Benefits Of Meditation For Mindfulness – Stress can occur so often that it seems like a state of being. And the more often you feel stressed, the more damage it does to your body. When your body doesn’t have time to rest and repair, even basic functions can go awry. To prevent stress from ruining your health, you need to learn to deal with it before it gets worse. One way to do this is through major lifestyle changes. Eating better, exercising and sleeping more can help. But mindfulness is something you can do in the midst of stress. And this can be achieved with the help of meditation. Additionally, the benefits of meditation include reduced levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.
Meditation is a practice or set of techniques that are intended to increase your state of awareness and improve your focused attention. Unlike other practices, meditation does not rely on any type of hypnosis or medication to work. Instead, it encourages you to make changes in your consciousness so you can calm your body, rest your mind, increase awareness, and experience the full benefits of meditation.
Benefits Of Meditation For Mindfulness
Meditation is a process of transforming the mind. Therefore, meditation practices often involve techniques that encourage deep concentration, emotional positivity, calm, and clarity. The goal is to cultivate more positive ways of living and develop deep peace from within by energizing the mind.
Mindful Path To Success: Meditation Benefits For Students
Typically, there are two ways you can practice meditation. The first is the concentrative form of meditation. Here you focus your attention on a single object, such as your breath or a visualization, and allow distracting thoughts to pass through. The other type of meditation involves being attentive and aware of your thoughts as they pass by, avoiding judgment or worrying too much about any one thought.
Meditation has many benefits in reducing stress in your life and improving your ability to deal with existing stress. But to better understand its benefits, it’s important to first understand how stress affects your body.
When the body encounters stress, it relies on its NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) stress response system. The NEM stress response system is made up of six circuits, units of organs and systems, in the body that work interdependently to cope with stress. It is this system that initiates the fight-or-flight response, turning off some systems and turning up others to prepare your body to react.
The neuroaffective circuit is particularly connected to the benefits of meditation. It is composed of the central nervous system (CNS), the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and the gastrointestinal (GI) system. All of these systems rely on neurotransmitters to maintain balance in the body and mood.
Types Of Meditation And How To Practice
Once the stressful episode passes, the body systems that play a role in the NEM stress response return to normal function, allowing the body to resume rest and repair functions such as digestion or sleep. However, if the stress is persistent, systems remain in full swing, ready to run or fight, and while repair functions languish, others become severely overloaded.
At the same time, the body also begins to experience excessive activation of neurotransmitters. For example, the neurotransmitter norepinephrine typically supports alertness within the central nervous system. But when there is excessive activation of this neurotransmitter, insomnia, panic attacks and anxiety can occur. An overloaded neuroaffective response can also cause excessive activation of the autonomic nervous system, causing a sudden heartbeat. Dysregulation of this circuit can also lead to serious sleep disturbances, preventing you from having restful sleep.
The increased production of the neurotransmitter adrenaline by the adrenal glands in the hormonal circuit leads to faster breathing, tense muscles and sweating. The adrenal glands also produce greater amounts of cortisol, the main stress hormone in the body. This leads to neurotransmitter dysregulation and significant hormonal imbalance. Eventually, chronic stress can trigger adrenal fatigue syndrome (AFS). Adrenal fatigue can lead to many uncomfortable symptoms that get worse over time.
Fortunately, the benefits of meditation will allow your body to address many of the problems associated with chronic stress and help it rest and repair.
How To Do Mindfulness Meditation
In fact, one of the most important benefits of meditation is that it can help the body calm down and stop stressing. Because of this, you are also less at risk of developing adrenal fatigue. If you already suffer from adrenal fatigue, regular meditation practice can also aid in adrenal recovery.
Practicing meditation regularly has been found to significantly reduce stress levels. A Shamatha Project study found that participants in a three-month meditation retreat had lower evening cortisol levels. In contrast, high levels of cortisol are typically associated with significant emotional or physical stress. Retreat participants who also saw an increase in their mindfulness scores ended up having lower cortisol levels.
Constant stress can cause anxiety and a lot of worry. Ultimately, it can also trigger loneliness and even depression. Fortunately, both can be managed with meditation. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that mindfulness meditation can lead to significant reductions in levels of distress and anxiety. Meditation has also been shown to be effective for mothers who show symptoms of depression.
Meditation has been found to help improve your mood. One study found that people who participated in a meditation class experienced an improvement in their psychological well-being. A study conducted in Philadelphia observed significant improvement in anxiety and mood parameters among patients with memory loss who underwent an eight-week meditation program.
The Importance Of Mindfulness Meditation
When there is inflammation in the body due to stress, toxins can more easily enter the body through the intestinal lining. As a result, the immune system is on constant alert in the fight against toxins and eventually weakens significantly. With regular meditation, the body is able to rest and repair itself so that immune function can be restored. A study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that a short program of mindfulness meditation can have a significant effect on immune function. Additionally, mindfulness meditation can improve one’s immune function and even improve cognitive function.
When the body is in a constant state of stress, it is common to experience high blood pressure. Over time, this can weaken and damage blood vessels, causing them to leak or rupture, leading to stroke or heart problems. One of the best ways to lower blood pressure is through regular meditation. In fact, a study conducted in Kentucky found that transcendental meditation can effectively control high blood pressure.
People with advanced adrenal fatigue often experience sleep disturbances. This insomnia may be due to a number of triggers including hormonal imbalance, sympathetic tone, metabolic problems, and neurotransmitter dysregulation. This can make adrenal recovery much more difficult. By practicing meditation regularly, however, the quality of sleep can be significantly improved.
In fact, a study conducted in New Jersey showed that meditation practitioners experienced an average 98% increase in melatonin levels. This is the powerful neurochemical critical to sleep. Another study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that practicing meditation is a more effective way to alleviate sleep disorders than undergoing a sleep hygiene education program.
Mindfulness And Meditation: Coping Strategies For Stress And Anxiety Management
Stress can lead to emotional eating, which in addition to adding unhealthy foods to the diet can lead to obesity and other associated conditions such as heart disease. However, a study conducted in Chicago found that mindfulness meditation can help reduce both binge eating and emotional eating habits. By reducing stress and paying more attention to your body’s needs and emotions, you’ll be better able to say no to that bag of chips.
Now that you know more about the benefits of meditation for relieving stress, healing the body, calming the mind, and reducing adrenal fatigue, it’s time to get some ideas on how to meditate.
You don’t need to meditate for long periods of time to experience the benefits of meditation. Even a few minutes of meditation practice a day is a beneficial habit. Trying to sit and figure out what to focus on for too long can be frustrating or overwhelming at first. However, as you learn to sit calmly and allow your mind to rest, over time, it will be easier to stay seated longer. And even just taking a few deep breaths at a traffic light, for example, counts as meditation and can help change your mood.
You breathe continuously, but being aware of your breathing, in and out, can be a challenge. Many meditation practices are simply based on awareness of your breathing, without trying to breathe in any special way. Allowing your mind to focus on this, without worrying if you get distracted, by simply bringing your focus back to your breathing, can have huge health benefits.
Benefits Of Mindfulness And Meditation
Notice your breath coming in; notice where you feel it in your body as it makes its way through your nose or mouth, down your throat, and into your lungs. See if you can notice where it turns and you start to exhale. Then, as you exhale, notice the sensation of the breath in your body and imagine the stress being swept away. It may be helpful to count each inhalation and exhalation, up to ten, and then start again.
Doing some meditation in the morning can help get you started