The Art of Self Meditation: What Are the Benefits?
Meditation used to be a niche activity performed only by those with a religious or cultural background that primed them for it. Now, it has gone mainstream, and people from all faiths and walks of life are taking advantage of the benefits of meditation. Read on to find out how meditation can improve people’s health and daily lives.
What Is Meditation?
Before moving on to discuss the specific benefits of meditation, let’s take a moment to define what it is. Originally, meditation was intended to help people deepen their understanding of the sacred forces of life, which is still a motivator for many practitioners. However, those with less esoteric goals such as managing stress and improving wellness can also benefit from self hypnosis audio sessions and other types of simple meditations.
Physical Health Benefits of Meditation
Western medicine has long known there is a strong connection between the body and the mind, so it should come as no surprise that meditation can have enormously positive effects on practitioners’ physical health. People who meditate regularly have a lower risk of developing high blood pressure, which can contribute to many other poor health outcomes. They also report fewer symptoms of chronic pain, insomnia, and IBS, among other disorders.
Mental Health Benefits of Meditation
Everyone experiences negative states like stress and sadness from time to time. However, rates of serious mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and addiction are also on the rise in today’s societies. Establishing a regular meditation practice can help people develop resiliency against psychological distress, ease symptoms of anxiety and depression, and even make it easier to recover from substance use disorders.
Emotional Benefits of Meditation
Meditation is also known to induce a greater sense of well-being in practitioners, which means that people who are free from psychological disorders but still prone to emotional dysregulation can also benefit. Mindfulness and meditation help people learn how to regulate their emotions more effectively, inducing emotional awareness, understanding, and acceptance and reducing outbursts of anger and other forms of poor emotional control. Meditation can also enhance the ability to empathize with others, making it easier to form healthy relationships.
Cognitive Benefits of Meditation
The practice of meditation trains people to remove unnecessary and unskillful thoughts from their minds, freeing up space to retain more helpful information. People who meditate regularly report feeling more focused and mentally disciplined, and research backs them up. Strangely, though, meditation can also improve people’s intuition, which occurs on a strictly subconscious level.
Tips for Getting Started
Establishing new habits is always hard, and daily meditation practice is no different. Most of the positive effects of meditation don’t become clear immediately, and it takes time to get used to incorporating the practice into daily life. Here are some tips for getting started in a new meditation practice.
- Choose a type of meditation that feels accessible.
Spend at least 13 minutes per day practicing meditation.
Find a quiet setting.
Adopt an open attitude.
Don’t give up and recognize that it takes time to make positive change.
Now Is the Perfect Time to Start Meditating
No matter what’s going on in someone’s life, there’s no better time than now for them to start adopting more positive lifestyle practices, including meditation. Don’t be worried if it takes some time to get into a new practice. Within a few weeks, the results will become clear.
