Everyone understands that if you eat healthy and exercise regularly, your body will in turn function at a elevated level, readily absorbing nutrients and keeping a healthy amount of fat/cholesterol to muscle mass ratio. In turn a multitude of health benefits can be realized such as reduced risk of cardiovascular arrest, disease, increased immunity, increased metabolism, reduced risk of cancer and the list goes on. These are all part of what is driving the recent trend in active and healthy lifestyles, increased want for organic produce and free-range meats and therapeutic benefits from green tea and spices like turmeric and ginger. Granted these changes to a more active lifestyle come with their challenges, and the busy somewhat daunting change can be tough and quick to get you back into old habits!
That is why MEDITATION plays a key role in keeping oneself aligned with your goals and keeping the right attitude needed to achieve them. Mediation for your brain is exactly like what exercise is like for your body, and similarly the benefits felt here will extend into other facets of your life. Think of your brain like a big muscle, and think of your daily routine as a kind of "workout". If you were to go to a gym and everyday you just did the same workout, what would happen? you would barely see any results because your body is used to that workout everyday, there is no change therefore you do not change. When you do the same things over and over again, you strengthen the electrical impulses in your brain that are fired and they subsequently form a "pathway". That is why some things like driving just become second nature over years because it is so ingrained in our brains on how to do something in someway. Routine and habit, itself is not a bad thing, it promotes structure, organization, time management, however it can also promote our bad habits, fast food, blowing off exercise, etc. Here is where meditation comes into play, in order to help juggle everything in our busy lives while enjoying a multitude of other benefits, we must actively "workout" our brains through mediation. As little as 10 minutes a day and you can begin to see positive change in your life, mentally and physically.
Here is a list of benefits found in published research studies over the years:
Brain & Moods:
Meditation practices decreases depression
Meditation may be effective to treat depression to a similar degree as antidepressant drug therapy”.
Meditation practices help regulate mood and anxiety disorders
Meditation reduces stress and anxiety in general
Meditation helps reduce symptoms of panic disorder
Meditation increases grey matter concentration in the brain
Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need
Long-term meditation enhances the ability to generate gamma waves in the brain
Meditation helps reduce alcohol and substance abuse
Mind & Performance:
Meditation improves your focus, attention, and ability to work under stress
Meditation improves information processing and decision-making
Meditation gives you mental strength, resilience and emotional intelligence
Meditation makes you stronger against pain
Meditation helps manage ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
Meditation increases the ability to keep focus in spite of distractions
Meditation improves learning, memory and self-awareness
Mindfulness meditation improves rapid memory recall
Meditation improves your mood and psychological well-being
Meditation helps us allocate limited brain resources
Meditation improves visuospatial processing and working memory
Meditation prepares you to deal with stressful events
Meditation increases awareness of your unconscious mind
Mindfulness meditation fosters creativity
Body & Health:
Meditation reduces risk of heart diseases and stroke
Meditation affects genes that control stress and immunity
Meditation reduces blood pressure
Mindfulness training decreases inflammatory disorders
Mindfulness meditation decreases cellular-level inflammation
Mindfulness practice helps prevent asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease
Meditation and meditative prayer help treat premenstrual syndrome and menopausal symptoms
Mindfulness meditation reduces risk of Alzheimer’s and premature death
Mindfulness training is helpful for patients diagnosed with Fibromyalgia
Meditation helps manage the heart rate and respiratory rate
Mindfulness meditation may even help treat HIV
Meditation may make you live longer
Meditation helps manage psoriasis
Health benefits of Transcendental Meditation
Relationships:
Loving-kindness meditation improves empathy and positive relationships
Loving-kindness meditation also reduces social isolation
Meditation increases feelings of compassion and decreases worry
Mindfulness meditation decreases feelings of loneliness
Meditation reduces emotional eating
School Children and Meditation:
reduced depression symptoms
reduced somatic stress
reduced hostility and conflicts with peers
reduced anxiety
reduced reactivity
reduced substance use
increased cognitive retention
increased self-care
increased optimism and positive emotions
increased self-esteem
increased feelings of happiness and well-being
improved social skills
improved sleep
improved self-awareness
improved academic performance
There were also numerous reports of benefits for teachers and staff, including:
increased personal qualities of open-minded curiosity, kindliness, empathy, compassion, acceptance, trust, patience, and non-striving, and the skills of focusing, and paying and switching attention
improvements in physical and mental health that tend to follow the learning of mindfulness, including conditions particularly relevant to the teaching profession such as stress and burnout
improved teaching self-efficacy
improved physical health
increased ability to give more appropriate support for students by through being more motivated and autonomous
decreased stress
increased work motivation
improved spatial memory, working memory and sustained attention
Some more interesting facts about meditation:
Saying the OM sound before a surgery helps in preparation and recovery
Meditators are more able to affect the reality around us, in a quantum level
There is also some account of mindfulness meditation improving your sex life
Reduces race and age prejudice
In a nutshell, science confirms the experience of millions of practitioners: meditation will keep you healthy, help prevent multiple diseases, make you happier, and improve your performance in basically any task, physical or mental.
However, in order to experience most of these benefits you need to practice meditation consistently (daily). Luckily, you have the wise and warm hearted Shabad-Dev at your disposal to teach you how to mediate to get in touch with your inner yogi. Kundalini in Hamilton is ramping up!
