraordinary stress levels so they can confidently start to prescribe meditation as frequently as medication. I have had a number of physicians follow my methods, and one of them wrote afterward:
If I could prescribe one thing to every single patient who walks in my door it would be this: Learn a daily meditation practice. It will change your life. It literally rewires the brain, calms the nervous system, and creates new neural pathways via plasticity mechanisms. It lowers stress hormones (like adrenaline and cortisol), lowers heart rate and blood pressure, decreases inflammation, increases focus, and makes you feel centered and grounded, to name just a few benefits. You can do it anywhere and it requires a very small chunk of time with massive results.
Meditation does more for the body than helping to ramp up your immune system and stave off illness, though; it can actually promote healing on a cellular level.
In 2004, Japanese researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto released The Hidden Messages in Water. His book, which quickly became a New York Times bestseller, used microscopic photography to document differences in the formation of ice crystals between water that had been exposed to positive attention, water that had been regularly exposed to negative attention, and a control group. These samples showed distinctions similar to a second experimental group that compared water that came from unpolluted springs and water drawn from contaminated sources. The water molecules that were surrounded by “good” (energetically clean) environments were neatly ordered when viewed under a microscope, and formed beautiful ice crystals; the water that had been surrounded by “bad” (energetically toxic) environments were chaotic under the microscope, and formed ice crystals in far less visually pleasing shapes. Dr. Emoto concluded that if external factors as seemingly abstract as “positive attention” could visibly affect the molecular appearance of water—and given that the average adult human body is anywhere from 50 to 65 percent water—depending on gender and fitness (fat holds less water than muscle) it stands to reason that the external factors and energy that surround us have a similar impact on our physical well-being.
Apply these findings to how our bodies react to being flooded with the stress chemicals adrenaline and cortisol all the time, and you can imagine what kind of memory our cells are carrying. If you begin a daily practice, however, you will be flooding your body with dopamine and serotonin instead, allowing your body to rest—and ultimately heal—on a cellular level.
I must emphasize at the outset that I am not claiming meditation can cure any diseases, and if you’re taking any medication or undergoing treatment for a medical condition, absolutely speak with your healthcare provider before making any changes, no matter how good meditation makes you feel. What meditation can do, however, is work alongside your medical care to supplement and strengthen your body’s ability to heal any ailments you may be dealing with.
The long-term effects of adrenaline and cortisol are no joke. For a start, both are highly acidic (remember that whole thing about your body wanting to taste nasty in case the tiger bites you?). It’s all connected to a brilliant system of defense—brilliant, but harsh on the body if the stress is chronic. In fact, much of our Western lifestyle creates a highly acidic environment within our nervous system, organs, and tissues. The typical Western diet, for example, contains a lot of grain-fed meat; the stomach needs to produce extra acid in order to successfully break down that much animal protein, especially when the animal was raised on a diet that Nature did not design. Even the way we tend to approach exercise—pushing ourselves to the brink in an hour-long cardio class or maximizing our weight and reps to the point of exhaustion or muscle failure—creates a tremendous buildup of lactic acid within the body. This stands in stark contrast to many forms of exercise more commonly practiced in the East (consider yoga, tai chi, qigong, and so on), which tend to be more focused on gentle movement, breathwork, and stretching the body without creating extra internal “heat,” aka acid. All this acid can lead to inflammation throughout the body, and according to Ayurvedic medicine and an increasing number of Western doctors, inflammation is the root of all chronic disease.
Ayurvedic medicine is one of the oldest systems of healing in the world, dating back more than three millennia. It takes a holistic approach to healing the body through food, exercise, and meditation and is rooted in the philosophy that you can be your own doctor if you learn and understand the laws of Nature and how your body, food, and exercise interplay with those laws. In Ayurvedic tradition, every action is either bringing you into balance or pulling you out of balance. Disease is inflammation—truly dis-ease of the body, in which certain elements are out of balance due to inflammation. Ayurvedic medicine is designed to bring all the elements back into balance to help you become vibrant and healthy while realizing your full human potential. Ayur means “longevity” and veda, as we discussed earlier, simply means “knowledge.” Ayurveda, therefore, means “knowledge of longevity.” Ayurvedic medicine is concerned with not only treating sickness but optimizing health and performance through meditation, breathwork, diet, and exercise.
Ayurveda: Veda means “knowledge.” Ayur means “longevity.” So Ayurveda is the “knowledge of longevity” or the knowledge of life; one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful systems of healing. More than a way of treating sickness, Ayurveda is about optimizing health and bringing the body into harmony with its environment.
Ayurvedic Medicine: An ancient body of knowledge focused on a holistic approach to bringing all the elements of the body into balance. It is designed to help you become vibrant and healthy while realizing your full human potential.
Making consciously smarter decisions about what we eat, when we eat, and how active we are is nothing new; most of us know what we should be doing. But most of us aren’t doing it. So how can this book help? In addition to the psychological benefits of starting your day with a healthy habit (making it so much easier to continue on that path and adopt additional healthy habits), the bliss chemicals dopamine and serotonin, which are produced only a few seconds into your meditation practice, are alkaline in nature; their mere presence in the body helps to neutralize some of the acid. In other words, meditation is a way to biologically counteract the acid in your body by making it more alkaline. It’s better living through chemistry, at the most basic and organic level.
By practicing the 3 M’s twice a day every day, you decrease the stress stored in your body, which allows your immune system to function as it is meant to and therefore decreases your susceptibility to illness. This will be your new foundation, but there are also some additional steps you can take to stay healthy throughout the year. Following is a list of some of my favorite “health hacks”:
Black pepper tea: This is an interesting trick my Ayurvedic doctor recommended, and I have used it with great results. When you’re feeling under the weather, or if it’s cold outside and you want to stave off illness, you can make this simple “tea” by boiling water, pouring it into your favorite mug, and adding five or six grinds of organic black pepper. Let all the pepper settle to the bottom of the mug, then drink the water; leave the pepper at the bottom of the mug. The pepper will induce a mild fever and help you sweat out the cold. Do this every two to three hours until your symptoms cease. (Pro tip: It’s best to have black pepper tea with food, as it may cause nausea on an empty stomach. Feel free to add your favorite tea as well—I love Celestial Seasonings’ Bengal Spice.)
Oregano oil: Put a few drops of oregano oil in the back of your throat when you’re sick. Its natural antibacterial and antiviral properties can help knock out a cold or flu if you catch it early enough.1 Caution! Oregano oil is very strong, so don’t let it touch your lips or it may burn. (I imagine the burning sensation killing any unwanted pathogens on its way down.)
Garlic: You may already have a super-easy natural remedy sitting in your kitchen: garlic. Garlic has antiviral and antibacterial properties and can be used for a wide range of ailments. You can eat a clove or chop it into pieces and swallow them like a pill to find relief from cold symptoms or to ward off infection.
Cucumber and Mint: These are simple ingredients you can add to your diet to “cool” your body naturally by decreasing acidity and increasing alkalinity. These are prominent tools for changing the pH of the body in an Ayurvedic diet. They are cooling foods that also have detoxifying properties and can lower the level of acid or “heat” in the body.
Zinc gluconate spray, elderberry syrup, and high doses of vitamin D are also great ways to boost your immune system. (Be sure to check with your doctor before starting any new supplement, and know that the quality of the supplement matters.)
While meditation offers you a way to improve your health on multiple fronts, these Ayurvedic tips may prove helpful to you in combating bacterial or viral illnesses. The trick here is to remember that in the case of meditation, “maximum” is not synonymous with “optimum.”
Short answer: No. As you’ll learn in the coming chapters, the Z Technique is a specific prescription of fifteen minutes two times a day, no more, no less. This is going to be your new norm 99 percent of the time. I lay out the exceptions below; what these exceptions have in common is that they involve an increase in physical demand.
Extra meditation when traveling: It is not natural to wake up on one continent and go to sleep on another. It’s not “bad,” but when you change time zones, you really call on your body’s ability to adapt; the same is true when you move at a faster speed than Nature intended (that is, as fast as you can walk or run on your own two feet). The result is jet lag. We’ve all experienced it, and we all know what a drag it can be when you’re on the road for work and struggle just to make it through those first few days; by the time you’ve adjusted and are ready to perform at your peak, it’s time to pack up and head home—and your best self never even got a chance to shine.
Amazingly, jet-lag reduction is one of the most commonly cited side benefits among Ziva graduates. Student reports (as well as my own personal experiences) indicate that meditation reduces the effects of jet lag to the point of virtually eradicating them. Because your body is able to more easily rid itself of that additional stress from high demand and replenish its supply of adaptation energy, which was burned off so rapidly while you were traveling, it’s able to more quickly adapt and acclimatize to your new environment.
Anytime the human body moves faster than it can run, it burns up adaptation energy. Throw in dehydration, EMF radiation, recycled air, and exposure to countless germs from your fellow travelers, and flying is a perfect storm of sickness just waiting to happen.
Air travel can easily cause or aggravate illness. To combat these additional demands, I recommend you meditate more on travel days. Experiment with the program that follows to see what works best for you.
For a five- to six-hour flight, add two extra fifteen-minute meditations, for a total of four that day. I recommend completing one at takeoff and one at landing. If you have travel anxiety, you can simply meditate before boarding and before landing. It’s not the timing that’s crucial; it’s the very act of meditating more frequently. For a short flight (one to three hours), only one extra meditation is needed. If you’re on a long-haul flight (any flight longer than six hours), add one meditation for each five to six hours of time in the air. Do this every time you fly, and you’ll notice a marked difference in the way your body reacts to air travel. (For other types of travel, such as road trips, train rides, and multiday cruises, add one extra meditation per day of travel.)
Extra meditation when you’re sick: Just as you can do more meditation when traveling because there’s an increase in physical demand, you can also change the rules when you’re sick. If you feel a cold or other illness coming on, add an extra sitting. Giving your body this additional rest will help boost immune function and help you heal. Ideally you incorporate the additional meditation time as soon as you notice that little tickle in the back of your throat, but if you’ve already confirmed with your doctor that you’re full-on sick, you can meditate as much as is comfortable; let your body dictate how long and how often. You’ll know you’re doing too much if you get really emotionally sensitive and find it hard to perform daily tasks.
Migraines. Anxiety. Depression. Infertility. Adrenal fatigue. IBS. Insomnia. These are just a few of the ailments a regular, twice-daily practice can help abate.
I know at this point I must sound like a used-car salesman as I rattle off all the different ailments meditation can ease, but the question shouldn’t be “How can meditation help with so many things?” but “How can stress mess up so many things?” To that end, I’d like to take a look at some of the conditions that meditation has been scientifically proven to help treat, as well as some that, while I can’t provide any scientific evidence to confirm, Ziva students have consistently reported as improved with regular practice.
It is essential to remember I am not a physician and cannot encourage you to decrease your dosage of or eliminate any prescribed medications or other medical treatments. I have had a significant number of students who have found that a regular daily practice helped lessen certain symptoms, and I have worked with their healthcare providers when both patient and doctor were in a place where they felt they would like to try a lower dosage or a gradual weaning off a certain medication. However, this was always under very tightly controlled and supervised circumstances, and only after the doctor was consulted and agreed to the plan. No matter how much improvement you perceive in your health, always consult your healthcare provider before making any changes to your course of treatment.
Burnout and chronic fatigue are epidemic today, and many Ziva practitioners—including me—suffered from one or both before beginning a meditation practice. By easing the body out of a chronic fight-or-flight state, the brain and the stress-response systems of the body are very often able to recover and resume healthy function. I took various herbs and adrenal supplements toward the end of my Broadway career because my adrenals were shot. After about a year of regular meditation practice, as my body’s ability to regulate itself got stronger, I found I didn’t need them anymore.
Different sides of the same coin, depression and anxiety both stem from a chemical imbalance triggered (in part) by an overdevelopment of the left brain. The right brain is in charge of the present, while the left brain reviews the past or rehearses the future. Depression replays the “would have/could have/should have” tapes of the past; anxiety locks onto the uncertainty and unpredictability of the future.
Meditation, as we have already discussed, helps you gain the tools you need to be more strongly rooted in the right now. For sufferers of depression and anxiety, meditation can be a means of helping to reframe and release a constant strain of unpleasant memories or fearful anticipation. By incorporating meditation into a wellness plan that also includes healthy changes to diet, exercise, sleep, and often some kind of counseling or therapy, I have had countless students report that their symptoms were greatly diminished or disappeared altogether.
It’s important to remember, however, that the emotional detox process is a very real stage early in the journey. If you struggle with depression, anxiety, or any other type of mental health challenge, I urge you to consult with a healthcare provider, therapist, or trusted friend to ensure that you have sufficient support as you move bravely through the discomfort of unstressing to a more stable place.
Attention, new meditators! If you’re not looking to get pregnant, you need to wrap it up! This is the warning I issue at the start of all my Ziva courses. Of course, if you do want to get pregnant, then you may be in luck: Meditation seems to have a positive impact on fertility. In fact, we have more than seventy “Ziva babies” and counting!
There are several things that likely account for this. First, there is the matter of unstressing. As any woman who has ever struggled to get pregnant has heard ad nauseam, “Just relax! Forget about trying and just have fun.” Of course, that’s miserable advice for someone who desperately wants a baby and can’t simply erase the fear or the ever-present ticking clock from her brain. For every would-be grandparent or meddling aunt, however, there is good news: The science does seem to support the “just relax” plan. When the human body is in survival mode, it’s focused only on self-preservation, not on perpetuating the species. Just as the immune system is put on the back burner until the immediate threat passes, fertility, too, becomes less of a priority. If the body is not sure it will be able to survive the famine/winter/tiger attack, it’s not as likely to make itself optimally suited for all the beautiful work that goes into physically growing an entirely new human.
Second, a body with an acidic pH will kill off sperm much more quickly than a body with a more alkaline pH, lessening the number of possible candidates to fertilize the egg. The higher the living sperm count, the better the odds of a successful meeting between the two necessary elements.
(And if you do get pregnant, don’t forget to add as many extra meditations as you want. Flooding your baby with bliss chemicals should be as much a part of your daily routine as exercising, taking prenatal vitamins and fish oil, and eliminating alcohol from your diet.)
This was quite a surprise to me, but student after student has reported a decrease in their IBS symptoms within just a few weeks of beginning Ziva. It seems to make sense, however, when you consider that one of the body’s physical responses to a high-demand situation is to flood your digestive system with acid and evacuate your bowels in order to make you lighter on your feet in order to flee. If the body is allowed to recover from being in a perpetual state of fight or flight, it will no longer feel compelled to flood the stomach with acid or evacuate the bowels in the same panicked way, and the muscles of the lower digestive tract will be able to retrain themselves to function in a more regular manner.
A recent study at Wake Forest found that migraine sufferers who adopted a regular mindfulness practice reduced the duration of each headache by an average of three hours compared to a control group. I see this again and again with our in-person and zivaONLINE students—especially if the migraines are induced or exacerbated by stress. My assumption is that it has something to do with the thickening of the corpus callosum and the increased communication between the hemispheres of the brain. Ziva alumni report a decrease of migraine frequency and intensity of, on average, about 85 percent.
I hesitated before adding this to the list because it was just one student and it was such an unexpected response, but what I witnessed was dramatic and moving enough to make a lasting impression on me.
I had two clients, husband and wife, who booked a private course; the man was in his late sixties and had very pronounced tremors stemming from Parkinson’s. On the first day of the course, I gave him his mantra; when he repeated it back to me as instructed, his tremors actually grew more intense, but as soon as he closed his eyes and began to use it silently in his mind, his tremors went away for the entirety of the meditation session and stayed away for five minutes following. Afterward, when we both opened our eyes, he asked me if I had noticed that his tremors had stopped. Not only had I noticed, I found it to be one of the most powerful and moving moments of my career. To see someone experience such an immediate change and profound relief felt like a miracle. It even brought tears to my eyes, which I tried to wipe away before he saw them so as not to make him self-conscious. The next day, he and his wife noticed that the tremors abated for roughly ten minutes after meditation, and the following day for fifteen. This continued until he was enjoying several tremor-free hours each day following his sitting. Synthetic dopamine and serotonin are often used to help calm tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease, so it doesn’t seem at all unlikely that their organic counterparts would have the same (or even better!) effect.
Please don’t mishear me: I cannot and do not claim that meditation can cure Parkinson’s disease. But I do believe that some sufferers can experience a reprieve.
In 2015, a team of neuroscientists at Wake Forest conducted an experiment in which they evaluated people’s perception of pain. Researchers tested this perception by placing a thermal probe heated to 120.2°F on the leg of each participant. The participants’ pain level and emotional state were evaluated to establish a baseline, then each group was given a different form of treatment, either a placebo analgesic cream, audiobooks, “sham meditation” (that is, the instruction to just sit in a chair and breathe), or actual mindfulness training. The scientists found that the mindfulness group experienced a 27 percent reduction in physical pain perception and a 44 percent reduction in their emotional reaction to the pain, including their anxiety about the unpleasant sensation—this was dramatically higher than in the placebo groups, which showed a reduction of only 11 percent in physical perception and a 13 percent decrease in emotional response to that pain on average.2
Fear on top of pain can exacerbate the physical intensity of the pain. (This is the basis for most childbirth classes.) Given the opioid epidemic in the United States today, any possible alternative treatment to highly addictive medications should be explored and encouraged. Meditation offers just that. For a guided meditation for pain management, please visit www.zivameditation.com/bookbonus.
I’ve chosen my words carefully because I don’t want anyone to think for a moment that I’m making outrageous and unsubstantiated claims. I do believe that meditation can help with a whole host of health issues, in terms of both prevention and healing. In some cases, the science is overwhelmingly in favor of a daily meditation practice. In other cases, I am at a loss to explain it, but I can’t deny results I have personally experienced or witnessed with my own eyes, nor the multitude of students all sharing the same experiences. Science is catching up to what meditation practitioners have known for thousands of years. Whatever the case, fewer sick days and less pain translates into more time to get out in the world and make big things happen!
What it comes down to is this: Meditation helps you accept where you are and the possibility of healing. It has been proven to help manage pain, since the bliss chemicals it releases are a natural means of dulling unpleasant sensations. But I believe it has less to do with chemicals and more to do with how mindfulness closes the feedback loop between the brain and body. When you listen to what the body is trying to communicate, you afford it the luxury of not having to yell. Every pain is trying to communicate something to you; if you listen when it whispers, it might not have to scream. That is not to say that meditation is a placebo—quite the contrary: By allowing the mind to destress, it helps the brain do its primary job of healing and protecting the body.
Remember, your body is on your team—it wants to perform to its maximum potential. Again, I don’t believe that Nature intended for us to be sick, tired, and stressed all the time. When you give your body all the tools it needs to succeed—including mindfulness, meditation, and manifesting—it will return the favor by allowing you to enjoy better rest and a stronger immune system, which leads to a healthier, better-performing you.
Eyes-Open Exercise
Cooling Breath
Use this exercise the next time you’re on the verge of losing your cool (read: temper tantrum) or feel like you have too much acid in your belly.
Roll your tongue like a straw, then breathe in for a count of 5 and out for a count of 5, letting both the inhale and the exhale flow through your tongue straw. Allow the sensation of the air moving over your tongue to create a cooling sensation in the body and the belly.
This is a simple but effective way to calm down the next time you feel like you might lose your temper with your kids, a coworker, a customer service rep, or the driver next to you in rush-hour traffic.
Eyes-Closed Exercise
Healing Affirmations
When you’re coming down with or already have an illness, use these healing affirmations as you drift off to sleep. You could record your own voice saying them, or if you prefer to have me guiding you through, visit www.zivameditation.com/bookbonus. This link will also give you access to my very favorite guided visualization for healing.
Ziva Case Study 4
Experiencing Cancer, Not Fighting It
People think that cancer has changed me. I think they’re wrong.
No one knew I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer when I found myself sitting numbly at dinner with friends and couldn’t help but notice something different about the couple sitting across from me. I jokingly asked if they were medicating. “No,” they said, laughing, “we’re meditating.” Knowing what I was about to undertake, I simply said, “I’m gonna need some of that.” That is how I found myself at Emily’s door.
So for me, it all started around the same time: surgery, treatment, chemo, radiation, and meditation. Having never experienced any of those things, I didn’t know what to expect. The first time I really noticed something was physically different after meditating was in the recovery room after surgery. I had just had a port put in to make for easier access to and less wear and tear on my veins during my infusions. As I lay in the recovery room, I listened to the nurses tell my sister that I couldn’t go home until I could eat some food and walk around and my vitals went back to normal. The nurse told my sister she would have a few hours to kill. I heard that, propped myself up, and did my Ziva Technique. Within the hour, to everyone’s surprise, I was good to go. Even the nursing staff was impressed! They said they had never seen someone’s vitals come back so quickly.
In addition to my body reacting to my new meditation practice, I found myself having a profound shift in my attitude, not only to the cancer but also to the treatments themselves, which can be quite harrowing. To say it in the simplest of terms: I surrendered to the treatments instead of fighting them. Surrender doesn’t mean giving up. Far from it. That simple act of surrender replaced the suffering with a sense of calm and well-being. I had the power within me to create what this experience was going to be for me.
Even my girlfriend noticed this shift and saw that I was pretty much living my life as normal. That was a bit concerning for her. It actually prompted her to ask my oncologist if the treatments were working, since I just seemed so normal.
The doctor looked at me and then at her and simply said, “She’s bald. The medicine is working.”
The doctor did take pause. She asked me what I was doing, and when I told her that I was meditating, she nodded and said, “Well, keep it up, because I don’t see people responding to treatments this way very often.”
As I write this, I’m celebrating the two-year anniversary of my last treatment. I believe without a doubt that it is the meditation that changed me, and I am grateful that I was shown this tool when I needed it the most. I believe in the benefits so much, in fact, that I brought Emily to my company and we have introduced meditation to more than seventy-five people at my workplace. How rewarding to see people in the elevator heading down to the meditation room, passing coworkers in the hallway who now carry that “secret weapon” of recharging in the afternoon. I cherish hearing their stories about sleeping better, noticing a different perspective, feeling less stressed, being more productive, and living as overall happier human beings.