Meditation is habitual process of training your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts. It is a state of consciousness where you perceive your thoughts without the use of the five physical senses. Nowadays, the popularity of meditation is increasing as people gain more knowledge regarding the healthy benefits that it brings.
People consider mediation as a form of just releasing stress and increasing concentration. However, the role of meditation is far more than that.
- Promotes emotional health
Studies have shown that meditating reduces the release of inflammatory chemicals such as cytokines.
These chemicals are normally released in response to stress hence affecting your mood which can later led to depression. So, people who does meditation are less likely to suffer from depression.
Meditation also led to improved self-image and a more positive outlook of life.
- It lengthens attention span
The type of meditation known as focused attention meditation helps to increase the strength and endurance of your attention. Studies showed that people who listened to meditation tape experienced attention and accuracy at completing a task than those who didn’t.
- May reduce age related memory loss
Practicing multiple meditation style especially those that involve use of fingers tend to increase attention, mental quickness and reduce memory loss in old people. Not only that since meditation reduces stress and increases coping mechanism it is known to reduce dementia in suffering patients.
- Meditation can help fight addictions
This is because the mental discipline that you develop from meditating reduces external dependencies and increases your self-control and influence from addictive behaviors. It helps you to redirect your attention, your emotions, and impulses. This has worked with many people with cigarettes or alcohol addictions.
- Solves sleeping problems
Nearly half of the world’s population are known to be suffering from insomnia at some point. Meditation has some good influence on better sleeping patterns. This is because by meditating you tend to race away thoughts that would otherwise lead to insomnia. Additionally, it relieves off stress and tension and puts you in a peaceful state that allows you to fall asleep easily.
- It decreases blood pressure and heart problems
Studies among 1000 participants have proven that people who practice meditation show decreased blood pressure. This is because when you are meditating you reduce strain on the heart pumping mechanism which would lead to disorder such as stroke, atherosclerosis, and other heart related disorders.
The bottom line
Meditation is something everyone can do to improve their mental and emotional health, release off from addictions, fight insomnia, reduce age related issues, just to mention but a few. The key is to try out a style of meditation that is suited to your goals as a great way to improve your quality of life, even if you only have a few minutes to do it each day.
