Meditation is one of the best things you can do for your overall health. Meditation is simply a method of changing your level of consciousness in order to achieve some kind of benefit. The practice is rooted in many eastern religions, and so some people don’t believe it has any benefit at all. But modern science has put proven benefits of meditation on show. To be fair, a lot of the reported religious benefits of meditation is clearly nonsense. But the real benefits are undeniable. Like most practices, most benefits of meditation aren’t immediately visible. It takes time – only hard work and patience will bring the long term rewards of meditating regularly. Here are ten of these rewards.
10: It Improves Brain Function
Modern science shows us that meditation actually increases the amount of grey matter in your brain. Grey matter is important for how our brains learn and remember what we’ve learned before. So an increase in grey matter can only be good for your brain function.
9: It Destroys Stress
They do say that stress is the silent killer. Stress does affect thee human body in a very physical way. It makes you more prone to heart disease and high blood pressure as well as a whole range of other health problems. Luckily, recent studies show that regular meditation literally lowers production of the stress hormone.
8: It Improves Your Social Skills
You might find this one hard to believe, but meditating really can make you a more social person. It rewires the brain to make social connections more easily. After a while of regular meditation you may well find yourself a better conversationalist. Even if you don’t get better at connecting with others, meditation also reduces the feeling of loneliness.
7: It Destroys Anxiety
On the topic of being social. One of the most common obstacle people have with socializing is overcoming anxiety. Some people just get social anxiety, and some don’t. It’s just a fact of life. But we do have some control over it. Reducing anxiety is one of the more famous benefits of meditation. The practice dulls the parts of the brain which cause us to be self-conscious, and enhances the parts of the brain which help us overcome anxiety. For this reason, meditation is now being recommended to people with anxiety disorders.
6: It Helps You Sleep
The meditative state is more similar to being asleep than the regular state of consciousness. The difference is that while meditating, you are completely aware of your surroundings and current state. The training of lowering your heart rate and relaxing for long periods of time helps you get to bed at night. This is because your minds gets used to lowering it’s activity, which is the perfect conditions for falling asleep.
5: It Raises Your Pain Tolerance
This one is rather hard to explain in the sense that we have no idea why this is the case. Scientific research suggests that people who practice zen meditation literally feel less pain than people who don’t. Their brain literally doesn’t register as much pain as it receives. So practitioners of meditation really do feel less pain even when experiencing the same pain input. Other studies have shown meditation can help ease long-term pain on a continual basis.
4: It Helps Oxygen Intake
A lot of what meditation is, is focusing on breathing. You slow your breath and stay still in the hope of lowering your heart rate. But a less well known, yet more obvious, benefit of meditation is that it improves your respiratory system. Slowing your breathing means that your Oxygen consumption decreases massively because you don’t need as much. In the long term, this is great for conditions like asthma that hinder your breathing.
3: It boosts Your Immune System
Meditation seems to boost the human immune system. This is partly because the immune system is influenced by stress and negative thoughts, which are both destroyed by regular meditation. But this is also because regular meditation can increase production of antibodies. Controlled studies show that meditation is among the best things you can do to avoid infection of diseases and viruses. So try meditation before you pick up the multivitamins.
2: It Destroys Addiction
One of the more popular benefits of meditation is that it can help a person break away from addiction. Many studies demonstrate that addicts who practice meditation are significantly more likely to recover and stay away from bad substances than those who don’t.
1: It Destroys Depression
Depression is a really horrible disease that has only recently been receiving the attention it should. It affects an awful lot of people these days, which is why medical institutions are investigating new ways to treat it. Recent studies show that meditation can actually reduce depression by 50 percent. This is because the practice makes sure the brain produces the right number of chemicals to remain healthy. Meditation also dulls the part of the brain which makes people feel lonely and depressed. It literally decreases depression.