Conventional medical institutions are increasingly embracing healing methods once dismissed as alternative medicine and combining them with standard treatment. Meditation, is among the most popular techniques now going mainstream. ''It's not invasive, it has no side effects, it has tremendous benefits that are very well documented and it's something patients can do on their own so it doesn't cost anything,'' said Dr. Barrie R. Casselith, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Integrative Medicine Service in Manhattan, New York
''It's not a cancer treatment,'' Dr. Casselith quickly added. ''It deals with quality of life and helps with symptoms. It can relieve pain, lower blood pressure and heart rate. It can make people feel calmer, it enhances mood. It does lots of good things.'' Her counterpart at Beth Israel Medical Center, Dr. Woodson Merrell, called meditation ''perhaps the most powerful tool for health.''
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