Introduction
“Meditation means dissolving the invisible walls that unawareness has built.” – Sadhguru.
Meditation involves focusing on breathing or body sensations. The goal is to reduce negative thoughts and feelings and focus on positive ones. In addition to improving mental well-being, meditation has been shown to boost immune system function, decrease blood pressure, and lower stress levels.
People from different fields of life are now practicing it to achieve peace, calmness and clarity within themselves.
Did you know that meditation helps improve health conditions such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, heart disease, and cancer?
A recent study found that meditation could significantly affect brain chemistry and physiology in patients who had experienced chronic pain. This suggests that meditation can be helpful for those suffering from chronic pain.
Meditation is the practice of focusing attention on something other than everyday thoughts. It involves training the mind to focus on a single object, such as breathing or repeating a mantra.
If you want to meditate today, these are the top seven reasons you should begin.
- Reduces Stress
Our bodies produce cortisol, a steroid hormone that regulates stress and our natural fight-or-flight response, among many other functions, when confronted with a challenging or stressful situation. Chronic stress can result in persistently high amounts of cortisol, negatively affecting your immune, digestive, and cardiovascular systems and overall health. Meditation can help lessen the consequences of chronic stress on the body by concentrating on calming the mind and controlling emotion.
- Sharpens Memory
Though stress relief and anxiety reduction are two of meditation’s most well-known benefits, it can also change your brain structure. According to one study, meditation increases the grey matter in your brain. The hippocampus, the area of our brains associated with memory, is protected by grey matter, which is essential for good brain cognition.
- Improves immune system
Regular meditation helps lower the body’s stress response, leading to less inflammation and a lower risk of chronic pain, exhaustion, and heart disease.
- Anxiety reliever
By controlling breathing and slowing down racing thoughts, meditation can help combat the consequences of anxiety, which are frequently described as overpowering sensations of fear, concern, and tension. This, in turn, helps to relax the nervous system.
- Regulates blood pressure
Meditation can reduce high blood pressure when combined with healthy lifestyle practices, including a balanced diet and exercise.
- Improves sleep pattern
Regular practice of meditation can help in better sleep and decreases the effect of insomnia and fatigue.
- Addiction Management
People with substance use disorders can manage triggers or perhaps avoid relapse with meditation since it increases a sense of calm, present, and reduced tension. Additionally, studies have shown that meditation can help people with substance use disorders maintain their sobriety and reduce their propensity for using drugs to cope with other mental health issues like stress or anxiety.
Conclusion
Various types of meditations vary in terms of duration and intensity. Some include mindfulness meditation, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, etc., providing several health advantages to meditation, from reducing stress to enhancing focus and memory.
So, sit in a quiet place, concentrate on your breathing and mind and cultivate positivity and self-awareness.