Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation
Sometimes, being quite with our legs crossed, eyes shut, palms facing skyward and our minds settled in complete silence, is stronger than the entire workout in this world in addressing important aspects of our health, yet many of us ignore the beauty and immense benefits of meditation.
Apart from the fact that it can give you the fitness, you spend hours trying to achieve; mindfulness meditation is excellent in addressing our mental well being, helping to ward off illnesses and sort out our economic and financial life with ease. Meditation can help reduce anxiety.
Why Use Mindfulness Meditation?
Here are science-backed benefits of practicing mindfulness meditation.
1. Mindfulness meditation resolves aches and pains. The health impacting nature of our minds is incomprehensibly powerful than most of us can ever imagine possible. A calmed mind has an immense influence on the body that a peaceful mind can resolve the most complex stress issues that are found at the center of series of health problems including body aches, pains, and even high blood pressure. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience reported that 80 minutes of mindfulness meditation reduced pain perception nearly by half.
2. Sleep better. Sleep is not called nature’s nurse for anything. It is because a good sleep helps to heal our body and bring us to optimum health. Science confirms the sleep’s healing nature and getting a good sleep is the desire of everyone. But the hustling and bustling of life have robbed many of the opportunity of sleep to keep optimum health. In a JAMA internal medicine Randomized Clinical Trial, mindfulness meditation proved very potent against sleep disturbances to sleep soundly with ease without a drug. When used with CBT, meditation can be very useful.
3. Overcome depression. Observing mindfulness meditation regularly for at least two months is said to reduce depressive symptoms up to 40%. In a study by Rutgers confirmed that combining exercises with meditation can help defeat depression in a better way to give the person with the new cognitive skill a new lease on life. The study published in Translational Psychiatry provides the evidence that mindfulness meditation in combination with exercises helped reduce signs of depression.
4. Brain enhancement. A Massachusetts General Hospital study found an 8-week medication program has measurable effects on brain functions; it also found a difference in the effects on brain according to the type of meditation. The focal point of mindfulness meditation is overcoming body responses to mental and physical stimuli and gives the practitioner a calm state of being. No doubt, it will have a profound effect on the brain and reduce internal tension to allow the brain function at optimal performance.
5. Improved power of focus. A calmed mind is a focused mind! People undergoing professional counseling for productivity challenge are encouraged to stay focused on given task, but this is a quality one picks up with ease from meditation. Being able to concentrate on a given subject helps the mind stay turbulent free. Sitting in a position for an extended period without environmental distraction is a rare skill. It is not that there is no environmental noise, but the ability to filter out unwanted distractions to mind your business is a great benefit, mindfulness meditation practitioners enjoy.
Mindfulness Meditation is a skill I teach at the Calm Anxiety Therapy Clinic.