Have you ever walked into a yoga class and been told that you will spend a significant amount of your time concentrating on your Chi Gong breathing and focusing inwardly? Did you know that this is a form of meditation?
Meditation is a great way to help improve your overall health, whether if be physically, mentally, or emotionally. In this article, we will discuss about what happens when you take an inward look. Knowing what are the health benefits of meditation could help you decide how, why, and if you should use meditation as part of your daily routine to improve your overall being.
The gifts afforded to you during meditation vary widely but are amazing for the body, mind, and soul, all of which need to work together to help you live a long, happy, healthy life.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is most generally linked to the religious beliefs of the Middle Eastern or Asian cultures and therefore is not a commonly recognized Western world practice. However, with more and more celebrities doing yoga and meditating, and more and more diversity in the United States, meditation and yoga are starting to become more commonplace.
Meditation has several benefits. You can use meditation to connect to the here and now, meaning that you are becoming mindful of not only your physical self but of your inner workings. Meditation can be seen as a way to obtain deep peace, which in itself has many health benefits. Also, meditation can help you to achieve ultimate health benefits.
We will look here at the different ways that you can meditate as well as how it can help your overall well being. Many people use meditation as an alternative to more modern medical techniques. The benefits are proven.
How to Meditate
Although many people know what meditation is and it has been sensationalized through Hollywood and other public outlets, knowing exactly how to meditate can be a little confusing. What exactly do you have to do to make this happen in your life? Do you need a quiet room, a lotus leaf, a cushy mat, a celebrity guru, and a yogi to help you achieve meditation? The answer is no.
All you need is a comfortable place where you can focus on yourself. A lot of meditating focuses on your breathing, which helps you to calm the different areas of your body and mind. The breathing doesn’t have to be forced when meditating. It should come naturally. In fact, nothing about meditation should be forced.
Remember that when you are meditating, you are doing it to create peace within yourself. If you are trying to force yourself to find peace, you will not be able to do it. You can meditate alone or in a group. There are self-help videos, phone apps, and audio recordings that can help guide you when you are learning how to meditate as well. So, what is the goal of meditation? The ultimate goal of meditation is to improve your overall health and mental wellness.
What Health Benefits Bring Meditation?
Calming your body down and understanding the way that your body works can have several benefits to your health. Whether it be mental, physical, or emotional, having inner peace is beneficial to your overall person. However, why is it that meditation is effective in calming your body? How can using meditation help you to fight off unhealthiness, whether in thought, habit, or physically? Let’s see it more closely.
So, why meditation?
First, meditation can help you to lower things. Blood pressure can be lowered through meditation. So can blood cortisol levels and heart rate. Having lower blood pressure helps to increase your heart health and make sure that you do not have a stroke or heart attack.
Secondly, meditation can help to lessen things. You can lessen your stress, lessen your perspiration, and lessen your anxiety. Interestingly, people who are in excellent shape end up sweating less because they do most of their sweating in the early part of their workouts, which helps them to cool their bodies quicker.
Less anxiety can help with your mental health, which ultimately has an impact on your physical health. Anyone who has ever suffered anxiety issues knows that when you are anxious over something, trying to calm yourself down and do typical everyday functions can be a huge task.
Keeping yourself levelheaded can improve your physical well-being by allowing you to complete everyday tasks that can otherwise be hard to complete.
Lessening your stress can have a positive effect on your health. Stress causes you to go into fight or flight, which causes your blood pressure to rise, your heart to pound, and your hormones to surge. This sudden change in your body’s functions can cause damage to your overall health. Obviously, because of the negative impact of stress, it is better to keep your stress levels down. Especially since stress causes wrinkles and gray hair!
Meditation can slow your respiratory rate, lower your cortisol levels in your blood, and improve your circulation. Slow respiratory rate helps improve cardiovascular and respiratory function, which, in turn, helps with heart and lung health. Low cortisol levels can be directly related to kidney health and how your body breaks down lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins. Having good circulation can help with promoting the growth of cells and can help with organ function.
Meditation can also help to keep your mind sharp and your attention more alert. Focusing on your breathing and finding peace within helps to lengthen the amount of time you can keep your attention focused on one thing. Meditation can also help fight memory loss.
In addition to having great mental benefits that help to prolong a youthful brain, meditation can also have an impact on your thoughts in everyday life. Have you ever felt that you couldn’t do something because it was too hard, like stop smoking or give birth? Obviously, those are two very separate ends of the will-power spectrum, but meditating can help to overcome both.
When you meditate, you focus your brain in other areas that don’t necessarily connect you with your physical being. By focusing your attention elsewhere or by practicing meditation in a way that increases your willpower, you are able to move your body away from the pain or addiction you are fighting. This is another health benefit.
Finally, one of the most commonly used ways of meditation is to help promote sleep. There are several different ways that meditation can be used to promote sleep, but focusing on achieving relaxation in different areas of the body can help your body to find rest and help you fall to sleep quicker. Breathing while meditating is a great combination to use when trying to fall to sleep.
Obviously, it seems that meditation is directly related to heart health, lung health, and mental health, which are probably the most important systems in the body to keep you going. Keeping your body in tiptop shape is ultimately what you want for a good, healthy life. Meditation can make this a reality for you!