Have you wondered what the health benefits of meditation are?
Do you recognize when you are getting triggered? Do you feel anxious, stressed, on edge? Maybe you should try a simple meditation. Meditation can provide effective relief of stress and anxiety. Meditation is often started as a stress relieving practice. But meditation can do so many different things for you and is very good for your health. Here are seven proven health benefits of meditation.
1. Stress Reducer
Meditation is known to be a great stress reducer. According to healthline.com, meditation can help with reducing the inflammation caused by stress chemicals that are released.
When you are stressed, you release the cortisol hormone. This causes inflammation in your body. Meditation can help your body to lower that inflammation response. By lowering the inflammation, you feel better physically. You will get better sleep, feel less fatigued and possibly lower your blood pressure.
All of a sudden, your stress levels are reduced without a huge effort on your part. Simply meditate in a quiet place, perhaps with headphones and a meditation guided video. You can focus on your breathing while you meditate.
2. Emotional Health & Wellness
Meditation can improve your emotional health and wellness. You begin to heal past trauma's and can look into yourself and what beliefs you personally value. You might learn to let go of beliefs that are not yours. You might realize what and who trigger you. You might also find ways to avoid, let go of and work through triggers.
Your brain can continually learn and improve if you make the right choices. If you seek guidance, you can grow emotionally as a person as you age. Choose meditation as a simple daily habit that will help you to become emotionally well. I bet you'll experience positive changes if you give it a try!
If you need guidance, meditation can help you connect to a deeper version of yourself. It can help you to feel more grounded and to literally "open your heart". You might be able to open yourself up to new thought patterns and ideas. You might open yourself up to new ways of feeling.
3. Memory
According to Mindfulness Enhances Episodic Memory Performance: Evidence from a Multimethod Investigation - PMC (nih.gov), mindfulness facilitates the "ability to call to mind things that were done and said long ago." Also, that focused attention training enhanced working memory performance with both verbal and non-verbal materials. Neurologists have also found that mindfulness changes the areas of the brain that are associated with working memory tasks.
In 2017 Brunner completed a study that found that yoga training which included meditation showed an improvement in maintenance and manipulation of the working memory in adolescents. A clinical trial completed in 2020 which studied adolescents found that meditative movement improves working memory regardless of retest effects.
Meditation will be beneficial to your brain. You might not realize it, but by meditating you are improving your mental health in so many ways. You might want to start meditating today to help boost your brain for your present and future self! Maybe for the others around you as well?
Click below to read more on yoga and brain health.
4. Control Over Addiction
Listen, addiction can be a very serious thing. Addiction can also be a simpler and less-serious thing that is still not good for you. With such a wide range of addictions among people, you probably have a few of your own. Think about a habit that you frequently do or even do daily. Then really consider if its a good or bad habit. If its a bad habit, it is probably an addiction that you can free yourself from.
According to the NIH, "cultivation of increased cognitive control capacity through mindfulness practices can allow the individual to gain self-control over automatic substance use behavior." In the same article, they also mention that meditation promotes better executive functioning and cognitive control over habits.
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to be a promising intervention for SUD's and those at risk for relapse. Small but significant reduction in cravings was seen to be a result in practicing meditation. These studies were done on intensive addictions such as drug or alcohol addictions.
If you have an addiction that you want to kick, try meditation. You might be able to finally get rid of that bad habit!
5. Pain Management
According to PMC, mindfulness meditation is a technique that has been found to significantly reduce pain in experimental and clinical settings. Buddhist monks thousands of years ago determined that meditation can alter the subjective experience of pain.
Mindfulness meditation can help with pain-related disorders such as migraine, chronic pelvic pain and fibromyalgia. Pain itself is a complicated experience made up of sensory, cognitive, and affective factors. These include mood, learning, desires, suffering, expectations which are continually changing. These things can dramatically affect how you feel pain personally.
Pain management was not something that I knew was a benefit of meditation. This is just an added bonus when meditating and this is a drug-free pain relief option for patients.
6. Become Kinder
Research has shown that meditation can reshape neural pathways that are linked to compassion. This helps those who meditate see the interconnectedness of all human suffering. There are also compassion and loving-kindness meditations to help us to feel more warm-hearted towards others.
When we practice sending blessings, love, compassion and happiness we experience these things first. Regularly practicing meditation strengthens areas of our brains responsible for empathy and emotional intelligence.
So yes, by practicing meditation, you are literally re-wiring your brain to be a kinder and more compassionate person. Try a loving-kindness meditation practice to start sending love towards others as well as yourself.
7. Improve Libido
Meditation trains the mind to be present, something that helps when you are having sex. To be able to enjoy a physical connection, we can't be in our heads. We have to be able to enjoy the present moment.
In a 2008 and 2012 studies on women who had a sexual arousal disorder or had previous sexual abuse and/ or dysfunction reported feeling increased desire, arousal, more self-awareness and body awareness. They also reported less distress. A separate 2021 study showed that mindfulness is positively associated with improving sexual satisfaction, desire and functioning.
Many women experience or have experienced different forms of sexual trauma. Others may not be able to stay in the present moment during sex. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to have a positive impact on sexual health. If you need to speak to a therapist to help you work through your trauma, you should try to contact one today.
This post was written to help you know the health benefits of practicing meditation. Maybe once you begin your meditation practice, you will find that these are true for you as well.
References:
1. Front. Psychol., 12 May 2020
Sec. Movement Science
Volume 11 - 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00931
3. What is Compassion Meditation? (+ Mantras and Scripts) (positivepsychology.com)
4. Sex and Meditation: Mindfulness Tips to Improve Your Sex Life (psychcentral.com)
5. Zeidan F, Vago DR. Mindfulness meditation-based pain relief: a mechanistic account. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2016 Jun;1373(1):114-27. doi: 10.1111/nyas.13153. PMID: 27398643; PMCID: PMC4941786.
