In today’s modern world, where everyone is in a rush to achieve their goals, it is easy to get stressed and anxious over small situations or even circumstances that a person has no control over. If you relate, then meditation is just the perfect thing for you. It will work like a cure for your stress and help you stay calm by removing all the negative and unwanted thoughts from your conscious mind.
Meditation is an ancient practice that includes various kinds of breathing exercises. It is thousands of years old and contains hundreds of forms of meditation that people from all over the world have been practising for a very long time. This simple practice has such great effects on a human’s mind and body that it has grabbed the attention of many scientific minds. Since the 1950s, various kinds of studies have been done on meditation to understand its miraculous results that can completely transform a person by making them less aggressive, more alert, calmer, and more collected human beings. It has so many advantages that every person should take some time out of their daily lives for meditation.
When a person meditates regularly, they begin to notice the changes in their behaviour patterns as their mind becomes clear of any unwanted thoughts and worries and rapidly rises in their awareness. It has also been seen that practising meditation regularly can also help relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression. Here, we will help you understand meditation and discuss 11 great benefits of meditation. We will also provide you with some great meditation tips.
1. Helps In Reducing Stress
Mediation has been widely popular for this particular benefit. Stress is caused by a rise in cortisol, which is also known as the stress hormone. This releases a harmful inflammatory chemical called cytokines. Lots of people often start to meditate because it helps in reducing their stress. There is a meditation technique called “mindfulness meditation,” which directly affects the inflammation caused by being stressed. During meditation, a person generates a sense of relaxation in both the body and mind. This prevents the person from having intrusive thoughts, which eventually become the reason for stress and depression.
2. An Antidote To Anxiety
Stress is directly related to other mental issues, like anxiety. Once a person is able to reduce their stress levels, they will be able to control their anxiety. It is found in studies that people who started doing meditation were able to decrease anxiety. This is a perfect antidote for people who suffer from high levels of anxiety and have frequent panic attacks. Meditation can have such a positive impact on a person’s life that people who have been suffering from depression and anxiety for more than a year are able to feel better by doing meditation for just 9 weeks.
3. Enhancing Emotional Well-Being
Meditation has a great impact on emotions. It can develop a positive way of looking at things as it stops all kinds of negative thoughts that keep repeating in a person’s head. This also helps the person have positive emotions like happiness, joy, gratitude, and mercy. It can also lead to improving self-image. Having positive emotions and reactions to people and things also plays a big role in making the relationship better with your loved ones. By doing meditation regularly, a person also develops emotional intelligence (EI). This helps a person better understand other people’s feelings and be patient with them.
4. Enhances Self Awareness
Self-awareness is when a person recognises their character, feelings, and behaviours. Every time a person meditates, they train themselves to raise their self-awareness. It increases the power of a person’s concentration if the person continuously focuses their attention on either an object or breathing. Using the breathing technique, the person removes all the distractions from their brain. Individuals also learn to monitor their thoughts and feelings, and instead of overreacting to situations, they practice staying calm and in control of themselves. It also helps in increasing body awareness as they start to observe any kind of physical sensations and discomforts that happen in their body.
5. Extended Attention Span
If a person is having trouble focusing on things or keeping their attention in one place, then it is time for the individual to start meditation. This will help extend their attention span, which will eventually be beneficial for plenty of other things that the person does in their personal and professional lives. Being able to pay attention to the right things will help increase productivity and also enhance the ability to focus. Meditation helps in creating a deeper bond between mind and body and also has the benefit of reducing performance anxiety. This keeps the person in a calm and collected state throughout the day.
6. Cognitive Advantages
Meditation is also considered as a workout for the brain. It is incredibly beneficial for a person’s mind, as it has lots of advantages for cognitive skills. This increases the observation powers and makes learning anything new quite easy. Advanced cognition also helps in understanding things better, like a piece of new information, and also helps in adapting to sudden changes in situations. It enhances problem-solving ability and helps understand complex patterns. One of the biggest advantages is that it improves the memory of the person.
7. Improving Sleep Patterns
Lots of people in the world have been suffering from a mental illness called insomnia. This is a sleep disorder that has become quite common. It causes a person to either wake up too early or have trouble falling or staying asleep. Getting involved in meditation helps a person have a good sleep. It reduces the levels of cortisol, which prevents a person from having anxious thoughts. Practising meditation can help release all the tension and keep you in a restful state, which becomes a great weapon to fight against insomnia.
8. Boosting Energy Levels
Many people find it hard to believe that meditation, which helps a person to feel relaxed and improves in focusing can also boost a person’s energy levels. However, it is actually a fact that in the studies done by the University of Waterloo in 2017, it was found that people who practice mindfulness meditation tend to increase their energy levels just after meditating for only 30 minutes. It is highly recommended that a person should meditate early in the morning to have an energetic start to the day.
9. Helps In Control Pain
Mediation also has the ability to benefit a person’s body on a cellular level. There are many physical health advantages that a person can acquire through meditation. One of the biggest benefits is that it helps control pain. Meditating every day changes the internal structure of the brain, which is responsible for managing the levels of pain. People who often meditate are able to control chronic pain way better than people who don’t meditate. It also encourages the person to accept the pain and be patient under unbearable circumstances, like suffering the pain of losing a loved one.
10. Managing Blood Pressure
Mindfulness Meditation has a direct connection to managing blood pressure. It helps in improving overall physical health, which eventually helps in reducing the strain on a person’s heart. When someone suffers from high blood pressure, their heart has to work harder to pump blood, which eventually results in poor heart function. It also becomes the reason for a person to have a disease called atherosclerosis, which can lead to dangerous problems such as heart attacks and strokes. Many people, especially the elderly, who started doing meditation were able to control their blood pressure as meditation helped them relax the nerve signals that correspond with the function of the heart.
11. Breaking Addiction And Recovery
Mediation is a practice of both mind and body that helps a person attain a state of calmness and relaxation. This helps the person reduce stress, which is the main reason for the hunger to do drugs or drink alcohol. Meditation regularly makes you mentally disciplined and offers great help in breaking any kind of addiction, and also supports in recovering the body from the damage caused by bad habits. Lots of rehabilitation centres have meditation practice programmes, as this helps their patients increase self-control and stop having impulses from their addiction.
Tips On How To Meditate
Now that you have learned the incredible benefits of meditation, you must be willing to start your meditation journey. However, before you begin, here are a few tips that you should know so that you will be able to meditate properly and without having any difficulty.
1. Schedule A Time For Meditation: In this busy world, it is hard to take time out for meditation. So the first thing you need to do is create a scheduled time for meditating. As a beginner, you should try to meditate for 15 to 20 minutes at the beginning. Always remember that meditation only works best when you practise it regularly.
2. Choose A Comfortable Place: You will need to find a place where you can sit comfortably. Meditation does not require any kind of special type of equipment; you can either sit on the floor in a cross-legged position or you can use a yoga mat, a rug, or a towel. Many people like to sit on their bed, sofa, or chair for meditation.
3. Begin Your Meditation: Once you are sitting comfortably, you can commence your meditation. First, you need to close your eyes and simply put your attention into breathing. You need to keep your breathing steady; it should neither be fast nor slow. You can do it by simply counting “one, two, three” while breathing in and breathing out.
4. Problems While Focusing The Mind: In the beginning, it is quite natural that your mind will wander around. However, you need to understand that it is quite a normal thing for beginners. Many people start to have negative thoughts and have trouble focusing, which causes them to fail to meditate properly. Even people who have been meditating for a long time have trouble concentrating continuously. The important thing is to bring your focus back to your breathing.
5. Obtain Mindfulness In Meditation: It is very important for you to be in a state of mindfulness. This allows you to focus on the present moment. To obtain this state, you need to close your eyes and put your concentration on your other senses like hearing and feeling. By doing this, you create a strong connection between your mind and your body.
6. The Proper Way To End Your Meditation: When you achieve your target of meditating for 20 to 30 minutes, make sure that you do not break your meditation instantly. You need to stay in the meditative position with your eyes shut for a couple of minutes. Then slowly open your eyes and keep seated for a little longer. After that, gradually stand up from your place.
When you finish your meditation, it will not only make you feel calm and relaxed but will also give you a sense of accomplishment.
Final Thoughts
There is a lot of research that has proven that meditation is quite beneficial for a person’s health. It has plenty of advantages physically, mentally, and emotionally. This simple yet effective practice can be done by anyone to improve their mental and emotional health. The best thing is that a person can do it anywhere. Here, you have learned about meditation and the amazing benefits it provides, from reducing stress levels and anxiety to increasing self-awareness and attention span.
Additionally, it helps with a person’s sleep patterns and enhances their energy levels. This also plays a big role in making a person face tough and painful times while maintaining normal blood pressure and destroying all the bad additions. Meditating can be quite a challenging thing for a beginner, but with regular practice and passing time, this journey will become easy and enjoyable.
Frequently Asked Questions
The true purpose of meditation is to understand your brain and create a much deeper connection with your mind, body, and soul. There are multiple meditation techniques that play a big role in achieving your goal and true purpose for meditation. According to the research done by Vedic science, the neurological and physiological systems get connected while a person is meditating.
The most important thing about meditation is to focus your attention. This helps in keeping your mind away from any unwanted thoughts, stress, and worries. You can focus your attention on any kind of object, like the flame of a candle or an image of a Yantra. You can either close your eyes and chant a mantra or focus on your breathing.
There are nine types of meditation that are considered the most popular and powerful practices. The names of these meditations are:
1. Mindfulness Meditation
2. Focused Meditation
3. Mantra Meditation
4. Progressive Relaxation
5. Spiritual Meditation
6. Transcendental Meditation
7. Movement Meditation
8. Visualisation Meditation
9. Loving-Kindness Meditation
When a person starts to meditate, the most common problem they face is restlessness. This mostly happens because the person is not used to sitting in that posture for a long period of time. When the person’s attention gets deeper into meditation, they start to become aware of all the discomfort that their body is facing, which will eventually end up in breaking the meditation.
Samadhi is the name of the deepest state of meditation. It is a state where a person is at the peak of meditation. If a person wants to reach this state, then they need to practice a lot for many years. Those people who were able to reach this state described that they had experienced an ultimate level of concentration. Their minds were completely still and clear of any kind of thought. They were able to sense a connection between everything that they were surrounded by.
India is the most famous country for meditation. This is also the birthplace of meditation, which has been practised for a very long time. Many world-famous meditation techniques, like Vipassana and transcendental meditation, were invented in India. People from all over the world visit India to learn more about meditation.