Why should you meditate?
When I was introduced to meditation, I was amazed to learn that it didn’t have to be an arduous journey to complete serenity. My journey began with just a few minutes of meditation a day and has had surprising effects on my state of mind.
Daily life is filled with a constant barrage of noise and confusion. By learning to meditate I was able to bring some order to my preoccupied mind.
Meditation helped me mitigate the mental impact of my daily hassles. My sense of calm, quality of sleep, and abilities to focus improved along with my ability to meditate.
Three reasons meditation will improve your daily life —
1 –Sense of calm
Meditation reduces stress and anxiety, not by stopping or slowing the mind’s natural flow of thoughts, it does so by changing your relationship with your thoughts. You become a passive observer, separating them from reality.
What happens physically? Anxiety springs your sympathetic nervous system into action. The release of cortisol, a stress-inducing hormone, triggers a fight-or-flight mode causing increased heart rate, labored breathing, and tense muscles. That is your body’s way of preparing you for physical threat. Daily life, however, doesn’t call for such an extreme physical reaction.
A study conducted on 30 students showed a significant decrease in cortisol after meditation, directly linking it to reduced stress. To further support this idea, an analysis of over 200 studies concluded that meditation is an effective treatment for anxiety, stress, and depression.
You don’t have to be an anxious wreck to enjoy the calming benefits of meditation. Improved mind management can come in handy in many more ways, for instance when you need to get some rest.
2 — Sleep
Every task becomes more difficult when you’re lacking sleep. But there’s good news; becoming skilled in meditation can change the way you sleep and train you to fall asleep faster.
Think back to a frustrating night spent staring at the ceiling, busy entertaining every runaway thought that stops by. All the while knowing that you must be up in X number of hours — That is Cortisol rearing its head again, fueling stress, making you alert and awake (it does that too).
By taking private meditation lessons and many nights’ training I’ve become an expert at making myself fall asleep. After learning visualization techniques, I can now recognize a thought leading me down a rabbit hole, acknowledge it, and move it along. It’s that simple!
I’ve learned that the mind will always continue to create thoughts, that’s what it does. Allowing some thoughts to linger creates a pile-up of noisy clutter. Meditation taught me the importance and gave me the skills to declutter my mind.
3 — focus
Meditation isn’t an exercise in concentration, but it does help, a lot of people turn to meditation to become more focused.
Every day countless things are vying for your attention. It can feel like your thoughts are getting pulled in different directions. The constant stream makes it difficult to identify tasks that need to be prioritized.
The Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California found that short exposures to meditation showed improvements in test performance. That improvement was brought on by reduced mind wandering, especially in participants that were prone to distraction.
Meditation will train your mind to be fully aware of one thing at a time. When you sharpen your focus, every distraction becomes an opportunity to hone that skill.
Learning to meditate —
Don’t get me wrong, meditation isn’t magic, but with guidance you can experience its benefits relatively quickly. Paying attention to your thoughts, not letting them rush in and overwhelm you, will allow you to react more rationally.
How to start? Luckily, there are many options right at your fingertips. You can download apps like Headspace or Calm to your phone. You can start by watching an introductory video on YouTube. Or book private meditation sessions online, where expert teachers are available to guide you toward your goals.
The effects of meditation — controlled breathing and lower blood pressure will help you to deal with stress and anxiety, sleep soundly, and be more focused when you’re awake.
So, the next time you have a few free moments, rather than scrolling mindlessly through social media, try to meditate or just pause and observe your thoughts, it’ll be worth your time.
