What Are The Health Benefits Of Daily Meditation

By Doctor Paul Calladine (Chiro)

Meditation is a great way to calm an active mind and to provide balance and clarity to one's life. Meditation refers to the practice and technique that promotes relaxation by focusing on breathe, concentration and internal energy. Many people experience a sense of wellness and feel 'at peace' through meditation.

Meditation can be used to clear the mind and ease many health concerns such as anxiety, stress, depression and high blood pressure. 

Throughout history, people have reached out to spiritual leaders or gurus in order to achieve balance and internal peace; both within themselves and more outwardly to the world.

You can meditate in many different ways. From sound based meditation and 'mindfulness-based stress reduction' programs to zen and yoga. Even just sitting down quietly after a long day at work, shutting your eyes and breathing can have enormous benefit. What links all these variations together are their common benefits. Here are 5 of those benefits now.

Also, at the end of this article I link to a guided 24 minute meditation that you can do right now. This meditation is perfect for easing anxiety, worry and urgency. Try it now and let me know what you think.

Social anxiety refers to the fear of social interaction with other people, in particular self-consciousness, judgement and being looked down upon. It's well know that mindfulness based stress reduction programs (that involve meditation, yoga and body awareness) are widely used to reduce stress and anxiety. The idea being if you increase relaxation and make improvements to quality of life, people suffer less from anxiety.

Several studies detail this concept including Goldin and Gross 2010. Their research, coming from the Department of Psychology (Stanford University), shows how mindfulness programs are effective in altering emotional responses by modifying cognitive-affective processes. Simply put, meditation helps relieve anxiety and depression symptoms in sufferers.

When you consider the increasing dependence on and use of anti-anxiety medications in modern society, it's hardly surprising that meditation - and other more natural, holistic therapies - are increasing in popularity.

Recent research (Lutz et al. 2004) shows how your brain changes and responds to meditation - in a good way. The left prefrontal cortext, the region of the brain responsible for positive emotions, increases in activity during a meditation session.

Why is this important? Research can now demonstrate a link between happiness and meditation in a way that induces short-term and long-term neural changes. Just as working out in the gym grows stronger muscles, it seems that certain brain-training activities including meditation 'grow' and strengthen certain regions of the brain.

Meditation improves your breathing in a number of ways.

• You limit your thoughts to solely focus on your breath
• You focus on breathing as an 'object of concentration'
• It's easier to take deeper breathes that fill your lung capacity and increase oxygen to your body
• The more you meditate the better your breathing becomes - you train yourself to breathe deeper

When you first start meditation it's easy for your mind to wander off. The discipline of breathing and meditation keeps your thoughts focused and grounded in the present. In time, as concentration gives way to mindfulness, your breathing will be longer, deeper and more relaxed.

Meditation increases serotonin levels in the body. Serotonin in one of many neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions, including happiness. A consistent meditative practice decreases stress, increases well being and boosts mood. If you've meditated before you'll know that feeling of being 'blissed-out'. If you haven't meditated before, what are you waiting for?

Source: youtube.com

If you like this article, please share this page with your friends and family. Better still, meet up with a couple of friends and share the experience of meditation together using the above guide to help you. Also, check out this great infographic covering some more of the benefits of meditation!

References

• Goldin PR, Gross JJ 2010. 'Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder' Emotion Feb;10(1):83-91.
• Lutz et al, 2004. 'Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice' PNAS vol 101 no.46.