Meditation is increasing in its popularity as more people continue to realize its health benefits.
Meditation is a mind relaxing technique where you train your mind to concentrate and redirect your thoughts. When meditating, your thoughts are related to the environment which crucial to creating awareness between ourselves and our surrounding environment. This can help address problems that we face daily in our society. Most people see it as a process to develop concentration and reduce stress.
It is an effective practice that many people use to develop beneficial feelings and habits such as a positive outlook and mood, develop healthy sleep pattern, self-discipline and to increase pain tolerance. These are some of the health benefits of meditation:
Reduces Stress
Meditation can be used in stress management and lower it effects which may promote high blood pressure, fatigue, depression, and cloudy thinking. The cotrisol level will increase when you are stressed. Even if there is an increase in cortisol levels, meditation will lead to a decrease in the release of the hormone.
Manages Anxiety
Less stress means less anxiety. An eight-week study conducted on mindfulness meditation proved that it aided the participants to moderate their anxiety. It was also noted that symptoms of anxiety disorder which includes paranoid thoughts, social anxiety, panic attacks and obsessive, irrational behaviors were reduced. If you ever do yoga, you might have experienced some level of relaxation and reduction of anxiety due to the physical activity and the meditative practice.
Improves Emotional Health
Meditation not only makes you concentrate and relax the mind but also improves self-image and promotes a more positive outlook towards life. This is in the sense that mindfulness meditation decreases long-term depression among individuals who suffered from it. If you practice meditation, the electrical activity of the brain improves causing optimism and positive thinking.
Increases Self-Awareness
Some forms of mindfulness meditation make you understand yourself better thus help you improve your best self. Self-inquiry meditation clearly purposes to assist you determine yourself and how you relate with people around you. Other forms of meditations let you know thoughts that are self-defeating or harmful. The idea is that as you continue gaining awareness of your thoughts and habits, you tend to align them to more constructive modes.
Brain Health
May improve the brain by reducing memory loss associated by age. Improved attention and clarity of thinking may aid to keep your brain strong and young. Kirtan Kriya is a form of meditation that incorporates chant and mantra with continued motion of the fingers to an emphasis on your thoughts on improving the efficiency of the brain to carry out memory tasks.