New age babble, ancient healing

I was stunned by what was missed in this article. Meditation has worked for centuries to teach a body to calm down. The "whole" of the person begins to work in harmony again, mind, body and spirit. It is not the answer to all of "whole" of a person with PTSD, especially Combat PTSD.

Break Out of the Prison of Your Past
Lilian Cheung, D.Sc., R.D.
Co-Author, 'Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life'
Posted: 07/24/2012

"You are free to be here." -- Thich Nhat Hanh

This simple idea opens a world of relief. We can unburden ourselves of past suffering by realizing that however painful experiences were, they are not happening to us in the present moment. The suffering from the past is a shadow that we allow to haunt us.

The application of mindfulness, the state of being fully present in the here and now, has proved so useful in transforming past pain in to peace that prisons, detention centers and psychotherapists treating veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are increasingly implementing mindfulness-based programs. The results for individuals who participate, and their communities, have been promising.

The Mind Body Awareness Project, a nonprofit organization that offers meditation courses to at-risk youth in prisons and detention centers, conducted a two-year pilot study, which concluded in 2007. Ninety-five percent of participants in their mindfulness programs reported feeling physically better after coming to class. Ninety-three percent reported feeling less stressed, 85 percent felt better about themselves and 78 percent reported sleeping better.
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Meditation helps a veteran re-teach his/her body to calm down again. After training to get the body to go into high alert, experiencing the events of combat and months of not really resting, the body needs help to put things back in balance again. Meditation is vital but so is talk therapy, spiritual healing and often medication.

If meditation is not your thing, then some are helped by doing something as simple as taking long walks with calming music to trap out thoughts that can agitate the body going "on guard" again instead of relaxing. Some find martial arts work. Others find yoga helps, or playing a musical instrument, reading a good book or writing. Anything of natural order helps different people as long as it is calming and not numbing.

I talked to some veterans telling me that drinking does the trick and helps them calm down. They are confused between calming and numbing. Some say they drink to fall asleep but have confused falling asleep with passing out. If you're thinking about drinking instead of doing something listed above, it is not a good idea at all. It will only make PTSD stronger, your wallet leaner, your lawyer richer when you are caught drunk driving and leave you with a hangover.

It could also lead to something like this.

A woman said her ex-boyfriend was sitting on her roof texting her nonstop and had tried to break into her home. Sheriff's deputies took the suspect – a drunken Marine – to Camp Pendleton.