What’s the most effective stress relief around? It isn’t pills or a glass of wine or beer, it’s meditation! As a long time practitioner, I’ve been amazed at the many beneficial “side effects” of meditation including better sleep, release of fear, and improved self confidence. In my teens and twenties I was plagued with an emotional eating disorder, I was well aware of it but never thought to get help and didn’t know who to turn too ( and this was way before I encountered self help gurus like Ganeen Roth.) At the time I had just started to study yoga. Through my new meditation practice, I began to experience and understand the mind body connection. I learned that thoughts can trigger reactions in the body and even how your body will also react before a thought is formed. As I started to experiment with these connections through my regular yoga practice, I saw the possibility of healing my emotional eating through meditation by recognizing and releasing those triggers. Freed from my emotional eating addiction now, for over 12 years, I still marvel at the power of meditation. Science continues to document other ways that mediation can heal you and upgrade your health.