There's nothing unique about meditation. Physiologically, it is called the relaxation response, and its opposite is the stress response. With the relaxation response there is decreased metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, rate of breathing, slower brain waves. That's been proven repeatedly in studies. Benson says yoga, tai chi, Lamaze breathing, and repetitive prayer such as the rosary can do the same.
Repetition is key to creating the response.
The other feature is, when other thoughts come to mind when you do a repetition, simply let them go and come back to the repetition. The bottom line is that any condition that's caused or exacerbated by stress can be alleviated, says Benson. And that's why the relaxation response is useful. Chapman is a pain therapy specialist, psychologist, and professor at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. There's a lot of evidence in the research literature that pain tends to be worse when people are anxious, or when their muscles are tight.