How 15 Minutes of Meditation a Day Can Improve Performance
Meditation? No, I don’t need that.
It sounds kind of abstract. Sitting somewhere, breathing and doing nothing. How should I benefit from that? Why and how should I stop thinking? Actually, that sounds a lot like esoteric whatever.
These are among the first thoughts that come to mind when we hear about meditation. It sounds like unsexy self-help. Some eastern medicine might be something for monks but not for us in the modern world.
We don’t need that.
However, we like to optimize everything about our bodies. We get haircuts regularly and style our hair differently. Our skin is washed, sunned, and creamed. We optimize our nutrition and train our muscles, to be fit and healthy, or to look like it at least. We regenerate in saunas. We want to give back to our bodies and organs and we like being complimented for our looks.
Yet, when it comes to our brain, we are not that generous. The only things we do for our brain are cutting of the displays around us from time to time and sleeping. But since we like to use smartphones and TVs to relax and we think we can cut sleep, sometimes we don’t even do that. Still, our brains should be cared for by us as well. We can do for our brains, what we do for our bodies in the gym.
This is possible with meditation.
The positive changes in the brain caused by meditation are well known. The psychologist Richard Davidson of the university of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated in 2007 that three months of meditation sharpen our attention.
Sara Lazar of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston proofed that meditation practice even causes structural changes in the brain: Meditation shrinks the amygdala, responsible for fear. Therefore, we could experience less fear. It might even be possible that meditation slows the age-caused atrophy of certain areas of the brain. Further, meditation reduces stress, depression, fear and pain, which certainly increases the quality of life.
This is possible since meditation increases the neuronal plasticity in areas of sensory, cognitive, and emotional processing: therefore, higher cortex density was measured in the prefrontal cortex and increasing density was found in the grey substance in the hippocampus. While the prefrontal cortex is important for our memory, the hippocampus plays an important role in learning, memory, and emotional regulation. These changes already occur after eight weeks of meditation.
Basically, fifteen minutes of meditation a day might be exactly what we need in our world full of stress and work and information load, to gain more distance and different perspectives. Meditation could also be used additional to medical treatment in the clinical routine.
These scientific proves hint that mediation benefits us in our private and professional lives. Who of us doesn’t profit from increased concentration, focus and attention? Who wouldn’t like to be more patient and balanced? How many of our relationships would improve from that? And how thankful may we even be with increasing age for that practice? A trained brain is as important for us as a trained body.
Maybe, we should be more aware of the fact, that nothing in our body affects our daily performance as much as our brain. We don’t need to consider Simone Biles, who just had to withdraw from several competitions at the Olympics, because of mental health problems. We all know how much our performance at work, our relationships and their quality depend on our state of mind. Meditation can strengthen our empathy, can make us deal with difficult situations more aware. So, is it really that unsexy to practice our mind fifteen minutes a day?
Of course, we all decide for ourselves what we need and want to practice in life. However, we should accept that our brain is a very important part of our body, if not the most important, and that it is moldable just like strength and endurance. And our performances depend on it and our mental health.
Why do we neglect that potential?
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