Welcome to another post where we discuss the many and varied areas of personal Development. In this particular post, I want to share with you the benefits of MEDITATION and how we can best use meditation to improve the quality of our lives. The more popular meditation becomes, the more people discover its many benefits.
What is meditation? Meditation is the continuous process of developing your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts. Meditation can also be used to increase awareness of yourself and your surroundings. It is also a very useful way to reduce stress and develop an increase in concentration.
Meditation can develop other beneficial habits and feelings, such as having a positive mood and outlook, self-discipline, healthy sleep patterns and even an increased tolerance to pain are developed when people meditate on a regular and consistent basis.
So, as you can see, meditation can be an important tool to improve our daily lives. Here are just 10 benefits that can come from habitual meditation:
Improvement of Emotional Health
Some forms of meditation can improve depression and create a more positive outlook on life. Research shows that maintaining an ongoing habit of meditation may help you maintain these benefits long term.
Increasing of Our Attention Span
Meditation is like exercising your muscles, the more you practice meditation the better it is for your attention span. Meditation helps increase the strength and endurance of your attention. As little as four days of meditation may build your ability to redirect and maintain a longer attention span.
Can Generate Kindness
Some types of meditation may particularly increase positive feelings and actions toward yourself and others. Metta is a type of meditation which is known as loving-kindness meditation and begins with developing kind thoughts and feelings about yourself. This type of meditation increases positivity, empathy, and compassionate behaviour toward others.
Helps to Reduce Stress
Stress is one of the most common reasons why people try meditation. As we know, Stress has many effects on our lives and it is these effects that can disrupt sleep, promote depression and anxiety, increase blood pressure and contribute to fatigue and cloudy thinking. Research has shown that regular meditation can improve symptoms of stress-related conditions, including sleep.
Helps to Control Anxiety
Many studies have shown that a variety of different meditation strategies may reduce anxiety levels. Consistent and regular use of meditation helps reduce anxiety and anxiety-related mental health issues like social anxiety, phobias and obsessive-compulsive behaviours.
Improves Self Awareness
Some forms of meditation may help you develop a stronger understanding of yourself and “why you are like you are” and help you grow into your best possible “self”. This is called “Self-inquiry” and these styles of meditation can help you "know yourself." Understanding yourself…or knowing yourself can be a starting point for making other positive changes in your life.
May Help Fight Addictions
Meditation helps develop discipline. The mental discipline you can develop through meditation may help you break dependencies and bad habits by increasing your awareness, and can also help your self-control. This particularly applies to realizing the triggers for addictive behaviours. Meditation develops mental discipline and willpower and can help you avoid triggers for unwanted impulses. This can help you recover from addiction, lose weight, and redirect other unwanted habits.
Improves Sleep
Usually, if you are stressed you often find that your mind is “racing” when trying to sleep. If you can become skilled in Meditation techniques, then you can learn to control your “racing” mind. Meditating can help to relax your body and release any tension, allowing you to enter a more peaceful state. This can also shorten the time it takes to fall asleep.
Helps Control Pain
Our perception of pain is connected to our state of mind. Pain is often elevated in stressful conditions. Meditation can lower the perception of pain in the brain. Meditation can also help treat chronic pain when used as a supplement to medical care or physical therapy.
Helps Decrease Blood Pressure
Meditation can also improve physical health by reducing strain on the heart. Stress, especially continued stress, can lead to high blood pressure, making the heart work harder to pump blood and leading to poor heart function. High blood pressure also contributes to the narrowing of the arteries, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Blood pressure decreases not only during meditation but also over time in individuals who meditate regularly. This can reduce strain on the heart and arteries, helping prevent heart disease.
In summary, the regular or habitual practice of meditation can have enormous benefits to our overall health and well-being. Do you practice meditation? Perhaps the above benefits may be worth considering if you have never tried before… what have you got to lose?
I look forward to covering another Personal Development topic next time.
Mike
