Meditation is a growing wellness practice that benefits the mind, body and spirit. It’s being practiced by everyone from professional athletes to celebrities, military service men and women and children alike – from athletes to celebrities!
Meditating can help you relieve stress, enhance attention and memory, as well as promote better sleep quality. Furthermore, meditation encourages deeper self-awareness and greater willpower.
1. Reduces Stress
Meditating regularly can help reduce stress. Not only does it lower stress levels, but it may also benefit chronic diseases and conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mental health disorders too.
Studies have demonstrated that meditation can reduce stress hormones, promote emotion regulation and strengthen memory-related areas of the brain. Additionally, it may increase focus, boost willpower and improve sleep quality.
Meditation can reduce stress by activating the relaxation response, an opposite involuntary reaction to the fight or flight response that slows breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. Over time this response helps protect against stress-related illnesses like high blood pressure or atherosclerosis.
2. Reduces Anxiety
Meditation has long been recognized as a beneficial way to reduce anxiety levels. A recent study revealed that those who practiced mindfulness meditation, which involves being aware of thoughts and emotions, were less likely to suffer from symptoms related to anxiety than those who didn’t.
If any anxious thoughts arise, gently acknowledge them, but then return your focus back to the breath.
Meditation offers many different styles, so the key to finding one that works for you is consistency in practice. Once you find what works best for your lifestyle, make it a habit of regularly engaging in mediation.
3. Increases Focus
Focus is an invaluable skill in everyday life. It not only helps you get things done but also prevents your mind from wandering to negative thoughts that lead to stress and anxiety.
Meditation helps increase focus by teaching the brain how to stay in the present moment and quickly refocus on an object of attention when distracted. This process is known as mindfulness.
Recent research revealed that meditators had higher levels of activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPMC) than non-meditators, which was linked to test performance.
4. Increases Creativity
Everyone knows meditation reduces stress and anxiety, but a lesser-known benefit of meditation is its ability to enhance creativity – especially for those working in creative fields.
Many studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of mindfulness on creativity by sharpening one’s capacity to observe and focus. This crucial skill can enhance divergent thinking – an essential ingredient in creative thought.
Studies have also demonstrated that meditation enhances insight problem-solving, or the spontaneous discovery of a solution without recourse to mental tricks or strategies. This process is commonly referred to as creative intuition.
5. Reduces Depression
Meditation has been shown to alter certain brain regions associated with depression. One such region is the “me center,” which focuses on yourself, your thoughts and feelings.
The other is your “fear center,” which activates when faced with danger. This response stimulates your adrenal glands to produce cortisol – a stress hormone that aids in fighting or fleeing an invisible threat.
Meditation can alter the way your brain communicates with your body, decreasing negative stress responses and helping you maintain a healthier mental state of mind. This could potentially manage depression symptoms and prevent relapses.
