6 Benefits of Practicing Meditation Today

(Here’s how meditation helps you manage stress, anxiety, fear, and sleep troubles so that you can lead a happier life.)

Are you sad?

Do you often feel depressed?

Is your mind filled with disturbing thoughts? You can’t sleep because of the worries of the future?

Well, we all experience such things.

Some people experience them at some point in their lives. For some, it has become part of their lives.

And some common reasons for being worried and stressed are souring relations, ever competitive professional life, and poor finances.

Consequently, we start losing our inner peace and tolerance.

Enter meditation.

Meditation is one of the best ways to calm down your mind and restore your inner peace. It is a habitual process of training your mind to concentrate and redirect the thoughts. Meditation helps you rise above negativity and worries so that you can achieve self-awareness. As a result, you start feeling better and happy.

No wonder why this ancient practice is common in celebs like Angelina Jolie, Eva Mendez, Rupert Murdoch, Russel Simons, and Micahel Jordan.

Here I have rounded up some science-backed benefits of meditation.

1. Improving Your Concentration:

Concentration is an important cognitive ability, especially for developing a problem-solving approach. You need to be entirely focused while making a quick decision based on your thoughts.

Meditation is an effective tool to improve your concentration and attention. According to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, meditation improves concentration by stirring brain functions. The study further states that regular performers of meditation are likely to be more focused than non-meditators.

2. Alleviating Stress:

A 2011 survey revealed that most Americans have moderate to high stress, with 44 percent admitting that their stress levels have gone up over the past five years. The top sources of stress are money, work, job or certain kind of fears.

Stress not only affects one’s social life and behavior, but also triggers certain health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes if left untreated.

Mediation is an age-old remedy to manage stress and anxiety.

It calms down your racy mind, thereby easing blood pressure, pulse rate, and breathing. This way, it promotes blood flow to the muscles. Eventually, you feel relaxed and better.

According to Georgetown University Medical Center’s researchers, people who perform meditation regularly have “sharply reduced stress-hormone and inflammatory responses to a stressful situation.” The study also found meditation better than other stress management courses.

3. Improving Sleep:

Do you have trouble sleeping at night? Or you are suffering from an even worse condition known as insomnia. The daytime sleepiness can make you feel lousy and hinder your productivity, and it may even risk your health.

Why not practice mindfulness meditation to get into your snoozing mode easily?

Meditation calms down your mind that is bogged down with a problem or a to-do list. It helps you focus on your breath and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without leading it to the concerns about the future or past.

A 2015 study by the JAMA Internal Medicine proves this point.

The study was conducted on 49 middle-aged and aged adults who had trouble falling asleep. The research concluded that meditation helped them get a sound sleep as it promoted relaxation.

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4. Sharpening Your Memory:

Meditation has been scientifically proven as the best “remedy” for both long and short term memory. The Association of Psychological Science found that the brain requires a “short wakeful rest” to process and store information in an efficient way. Meditation keeps your brain relaxed as well as wakeful.

According to Harvard University, meditation supports the brain regions that are associated with long and short term memory and attention.

Meditation also improves your ability to concentrate. This, in turn, strengthens your mind. Besides, meditation is a great tool to leverage the power of the subconscious mind that stores the long forgotten information.

5. Enhancing Self-Awareness:

Meditation also helps you “know yourself”. When your self-awareness mode is on, you can have a more positive outlook. Simply put, meditation helps you become your better self. Self-inquiry meditation, for example, helps you develop an understanding of yourself. Some other forms of mediation help you identify “self-destructing” thoughts.

A study of 21 women suffering from breast cancer reported improved self-esteem when they participate in a tai chi program.

Another study was conducted on 40 aged adults who underwent mindfulness meditation programs. All respondents admitted minimized feelings of loneliness than before.

6. Making You Feel Happier:

So far, you have read that…

Meditation reduces stress
Meditation improves sleep
Meditation enhances self-awareness
Meditation improves memory and concentration

And all these positives of mediation lead to a bigger one—a happy, healthier and fulfilled life. It is also worth to mention that meditation increases happy hormones like endorphins and serotonin in your body.

Parting Words…

So you have got some awesome reasons to kick start your meditation session today.

Here’s how you can get started with it.

Choose a calm environment to meditate. There shouldn’t be any distractions around.
Wear comfortable garments.
Make sure to sit in a comfortable position like crossing the legs.
Close your eyes.
Imagine an object you can focus on.
Take and release breathing.

Practice it for ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night. Or you can practice it under an experienced meditation teacher who has completed at least 200 hours training program.

What do you think? Please drop down your opinion to the comment box given below.