What comes to mind when you think of meditation? Buddha? Hippies, yoga teachers? Monks? Probably not your average person though. Probably not someone just like you.
According to the CDC, the number of people meditating in America has tripled over the past 5 years. This is due to the growing bodies of research on the mass benefits of meditating. More and more business owners, CEOs, and other uber-successful individuals have begun to speak out about their use of meditation and how it has attributed to their success.
But it isn’t just about increasing one’s chances of running a fortune 500 company. Anyone and everyone can benefit from meditating.
1. Lower Stress and Anxiety
As a society, we can probably all agree that we turn to medication far too frequently. We are so quick to treat the symptoms with a pill, rather than tackling the problem with a permanent solution.
When we are in a stressful situation, our mind turns to fight-or-flight, and the brains amygdala sends out distress signals to the body. Research shows that practicing meditation can actually cause the fight-or-flight response to be depleted during stress. This lowers the effects of stress on our body, such as elevated blood pressure.
This is because when we practice meditating, we are learning to shift our brains focus. When we start to meditate, our brain naturally swarms with thoughts, good and bad. We shift our focus to one thing, such as breathing, allowing us to learn to give ourselves a feeling of peace and calm.
The negative effects of stress on the body are tremendous. In fact, stress related issues cause between 75-90% of all doctor visits in the U.S. Insane, isn’t it?!
Our society is busier and more fast paced than ever before. Is it possible that we are becoming so conditioned to being stressed out that we actually believe this is a normal way to live?
2. Live In The Moment!
Besides being a popular theme of quotes and tattoos, living in the moment is a mega component of happiness.
Have you ever experienced something – a meal, a pedicure, a massage, a hot bath, a car ride – and as soon as it was over, felt like you could barely remember it?
We literally drive to a destination and wonder how we got there.
This is because of all the thoughts running, skipping and jumping through our brain all day. When we attach ourselves to these thoughts, we allow them to take over. When they take over, we are in a state where we aren’t living in the moment at all. We are living in our thoughts.
Want to learn mindfulness, mindset + spirituality? Tune in to the Bare Naked Soul Podcast!
It can be difficult to enjoy showers, walks, our time at the gym, meal time, anything, when we are so consumed in our own mind.
Meditating helps us learn to release those thoughts. We learn to live in a state of intention. We learn to live in the exact moment in time. We aren’t worrying about the past or the future.
We are fully aware and enjoying the present.
3. Increased Mental Focus
Another major change in our society in recent years involves multitasking. Could cell phones possibly contribute to this?!
Multitasking reduces our level of concentration. Through regularly meditating, we can improve our attention span by learning to focus on what we choose, helping us stay on task. We are also learning to both identify and restrict distractions that enter the mind.
Improving focus helps us stay on track and improve our efficiency. Therefore, we can get more done in less time.
This increase in efficiency might just be enough to give you back the extra 10 minutes you need in order to meditate daily. *wink*
Additionally, research shows that meditation can actually change the structure of the brain. What?!
Gray matter in the brain controls memory, sight, hearing, impulse control, emotions, speech and decision making. Studies show that meditating regularly can actually increase the amount of gray matter that exists within the brain. This is consistent with studies involving college students and their working-memory capacity, which showed increasingly high among those who meditated.
4. Enhanced Relationships
There are many ways in which meditating improves relationships with those around you. Through being mindful and less stressed, relationships will naturally improve. When we carry stress and negativity around with us, it rubs off on those around us and creates tension. Meditation helps you relax in these areas and live a happier, more positive life.
On a deeper level, studies have shown that the temporal parietal junctures in the brain, which are responsible for empathy, are increased in activation in individuals who meditate regularly. Their brains actually responded more strongly to people who were suffering than those we did not meditate.
Research has also shown that meditation helps reduce subconscious bias that we all feel towards others, as well as lowering our fear of negative encounters.
By approaching our relationships in a more positive way, we can understand one another’s motives without as much judgement. This, in addition to improved self-esteem, can greatly improve our relationships.
5. Improved Confidence
The root of our self-doubt comes from all the negative thoughts we are thinking all day long. Many of us look in the mirror first thing in the morning and they begin. We hear them throughout our work day. We hear them before and during interactions with friends. These thoughts keep us from happiness. They keep us from being confident.
Meditation helps us quiet the thoughts that enter our minds. We are teaching ourselves not to hold on to those thoughts. We learn to listen to the thought without creating a story out of it. We learn to push it along on its way out of our mind.
Check out these 5 books to boost your confidence!
As we learn to push away negative thoughts and focus on what we want to focus on, we allow ourselves to be in a state of peace. Our minds gravitate away from negativity and towards positivity. We still have thoughts that make us doubt ourselves, but we don’t attach ourselves to those thoughts. We don’t allow them to become the soundtrack of our day.
Getting Started
If 10 minutes a day (or even 5!) can even have a chance at helping you in these areas, why not give it a try?
I recommend starting with a guided meditation. There are several free apps dedicated to meditating. Click here for my 5 favorites!
The main focus is to completely relax your body and mind, and try to focus on just one thing. Breathing is generally a good place to start. Any time your mind starts to wonder, gently release those thoughts and focus on your breathing again.
I prefer to meditate first thing in the morning to begin the day with a clear mind. However, right before bed can really help if you struggle with falling asleep. Either way, try to choose a time that you can be consistent with. Create a daily habit out of it.
Remember: meditation is a practice. If your mind is jumbled full of thoughts and it is hard to send them away, don’t give up! This just means it is even more important for you to learn to meditate.
