How Meditation Improves Overall Health and Wellbeing

Meditation has been scientifically proven to improve physical health and mental wellbeing and while different types of meditation are based on various factors such as compassion, mindfulness, and transcendentalism, they all share common benefits. Here are just 7 of the many improvements meditation can bring to your life.

Meditation Reduces Stress

Stress creates anxiety and agitation and is something that most people deal with on some level. As the levels of prescribed anti-anxiety medications continue to rise, meditation allows people to take charge of their own mental and physical wellbeing. Studies have shown that meditation improves the ability to permanently regulate the emotions in the brain, thereby empowering practitioners.

Meditation Improves Concentration

At least one study has proven the positive effects of meditation on the ability to concentrate and the majority of practitioners state that they experience an improvement in effective multi-tasking. Seen at the base levels of the brain, meditation is also said to increase memory and practitioners find that this improved concentration is directly related to the increased energy that meditation provides.

Meditation Increases Self-Awareness

Meditation can assist practitioners in recognising negative emotions or patterns of behaviour and help to detach from them. Through the clearing of the mind, meditation helps practitioners to become calmer and more mindful in how they approach their lives and others. Through delving into the self-conscious, one becomes more comfortable in revealing who you really are and takes you one step closer to self-acceptance. It will surely also delight you to know that online pokies have been described by many players as meditative.

Meditation Encourages a Healthier Lifestyle

As the mind becomes decluttered and clearer owing to meditation, many practitioners find themselves making healthier lifestyle choices as a result. Since work is being done to improve mental wellbeing, many find it difficult to continue to participate in previous negative habits such as smoking, drinking in excess, and eating too much processed food.

Meditation Increases Happiness

Studies have shown that meditation increases brain signalling in the left side of the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions – while brain signalling decreases in the right side – the part responsible for negative emotions. Along with an increased self-awareness and acceptance, these factors all contribute to an overall improvement in wellbeing.

Meditation Slows Ageing

Meditation has been proven to alter brain psychology to such an extent that it slows ageing and preserves the cognition of practitioners. Sara Lazar, a researcher Harvard University, has found that meditators also have increased brain cells and longer telomeres – the caps on chromosomes indicative of biological age, as opposed to chronological.

Meditation Benefits Immune and Cardiovascular Health

Through inducing relaxation, meditation increases the compound nitric oxide which causes the blood vessels to open up, subsequently dropping blood pressure. A study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2008 showed that 40 out of 60 patients who started practising meditation were able to stop taking their blood pressure medication. Meditation has also been proven to boost the immune systems of practitioners and many report an overall improvement in physical wellbeing.