Meditation: The Amazing Benefits For Mind and Body

Meditation is a practice that involves the conjugation of the mind and body to attain a state of calmness and redirect one’s thoughts. Meditation helps in different ways, it increases physical relaxation, and psychological balance promotes coping with illness and enhances the overall wellbeing of a person. It is considered a habitual process that involves training your mind to focus and redirect thoughts.

Meditation is a good and necessary habit

So, if we want to say in simpler words, meditation is a practice that helps in building concentration. But it is not the only benefit of meditation. There are numerous beneficial factors that are related to meditation. But you need to keep in mind certain facts, and they are as follows;

• Meditation is a habitual exercise, and one needs to develop the habit of meditation. It is like teaching a new skill to oneself. Meditation requires patience and dedication. Because the effect of meditation cannot be seen immediately, therefore, it requires patience and dedication to bring out the best results. The initial phase of developing a habit of meditation will be hard but you will start then you will find it easier.
• Whenever a person wants to start, they need to start with the small steps. For instance, you can start meditating for about 5 minutes a day and repeat it three times a week. After developing the habit, I gradually increase my meditating timing. Many of you wait for the right time to go for meditation.
• Different sources recommend different ‘ideal times’ to meditate. But it is nothing like that, you can have your meditation’s ideal time when you can make your meditation work. Hence, if a person is trying to meditate and because of the disruptive time he or she cannot do the proper meditation, this results in the development of the feeling of frustration as well as unmotivating. Therefore, you can try meditating at different points of time in the day. It can be in the morning or in the middle of work or it can be right before heading to bed.
• Once you get comfortable with the time, then the next thing you need to figure out is the meditating position. You need to choose a comfortable position that you can hold. Many people perform meditation in difficult positions, you do not need to perform meditation in those positions if you are not able to hold yourself. Know your limit and then always remember that comfort is much more important than looking like you are meditating.
• If you are facing difficulty in focusing while meditating, then for your help there are certain apps that allow and help you to meditate. And even after trying all the things and it is not working out then do not impose it forcefully. It is completely normal because your body needs time to adapt to new habits.

What are the benefits of meditation?

When we talk about the benefits of meditation, we come to know that it influences your focus and redirects your thoughts. Moreover, it also has health benefits as well. There are several factors that are listed below;

• Reduces stress – meditation helps in reducing stress. Many people’s main reason for meditation is to deal with their stress. When you go through stress your body produces a hormone called cortisol. It causes many harmful effects of stress, such as the release of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines. These further develop into problems such as:

• Disrupt sleep
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Increase blood pressure
• Fatigue
• Unable to focus or think clearly

• Controls anxiety – meditation helps in reducing the stress level that directly affects the anxiety level. In simpler words, it also helps in reducing the anxiety level of an individual. Apart from this, a research study that has been conducted found that 8 weeks (about 2 months) of mindfulness meditation helped in reducing the anxiety symptoms in people that come under the category of generalized anxiety disorder. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a type of disorder in which people worry uncontrollably about common problems and situations. Therefore, it is acknowledged that habitual meditation directly affects anxiety levels, and it enhances and improves stress reactivity as well as coping skills.

• Promotes emotional health – meditation also helps in promoting the emotional health of an individual. That means that it restricts negative thoughts as well as depressed ideas that can diverge the emotional state of an individual. A study that has been conducted shows that people who completed a meditation exercise experienced fewer negative thoughts in response to viewing negative images. Apart from this it also helps in reducing depression. Thus, we can say that meditation not only helps in reducing depression but also helps in controlling negative thoughts as well.

• Enhances self-awareness – when you meditate you can focus on things that give your insight about your own self as well. And this results in developing a stronger understanding of one’s own self. Apart from this, there are other forms as well that make you recognize thoughts that may be harmful or self-defeating. The idea is that as you gain greater awareness of your thoughts and habits, you can steer them toward more constructive patterns and bring out the best outcomes.

• Lengthens attention span – meditation is like a weight training exercise that strengthens your attentiveness. It enhances the strength and endurance of your attention. There are several research studies that have been conducted which prove that people who meditate have higher capabilities in understanding tasks and completing them as compared to other people who do not meditate.

• Aids in age-related memory loss – when you meditate, your brain functionality increases. This increment further enhances the capabilities of problems that are related to memory loss. This memory loss is age-related memory loss. With the proper and improved focus, you can gain memory boost and mental clarity and thus it results in the prevention of age-related memory loss and dementia.

• Bring out positivity – meditation also helps in maintaining a feeling of positivity. That also enhances the attribute of kindness. Kindness and positivity here mean positive feelings and actions toward yourself and others. A study has been conducted that shows meditation increases compassion towards themselves and others.

• It helps to fight addictions – meditation plays an important role in fighting off addiction. When you try to focus on things that need your focus you can steer yourself in the right direction. Many studies show that meditation develops a type of mental awareness, and this can help you to manage those unwanted impulses.

• Improves sleep – these days everybody is facing the problem of insomnia. Insomnia is a type of sleep disorder. A study that has been conducted shows that people who meditated stayed asleep longer and had improved insomnia severity.

• Helps to control pain – according to an analysis, meditation plays a major role in controlling pain. People who meditate experienced the same type and causes of pain as non-meditators. But one thing that distinguishes between them is that the coping power of a meditator is comparatively high than that of a non-meditator.

• It helps to decrease blood pressure – meditation helps in maintaining overall health. It also helps to maintain heart health. It reduces the strain on the heart. high blood pressure makes the heart work harder to pump blood, which can lead to poor heart function. Research that has been conducted states that meditation helps in maintaining heart health and precisely it helps in maintaining blood pressure. Meditation allows you to relax your nerve signals that coordinate with the heart thus resulting in the reduction of strain on the heart as well as on arteries.

• Accessible anywhere – the best thing about meditation is that it is very accessible. In simpler words, it does not require any specialized equipment or space. If you want to meditate you just need to choose a form or position and start meditating.

Therefore, it is justified that meditation can improve the mental, emotional, and physical health of an individual. You can perform it anywhere. It does not require any type of equipment. Building good and healthy habits is always a good thing.