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Meditation is an art of focusing upon an object, sound, visualization, the breath, movement, or attention itself in order to increase awareness of the present moment, reduce stress, promote relaxation, and enhance personal and spiritual growth. We frequently hear that meditation is good for health. Well, it does come loaded with several health benefits. There are scientifically proven benefits of meditation, from relaxation to mental peace, meditation has an endless list of physical and mental health benefits.
Here are the major health benefits of meditation that can enrich your soul:
Although meditation has gained more of a spiritual recognition, there are several health benefits which it offers. Some of the important benefits are:
Mental benefits
- Improved focus – Meditation is a practice of focusing your attention and controlling your wandering thoughts. This is a long lasting effect which comes through regular practice, and it improves your focus even when you are not meditating. Many sports professionals practice meditation to improve their performance.
- Creative Harmony – The space of calmness, vastness and joy develops with meditation which you emit back to the environment in the form of creative ideas.
- Powerful memory – Meditation sharpens your mind and boosts your ability to recall things faster. You can absorb more information even from a limited exposure to outside situations.
- Emotional steadiness – Meditation cleanses you from within and nourishes you to a large extent. It calms you down when are overwhelmed or unstable or emotionally feeling low or shut down.
- Peace of mind – This is one of the major benefits of practicing meditation. As you all know that stress contributes to many serious diseases, it must be controlled through meditation. You tend to become more optimistic after 8 weeks of meditation. Your performance improves even while you are stressed and your problems tend to fade away as your happiness increases.
- Higher compassion – A higher end of compassion and sympathy is seen in those people who meditate on a daily basis.
- Reduced anxiety – Pretty technical but an interesting fact about meditation is the loosening of connections of certain neural pathways which are responsible for anxiety. Thus, you do not react excessively to certain sensations which can lit up strongly in the absence of meditation.
Your overall cognitive ability increases with regular meditation. As you start learning more about yourself through meditation, you discover the real you, and that brings a true personal transformation.
Physical benefits
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Improved body luster – When you focus on a particular body part during meditation, the blood flow to that part increases, supplying excess oxygen and nutrients to it, leading to glowing skin. As a result, you look younger than your age.
- Improved blood pressure – Meditation is good for people with hypertension as it lowers the blood pressure.
- Reduced pain – Any tension-related issues such as a headache, ulcer, muscle or joint pains, etc. decrease with meditation.
- Reduced sleep disturbances – Meditation helps you to have a good night’s sleep which ultimately improves your day’s performance.
- Healthy pregnancy – If you are a soon-to-be mother, your connection with the baby intensifies through meditation. Also, after delivering the baby, you can refocus on the precious things by overcoming those mixed thoughts and feelings running through your brain regarding a new motherhood.
How to meditate?
There are different ways to meditate. You can meditate by focusing on some specific thing, for example, your breath or any of your body part or an external object. This type of meditation technique helps you to bring back your wandering thoughts to your focal point. Alternately, you may constantly say a mantra internally or stare at an object in front of you.
The other method is called the open-monitoring meditation where you pay attention to everything happening around you but do not react.
When to meditate?
It is preferable to meditate in the early morning hours, which if not possible you can also meditate in the evening hours. Meditate in a quiet place, which could be either an open garden or a closed room. Keep trying until you succeed with a particular method.
Meditation is of course not easy but is a simple practice. Initially, it may be difficult for you to focus for a long time. So, start with a 2-minute meditation in the beginning and you can gradually increase it to more time with consistent practice. Give a pause to all the unnecessary works and enjoy these refreshing few minutes every day in your life.
So, if you want to experience the benefits of meditation, you must practice it regularly. Just a few minutes of meditation every day can do wonders! Cultivate this seed called ‘Meditation’ and get the blossoms out to enrich your life!
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