Meditation may minimise your stress levels and result in a calmer, more focused version of yourself. People worldwide have been using different mediation methods to manage their anxiety levels and so much more. Let’s go over the top 5 benefits of meditation.
Besides being a practice for spiritual enlightenment, meditation is scientifically proven to benefit the mind and body.
What Exactly Is Meditation?
Meditation has many forms. As stated above, there are different ways to practise it.
Essentially, meditation is the exploration of the unconscious mind. Most meditation is practised in silence or with the help of relaxing sounds. These can be found on YouTube.
The person practising will sit or lie in a comfortable position, with eyes closed, and focus their attention on the thoughts floating around in the mind. It is reflective practice and can be done alone or in a group (usually led by a yogi or meditation master). Meditation uses breathing techniques to release tension.
Other popular types of meditation are concentration, heart-centred, mindfulness, Tai Chi and qigong. Another option is the lesser-known walking meditation, which works by synchronising your steps and breaths, creating unity in the body.
Transcendental meditation is a meditation that has the person focus on one word. Focusing on this word helps declutter the mind and helps with obsessive, stressful thought patterns.
To meditate, create a comfortable space for yourself to sit and focus on the air entering and exiting your nose and abdomen. It is normal for your mind to try and wander the first couple of times.
Health Harvard explains that heart-centred meditation involves quieting the mind and bringing awareness to the heart, an energy centre located in the middle of the chest.
Mindfulness meditation takes a unique approach to combating stress by focusing on negative thoughts. Practising mindfulness is encouraged them to focus objectively on their fears and ‘bad feelings.’
This helps to get to the root of the thought and see what triggers the negative feeling. It can also assist in solving complex issues that may be causing stress.
What Are The Benefits Of Meditation?
Eastern medicine has long proclaimed the health benefits of including meditation in a daily routine.
In the last decade, many people have become interested in spiritual awakening, and mindful meditation has become very popular. Even celebrities are proclaiming the benefits of different meditative practices.
A research review published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2014 found that meditation helps relieve anxiety, pain and even depression.
Burke Lennihan, a registered nurse and teacher of meditation at the Harvard University Center for Wellness, says: “Meditation will help you lower your blood pressure and can help your creativity, intuition, and connection with your inner self.”
Assists The Nervous System
It has been proven that meditating daily affects the sympathetic nervous system. According to Healthline, meditation controls blood pressure by relaxing your nerve signals that coordinate the heart function, the tension in blood vessels and the “fight-or-flight” response.
Meditation has many other benefits, particularly for the body. It helps gain clarity and can alleviate the effects and causes of specific stressors, but there are other recorded benefits too.
Focus
Students who meditate study better and get higher marks for exams. Meditation improves posture by giving awareness to each part of the body. Many people have reported better focus and less chronic pain, which results in a better mood.
Stress Relief
One of your options is ‘Transcendental Meditation.’ This practice is a form of meditation that relieves stress and minimises anxiety, reducing the devastating effect of stress on the body.
Living In The Moment
Comedian and actor Russell Brand, who also practices TM, explained to TM Home, “You take a word given to you by your teacher, and whenever you realise that you are not thinking of that word, you return to it. Eventually, the mind kind of syncs into a state of deep awareness where you are not continually involved in the structure of the inner narrative.”
He continues that meditation has taught him to be present.
People tend to be focused on the mistakes of the past and on the things that need to be done in future. But being present is essential. “I noticed that part of the point of meditation is to return myself continually to the present moment. To watch how I have a mental tendency to think about something from the past or project to something in the future. This kind of inability to just be present at the moment.”
Meditation Promotes Emotional And Mental Health
Different types of meditation can lead to an improved self-image and a more positive outlook on life.
In a review of meditation-based treatments given to over 3,500 adults, it was found that mindfulness meditation helped improve symptoms of depression.
Additionally, a review of 18 studies found that people receiving meditation therapies experienced reduced symptoms compared with those in a control group.
Those who completed a meditation exercise experienced fewer negative thoughts in response to viewing negative images.
The body releases inflammatory chemicals called cytokines in response to stress. These can affect your mood and lead to depression if they are released too often. Many studies suggest that meditation can also reduce depression by decreasing levels of these inflammatory chemicals.
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