“Your body is precious. It’s our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.”-Buddha
Today each person with his unique quest is facing different challenges in his daily life. However, the grind of daily routine has made some issues universal. Meditation is the art of silencing the mind and making room for inner peace.
In this article, we will discuss the reasons why people are drawn to meditate followed by its scientifically validated benefits.
- Fighting stress:
Lack of time and too much input mostly results in stress. Meditation helps to reduce stress-related conditions such as depression and anxiety by switching off the sympathetic nervous system and triggering the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for relaxation response). Over time, the brain learns to rapidly recover from the impact of stress.
- More content and happiness:
Studies have shown that 90% of happiness depends on the way our brains processes at a given moment rather than external circumstances. Reduction of stress by virtue of meditation leads to enhanced positive emotions. Our natural state feeling calm makes us confident in meeting the challenges of life.
- Better health and longer life:
People practice meditation either because they are conscious of their health life or because they are seeking help against a specific disease/health issue. The mind-body connection between stress and disease is amply apparent. According to thousands of studies, meditation has several positive impacts on our health and well-being. Here is the list of common health issues where meditation has shown significant outcomes.
- High blood pressure
- Obesity
- Heart diseases
- Anxiety, stress, and depression
- Skin conditions
- Kicking insomnia:
Sound sleep is essential to feel good inside out. Additionally, it is important to our cognitive functioning. People dealing with anxiety and stress are unable to fall asleep in the first place. Meditation improves REM sleep by coping up with depression and anxiety. Better sleep and enough eye-shut at night lead to brighter days.
- Improves learning capacity:
Whether you are a part-time student or a full-time student, meditation is a proven practice which can help you learning and retaining what you learn. It multiplies the ability to memorise large sums of information.
- Spiritual enlightenment:
There is a simple principle, ‘the more you know yourself the more you can know another.’
The busyness of modern life has made it difficult to connect with our own values and emotions. Most people are drawn to meditation to experience deeper more expansive states of them. It helps us to tune in and turn inward to our true essence.
- Enhances social life:
In a world rife with fast-fixes, a meaningful connection with others is essential to living a full rich life. Nervousness and feeling disoriented plays a big role in keeping us away from our friends. Meditation aids in improving relationships by detaching from our own egos and increasing our ability to get out there. In short, people who meditate tend to respond more positively.
- Work and career breakthrough:
At some point in our lives, we all dream of improving our work effectiveness, creativity level, and leadership abilities. A stressed out person is unable to process information and thus cannot boost his work and career. This is exactly the reason why meditation could help you get better in all of the above-mentioned areas.
- Increases empathy and compassion:
Our ability to compassionate and sympathetic is actually a brain game. Meditation makes us able to consider feelings or others and how we can be of service.
- Uplift concentration:
Stimulation of pre-frontal cortex awakens the brains learning center. When we meditate, our concentration, focus, and problem-solving ability tend to increase.
