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Nowadays, Meditation has become quite familiar to many people and is no longer in the religious sphere. It has been widely accepted as a way of relieving stress and regaining peace of mind. Today, Wellanda will introduce you to the concept of Meditation and its benefits.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is originated from the traditional Eastern health care, such as the practice of Ayurveda in India, or conventional medicine therapies in China and Japan. At first, the word meditation means reflecting deeply about something. However, when Eastern contemplative practices were imported into Western culture, this was the term used to define them, or lack a better word. Meditation today is more about focusing this attention than reflecting deeply.
Meditation is a group of mental exercises that include relaxation, concentration, and awareness. Meditation is about exercising the human soul. The practice of Meditation is usually done individually, in a sitting position with your eyes closed.
Meditation does not make you a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It's all about cognitive training and awareness of a healthy perspective. You need not try to turn off your thoughts or emotions. With Meditation, you learn to observe them without judgment. And finally, you can start to get to know them better.
What happens in your mind when you meditate?
Source: https://meditationforhealthyliving.com/cognitive-brain-therapy/
When scientists use modern technology such as fMRI scans, they have discovered what happens in our brains when we meditate, similar to how previous scientists had measured creativity in our minds.
The overall difference is that our brain stops positively processing data as usual. They began to show a drop in beta waves, which shows that our brain is processing information, even after a 20-minute meditation session, if we have never tried it before.
In the image below, you can see that the beta waves (shown in bright colors on the left) are significantly reduced during Meditation (on the right).
Benefits of Meditation
There are dozens of scientifically proven benefits of Meditation. Meditation will help you stay healthy, help prevent many illnesses, help you feel good, and improve your performance in any physical or mental task.
Some benefits come immediately after eight weeks of daily practice. Others take longer to mature and depend on the intensity of your training. Here are some of the most apparent benefits that Meditation gives to you:
1. Better focus
Because Meditation is a practice of focusing our attention and being aware of when it passes, this improves our focus when we don't practice meditating. It has a lasting effect that comes from regular meditations. This is useful for students who need to focus on learning, and office workers need alertness to work.
2. Reduce stress
The more you practice Meditation, the less you will worry. This is because we actually relax the connections of specific nerve pathways. This sounds ridiculous, but it is not.
There is a part of our brain that is sometimes called the Me Center. This is the processing of information related to ourselves and our experience. Usually, the nerve pathways from the body's sensory and fear centers to the Me Center are dominant. When you experience scary or unpleasant sensations, it will cause a strong reaction in your Me Center, causing you to feel scared and attacked.
When you meditate, you weaken this nerve connection. This means you are not reacting strongly to the feelings that may have ever lit Me Center. When you weaken this connection, you will feel less anxious and stressed.
3. Increase memory
Meditation relates to improved memory recall quickly. Catherine Kerr, a researcher at the Center for Biomedical Imaging born Martinos and Research Center Osher, found that those who practice mindfulness meditation can tune brain waves to screen distractions and increase productivity faster those who did not meditate. She said the ability to ignore these distractions could explain their superior ability to remember and incorporate new events quickly. This seems very similar to the strength of the exposure to the unique situation will also significantly improve our memory about everything.
4. Prevent bad habits
Practicing Meditation helps you develop cognitive skills quickly when your mind is distracted. By focusing on your mind, you can better understand your thoughts and emotions.
With a few months of practice, this skill shifts into your daily life while increasing the space between an emotional trigger and your reaction. This gives you more freedom from your conditioned responses, allowing you to participate more wisely and effectively with the present moment's challenges.
For example, if your response to stress is to place a cigarette in your mouth automatically, Meditation gives you more space to calm down and stay awake before lighting the fire. At that time, you can take a few deep breaths, relax the tension in your body, and put cigarettes back in the packaging.
The division of the break before you go into reaction mode can change your life. Not only it helps you avoid relapsing into a bad habit, but it also enables you to stop reacting based on anger and other destructive emotions.
5. Improve your health
It's impressive and surprising that Meditation can prove your immune system, reduce inflammatory disorders and asthma, manage blood pressure, and increase longevity. Studies have shown that Meditation reduces the risk of heart diseases, stroke, Alzheimer's, fibromyalgia, and arthritis.
The researchers at UCLA report that the practice of mindfulness has prevented the decline of CD4 T cells in HIV-infected patients under stress, slowing disease progression.
6. Live longer
Telomeres are an essential part of human cells that affect how our cells age. Some forms of Meditation can substantially impact telomere length by reducing cognitive stress and stimulating stress and increasing the positive state of mind and hormonal factors that can promote maintenance telomere.
Work cited:
"What Is Meditation?" Headspace, www.headspace.com/meditation-101/what-is-meditation.
Cooper, Belle Beth. "What Is Meditation & How Does It Affects Our Brains?: Buffer." Buffer Resources, Buffer Resources, 30 June 2020, buffer.com/resources/how-meditation-affects-your-brain/.
Giovanni. "76 Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness (2020)." Live and Dare, 2 July 2020, liveanddare.com/benefits-of-meditation/.
"Meditation May Help the Brain 'Turn down the Volume' on Distractions." ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 21 Apr. 2011, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110421122337.htm.
Giovanni. "How to Break Bad Habits With Meditation [7-Week Plan]." Live and Dare, 31 July 2020, liveanddare.com/how-to-break-bad-habits-with-meditation/.
Knapp, Hannah. "The Surprising Ways Meditation Boosts Your Immune System." WITHIN, WITHIN, 10 Nov. 2018, www.withinmeditation.com/blog/2018/11/9/the-surprising-ways-meditation-boosts-your-immune-system.
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