Meditation: How to Meditate And Its 8 Amazing Benefits
The popularity of meditation is increasing day by day in this modern world because of its health benefits both physically and mentally.
Meditation is a process or practice where an individual uses techniques to control their thoughts such as mindfulness or focusing on one object which helps in achieving a mentally clear and calm state.
People practice meditation to turn their negative thoughts into a positive one, healthy sleep habits to have a positive outlook on their life.
This article will help and let you know how to meditate and its 8 amazing benefits.
How to Meditate
1) Find a quiet place.
2) Sit on the floor on your yoga mat or you can sit on a chair (people with knee injury).
3) Relax, loosen up your body and close your eyes.
4) Don’t control the breath, just breathe naturally.
5) Focus on your breath on how your body moves with each inhalation and exhalation.
You may get distracted by your thoughts, don’t resist it, just keep your mind calm and let it go, with your continuous focus on your breath.
Do it step by step regularly for at least 20 minutes to get better result.
Amazing benefits of meditation
Meditation is like a seed, you reap what you sow. If meditation is practiced regularly with your whole heart you will definitely get beneficial result.
lets discuss about the 8 amazing benefits of meditation.
1) Improves Focus And Concentration
As we all know meditation is a practice where an individual uses techniques to control thoughts, therefore it helps you focus on the present which improves concentration in any kind of task in your daily life.
It improves willpower skills, focus and stress management. Meditation changes the structure and function of the brain to support self control.
Here’s a study which shows how mindfulness meditation helps in improving concentration and decision making.
2) Lower Stress
Regular practice of meditation also lowers the levels of cortisol- Stress Hormone, which helps in making you more relax.
During the practice of meditation repeating a mantra, a word or a phrase gives a calming effect which helps you shifting your focus away from distracting thoughts by concentrating on your mantra.
Transcendental meditation is also a similar form of meditation where to keep yourself focused you silently repeat a word or sound and as a result you reach a complete state of calmness and stability.
Here are some latest news and study which shows the effects of transcendental meditation on a person’s body.
3) Manage Depression And Anxiety
As we came to know that meditation reduces the level of stress, therefore this translates to less anxiety.
Regular practice of meditation helps you focus on the present, making you less pondering over anxious thoughts which lead to depression.
Meditation can be a big help for people suffering from anxiety and depression. As depression can involve dark thoughts where you might feel hopeless, worthless or angry at life (or at yourself), meditation helps change your response to negative thinking. It teaches you to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings without passing any judgment or criticizing yourself.
Here is a study by Harvard Medical School which says meditation changes certain brain regions that are specifically linked with depression.
4) Lower Blood Pressure
Meditation not only helps in improving mental health but physical health as well.
High blood pressure leads to poor heart function as it makes the heart work harder to pump blood which contributes to narrowing the arteries that leads to heart attack and strokes.
According to a research of Harvard Medical School regular practice of meditation nitric oxide a molecule appears, that is made in the body which helps relax and widen blood vessels keeping blood pressure under control.
5) Improves Self Awareness
Meditation helps in improving self awareness of a person. It helps you develop a good understanding of yourself which helps you in making the best version of yourself.
People suffering from depression and anxiety self doubts themselves in every single step, which leads to lower self esteem as a result higher level of negative thoughts about themselves. So here meditation comes to the rescue. Meditation encourages you to slow down and helps you discover positive aspects about yourself.
6) Better Sleep
Nearly half of the population in the world struggle with insomnia at some point. The reason for insomnia may vary from person to person, but the most effective and low cost solution to lower the level of insomnia is meditation.
Meditation helps relax your body, placing you in a peaceful state releasing tension which helps you to sleep harmoniously. Becoming skilled in meditation may help you redirect to racing thoughts that leads to insomnia.
7) Help Reduce Age Related Memory Loss
The improved focus that you gain through meditation boosts your memory and helps fight age related memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer.
Kirtan kriya is a method of meditation from the kundalini yoga tradition that has been practiced for thousand years. This meditation is also called singing exercise, as it involves singing or chanting mantra with repetitive finger movements. This method helps improve age related memory loss.
8) Help Fight Addiction
Meditation helps you develop mental discipline which may reduce the cravings for alcohol and drugs. Mindfulness meditation helps you in developing your awareness of craving and this way you get a better idea to manage them.
A 2006 study by University Of Washington Researchers examined 78 substance addicted prison inmates for 3 months.
The participants were taught meditation for 10 days and given a set of questionnaire to self report their drug use at day 0 and again at day 90 and surprisingly the participants used 89% less marijuana and drank 87% less alcohol.
Here is a link of a blog which shows the benefits of meditation for people with alcohol and drug addiction.
Bottom Line
Meditation not only has mental benefit but also physical and emotional benefit too.
If you want to get rid of stress, anxiety, depression and improve focus to enhance the quality of life you should definitely give a try.
Meditation is such a simple technique which can be use by anyone from children to aged people and can be done anywhere without any need of special equipments or memberships.
Try doing it for 20 minutes everyday making it a habit you will definitely get great results.
