11 HEALTH BENEFITS OF MEDITATION PHYSICAL & MENTAL

Meditation has been around for thousands of years in some form or another. It can be considered complementary medicine. By helping to calm the mind and increase a feeling of relaxation, meditation has been linked to health benefits for the mind and body. The benefits of meditation can continue after your meditation is done, supporting your mind and body with calmness for the rest of your day. 

Let’s look at 11 health benefits of meditation that can start working soon as you start using this powerful tool:

1) Meditation To Reduce Stress

Arguably, reducing stress is one of the most common reasons people try out meditation. Stress can cause several mental and physical issues, from anxiety and depression to increased blood pressure and tiredness. Studies have shown that not only can regular mindful meditation help reduce your overall stress levels but it can also reduce the effects that stress causes.

2) Meditation Benefits For Brain

It may seem strange that something as simple as sitting quietly and being mindful within yourself can affect your brain positively. But regular, consistent meditation can make the prefrontal cortex thicker. This area of the brain is responsible for concentration and decision-making. In other words, you can keep your brain sharp and young even as you get older. But the health benefits of meditation are not limited to just older people, it helps everyone who practices it regularly.

3) Effects Of Meditation On Anxiety

Similar to stress, anxiety can be reduced and controlled with the proper meditation routine and technique. People with a generalized anxiety disorder (especially those with high levels of anxiety) can benefit the most from meditation. Various types of meditation can help, from daily meditative yoga to mindfulness meditation. The benefits of meditation also extend to coping with work-related anxiety. Even something as simple as using a meditation app can help.

4) Mindfulness Benefit Against Depression

Mindfulness through meditation not only calms the mind but helps to improve your overall mental health. Some studies have shown that regular meditation improves the signs of depression and lessens negative thoughts. Meditation reduces stress and cuts down on inflammatory chemicals. The same action is responsible for lowering the symptoms of depression. These advantages of meditation for your mental health lead to our next point.

5) Benefits Of Mindfulness Meditation for Self-Betterment

With fewer worries, less stress, and more concentration, it becomes easier to start working on yourself. Meditation allows you to not only reduce mental health issues but focus on understanding and improving yourself. This leads to a better understanding of others and a renewed motivation to tackle challenges. Practitioners of meditation are able to reduce loneliness and have better interactions with others. Increased self-awareness is another benefit of meditation. It is a great way to improve self-esteem and actively combat self-deprecation.

6) Reasons To Meditate In Old Age

Since it’s such an effective stress buster, you may assume that the health benefits of meditation are more pronounced in working adults. However, several studies have shown that regular meditation with various techniques can improve memory and sharpness. In patients with dementia, it has been shown to help partially reduce memory loss, while in the general elderly demographics, it was linked to better mental quickness.

7) Meditation Helps Fight A Wandering Mind

People who meditate are shown to have longer attention spans, leading to better accuracy in recalling information. This includes not just better short-term attention and long-term memory but also fights against a wandering mind, worry, and poor attention spans. In general, letting your mind wander is not a bad thing. It may even be a major part of creative thinking. But when it leads to worry and stress, you may have a problem. People who want to be more productive with their time should consider these benefits of meditation. After all, a better mind can help you work not just faster but more effectively.

Apart from these psychological and social benefits, there are some more tangible health benefits. Did you know of the benefits of meditation for the skin? With regular deep breathing during meditation, you increase your oxygen levels, which improves your skin health. The physical benefits of meditation can help you when you have long-term illnesses (like cardiovascular disease, diabetes). Here are some other physical benefits of regular meditation.

8) Lower Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is linked to medical issues like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The risks of high blood pressure are well known and can include heart attacks and strokes when left untreated. Regular meditation has been shown to reduce stress by improving the nerve signals for heart function and decreasing stressful reactions. This health benefit of meditation is seen both during meditation and also over the long term in people who meditate regularly.

9) Decreases Pain Sensitivity

Our sensitivity to pain is shown to be tied closely to our emotional and psychological state. When we are stressed out, our experience of pain may be more intense. People with chronic pain show fewer symptoms of depression if they are practitioners of regular meditation.

10) Better Sleep

Because of all the above health benefits of meditation, some studies have shown that meditators sleep longer and experience improvements in conditions like insomnia. By relaxing and calming the mind, you are easing pent-up tension in the body. You are able to enter into a peaceful, sleepy state much better if you regularly practice medication. 

11) Support To Fight Addiction

We’ve included this one last since it may have varying effectiveness depending on the addition and severity of the addiction. Still, meditation has been shown to improve self-control, awareness, emotion management, and increased self-understanding. This may help not only to support your journey in quitting an addiction but also help you in the long term with less intense cravings and distress.

Conclusion

Meditation is easy and accessible; it can be done almost anywhere and at any time. Although there are many techniques and methods of meditation out there, it’s important not to get caught up in trying to be ‘perfect’. The meditation that helps you calm your mind for 10-15 minutes and experience peacefulness is the right technique for you. Many people also use this time to pray and reflect on their lives. The most important thing is to be regular and consistent.