Are you looking to empower your life with the help of meditation? Meditation has many proven health benefits and can, for example, make us happier and more resilient to external stress factors.
Practicing meditation trains your mind to focus on the present moment or the “now.” Being in the “here and now” creates a heightened state of awareness. This state helps you see the beauty of what’s right in front of you instead of dwelling in the past or fearing what’s to come.
It’s pretty simple; if you’re not happy on the inside, no external factors will ever satisfy you. But when quieting your mind, you can reach a state of stillness or calmness that not only makes you feel good but is good for your health, too.
Even mainstream medicine is starting to acknowledge the practice of meditation as an excellent complement to conventional medicine. With that said, let’s take a look at why that is next.
1. Meditation Reduces Stress
Stress is the body’s response to unforeseen events and threats. When faced with these threats, the body increases its cortisol levels, also known as the stress hormone.
The state of stress can be harmful to your body since it releases inflammatory chemicals called cytokines. For instance, these chemicals can create anxiety, depression, increased blood pressure, insomnia, fatigue, and brain fog.
However, people who regularly meditate often have lower cortisol levels in their brains, making them more resistant to inflammatory reactions.
In addition, studies have shown that meditation may also improve symptoms of stress-related conditions, including PST (Post-Traumatic-Stress) disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia.
2. Meditation Improves Sleep
Most people will struggle with insomnia at some point in their lives. And we all know how frustrating it is to lay awake twisting and turning all night.
Deprived sleep also comes with harmful health effects, such as a weaker immune system, cloudy thinking, and increases stress levels.
For this reason, meditating before going to bed can help you fall asleep easier and stay asleep longer. Often, insomnia is caused by the runaway thoughts in our heads. And meditation helps to calm these thoughts down and relax our bodies.
Also, reaching a peaceful state makes you more likely to fall asleep, wake up rested, and be ready to take on the day.
3. Meditation Decreases Anxiety
Anxiety can trigger your flight-or-fight response, which releases adrenaline and other stress hormones into your system. It makes you feel like you can’t breathe, and your heart beats faster – not a pleasant state to be in.
Anxiety is often a result of different stress factors building up during a period. Because meditation helps reduce stress levels, it fortunately also helps decrease anxiety.
Daily mindful meditation can help individuals better cope with stress, reduce anxiety symptoms, and boost creativity.
4. Meditation Promotes a More Positive Outlook on Life
Often, meditation contributes to improved self-image and a more positive outlook on life. When connecting within or to your “higher self,” many people can experience a blissful sensation.
This heightened state helps remove negative thought patterns and makes it easier to focus on the positives. And when reaching this state over and over, you can’t help feeling gratefulness and love for life.
Having a positive outlook on life also promotes good health. Just like stress and negativity increase inflammation in the body, positivity can heal it instead.
5. Meditation Helps to Cope With Pain
Meditation reduces pain sensations in the body without using the natural opiates of the brain. That’s because the perception of pain is connected to your state of mind. And an altered state can effectively lessen the feeling of pain.
Research indicates that people who meditate regularly show a more remarkable ability to cope with pain than non-meditators. They even experienced a reduced sensation of pain, so incorporating meditation into your daily routine could be beneficial for controlling pain.
Conclusion
Overall, meditation can improve quality of life, decrease stress symptoms like anxiety and depression, help people cope with pain, and more. The truth is that meditation empowers people’s lives every day, so why don’t you give it a try as well?