INTRODUCTION
For thousands of years people have practiced meditation for Spiritual, emotional and Physical well being. But from a scientific perspective. Meditation has been the focus of thousands of studies over the past 50 years.so below are incredible and amazing benefits of meditation.
What exactly meditation does to your Body, mind and soul? For more knowledge read 25 benefits of meditation
01) Concentration and focus better:
A study in 2010 conducted by a Dr. Catherine MacLean of the University of California Davis had subjects perform extremely boring tasks such as looking for small differences in lines. She found that the group also underwent meditation during the cource of the study performed significantly better. Suggesting that meditation increases your ability to concentrate. Another study conducted at the university of washington by a professor Dr. Levy found that meditation increases the length of which workers were able to concentrate on a single task.
02) Structural transformtion:
Meditation doesn’t just make your brain bigger, it can change the physical shape of your brain too. According to a 2011 study from the journal Psychiatry researh, meditation transform to specific strcture in the brain. The hippocampus and the Amygdala the first the Hippocampus is a tiny structure lacated in your temporal lobe, despite it’s small size your Hippocampus plays a major role in artical cognitive functions like memory and learning without your Hippocampus, you couldn’t even remember your own name. After 8 short week of meditation, training research found that participants has larger, thicker Hippocampus which means faster learning and a much more effiicient memory. The second structure the Amygala is the emotional center of your brain known for it’s almost like shape of Amygdala. Processes fundamental emotions like fear and anxiety but the same 2011 study found that meditatin reduces that negativity. It shrinks areas in your Amygdala related to stress and other damaging emotions you know words by meditating frequently. You may actually transform the shape of your brain and change your life for the better.
03) Perception of Pain:
Meditation is more basis you can process, if you practice meditation on a regular basis you can reduce both mental and physical pain. Lets say you took a long Hike yesterday and your legs are aching, is there anything you can do to minimize that pain. Well meditation may do the trick. This was discovered in 2011 by a study in the Journal of Neuroscience, they found that meditation directly impact pain mechanism in your brain because pain in many ways is a mental process while injury isn’t something you can control your experience of that injury take place in your brain. So if you can control your mental states you may be able to control your pain too.
04) Short Meditation Breaks can help kids in schools:
For developing minds, meditation has as much or perhaps even more promise than it has for adults. There’s been increasing interest from educators and researchers.In bringing meditation and yoga to school kids who are going through the usual stresses inside school and most times. Additional stress and trauma outside school. Some school have begun putting in place meditation into their daily schedules and with good effects a district in San Franscisco started a meditation program that takes place twice in a day. In some of it’s high-risk schools and reported a decrease number of suspensions and an increase in attendance. Research has indeed confirmed the cognitive and emotional benefits of meditation for school children but more work will probably need to be done before it gains more widespread acceptance.
05) Makes You happier Person:
In a famous study conducted in 2004 by a Dr. Richard Davidson, he placed electrodes on the heads of Monks, who are practionors of meditation for years. He discovered that the monks had 30 times the normal amount of Gamma waves which are associated with Intelligence, Compassion, self-control and feelings of happiness in the brain. Another study published in 2008 in the journal of personality and social psychology by professor Barbara Fredrickson, stated that the result show that the meditation practiced it on a daily basis. So it’s no surprise why some of the top performer of the world todayy like CEO’s Sports Teams and Enterpreneurs are all jumping on the meditation.
06) Extremely Healthy:
A study conducted on older adults at the university of California Los Angeles found that meditation decrease amount of C-reactive protein in the blood, which directly correlates with the development of heart diseases. The same study found a drop in inflammation in the body. Another study conducted at the Benson Henry Institute for mind-ody medicine in Boston looked at a group of Hypertension patients. They discovered with just 3 months of meditation practice the patients were able to drastically decrease their blood pressure. The most mind blowing of all was a study conducted in 2010 by Nobel prize winner. Elizabeth Blackburn, she found that meditation had the effects on your body and a Genetic levels. They found that meditation could protect the length of your Telomeres. For those of you who don’t know that Telomeres, short Telomeres are a maker for accelerated aging. This is evidence that meditation may slow down the process of aging.
07) Physically Changes Your Brain:
A study conducted in 2011 at Harvard, led by a Dr.Sarah Lazar, found that meditating for just 8 week increases your brain size in 3 crucial areas. The left Hippocampus, which is responsible for your ability to learn as well as your ability to retain information, the posterior Cingulate, which is involved in your ability to control where your mind wanders and the temporal parental junction which is responsible for empathy and compassion. Meditation doesn’t only grow the good parts of your brain. The same study found that after 8 weeks of meditation, these were also decrease in cell volumn in the Amygdala, which is the area of your brain that is responsible for fear, anxiety and stress.
08) Helps overcome Bad Habits:
The Dorsolateral prefrontal Cortex is the part of your brain that is responsible for will power. A study conducted in 2015 found that meditation stimulates growth in this part of your brain. A study in 2014 conducted by Dr. Sarah Bowen Separated a large group of Alcoholics into two smaller groups. One groups was taught mindfulness meditation, while the other followed your typical 12 steps program. They found that only 8% of participants in the mindfulness meditation program reported relapsing a year later. As compared to 20% of participants in the 12 steps program reported relapsing a year later.
09) Empathy:
When scientist compared the brains of buddhist monks to new meditator, they found the region of the brain associated with empathy to be much more pronounced in the monks. It also literally chnages your brain waves and we can measured these frequencies. Meditators have higher levels of Alpha waves, which have been shown to reduced feelings of negative moods, tension, sadness and anger. And if that wasn’t enough, it also physically changes our brain shape and size. Studies found that after 8 weeks of a meditation program, gray matter was more dense in areas associated with learning, memory processing and emotion regulation. And yet the Amygdala, which deals with stress, blood pressure and fear, had decreased gray matters.
10) Reduces Bad Emotions:
They have been numerous studies that looks at the effects of meditation on emotions such as stress, depression and anxiety. Now stress isn’t inherently bad for you, in fact the little stress is actually healthy for you. However there are many people who stressed too much and this can cause serious health problems. A study in 2004 found that meditation can help you better manage as well as dramatically decreased the negative side effects of stress. A recent study published on JAMA Internal Medicine by Professor Willem Kuyken worked with people who suffer from depression. Kuyken found mindfulness meditation helped people quote just as much as commonly prescribed anti-depresent drugs and quote people undergoing to study had a 31% less of a chance of relapsing. A similar study in 2014 managed by a Dr. Elizabeth Hoge worked with people diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. She found that meditating for just 8 weeks dramatically reduced anxiety symptoms. And if all these studies still aren’t enough to convince you that meditation reduces bad feelings. Researcher of John Hopkins publshed a paper on JAMA Internal medicine in which they reviewed over 19ooo meditation studies. And they came to the conclusion that meditation helps ease depression and anxiety.
11) Slower Aging:
As you age, your body gets slower and you start to lose your edge but meditation can actually slow down the aging process in your brain. This comes from a 2015 study form UCLA they found that long term meditators has healthier brains, that non-meditators. You know the crazy thing is even the researchers were shocked by their findings they expected a small difference if any in the size of brain but instead tey found significant changes in brain volumn by meditating regularly these people developed more gray matter and their brain volumn stayed more consistent in other words meditation held back many of the years to come.
12) Theory Of Mind:
Simply your mind help you understand the past, the future and the people around you, so you couldn’t really live without it, but your mind isn’t always your friend. An overactive network leads to something called mind wandering mind. Wandering is when your brain gets caught up in a cycle of what-if worries and doubts these self-referential ideas come directly from your mind and can really bring you down. In fact a 2010 study from the journal science explians that too much wandering makes people unhappy and unfocused, luckily meditation may be the answer. A 2011 study from yale university found that people who meditate have less activity in their mind, why is that well, because meditation slows down this neural network. It encourages you to live in the movement to focus on the present and spend less time worrying about your past or your future and that can really lift your spirit the same. 2011 study found that meditation can significantly improve your mood, participants felt happier overall and when their mind started to wander they were much quicker to recover.
13) Finding Your Flow State:
Have you ever been so absorbed in your work you forgot the outside world even existed this state of mind goes by a few different names, some call it the zone, other say absolute focus but most call this a flow state. It’s a short period of time. When you’re 100% focused on one specific thing most people just can’t snap in and out of this flow, whenever they want but meditation makes that transition a whole lot easier by practicing mindfulness.
14) Lasting Confidence:
Few People realize how much meditation can affect your self-confidence, this comes from a 1995 study from the general hospital of Phychiatry. They found that meditation has a Neutralizing effects on social anxiety as little as 15 minutes a day can soothe your general nervousness and reduced self-inflicted stress which gives you more confidence in all kind of nerve-wracking situation but this burst of confidence is not just a one-time thing, no meditation can soothe your nerves year after you stopped practiing. In 1995 study, participants took an 8 week couse on mindfulness meditation and it did decrease their anxiety but those improvements held up over 3 years later even if they hadn’t practiced meditating since their original. Meditation can have lasting effects on your attitude. You anxiety and most of all self-confidence.
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15) Can lower Blood Pressure:
Meditation can also improve physical health by reducing strain on the heart over time. High blood pressure makes the heart work a little harder to pump blood which can lead to the poor functioning of the heart. High blood pressure also contributes to Atheorosclerosis, which cause by the narrowing of the Arteries which may lead to heart attack or stroke. An analysis of 12 studies including almost 1000 volunteers found that meditation helps reduce blood pressure, this was more effectiive among the older participants and those who had higher blood pressure before the study, one review in particular concluded that multiple types of meditatin produced similar imrpovement in blood pressure in part meditation seems to regulate blood pressure by relaxing the nerve signals that coordinate heart function blood vessels tension and the fight or fight response that increases alertness in stressful situation.
16) Control Pain:
Your perception of pain is connected to your state of mind and it can be elevated in stressful conditions. Many doctors recommended mindful meditation practices as a part of a comprehensive pain managment plan. A 2020 study of more than 6400 participants across 60 trials found that meditation could reduce pain in those who are in agong from surgical, chronic or acute pain. One review of 36 studies concluded that mindfulness meditation could reduce pain. Improve quality of life and decrease symptoms of depression of people with chronic pain. A large meta-analysis of studies enrolling close to 3500 participants concluded that meditation was associated with decreased pain. Those who meditate and those who didn’t experienced. The same caused of pain but meditators demonstrated a greater ability to cope with pain and even experienced a reduced sensation of pain. It’s not going to be a cure-all for everything and it won’t necessarily make the pain go away. We can recognised that the pain is there but we don’t get ensnared by it in the same way and be enormously beneficial in helping cope with chronic pain.
17) Bonding With Compassion:
There’s another reason meditation creates these deeper social bondds. Yes, you can learn to live in the moment and yes you’re more appreciative of the people that loves you but you also care more about people in general. Meditation makes you a more compassionate individual, someone who listen empathizes and truly invest in the people you meet. In a 2012 study from the clinical Psychology review. Researchers tested whether or not this was actually true, meditatin does makes people more compassioante. Well to tests this they use 2 different techniques one was-loving, kindness meditation and another called compassion meditation. In these theory practices should develop area in your brain related to kindness and compassion. Researhers found significant increase in those excat parts of the brain, resulting in a higher capacity for both compassion and empathy. These two techniques gave people more than they bargained for, by increasing their capacity for empathy. Meditation ease their social anxiety and reduce any pent up anger, so meditation doesn’t just help you bond with others to teaches you to be more compassionate towards yourself.
18) Improve Self-Esteem and Self-Awareness:
The great thing about mindfulness meditation is that it encourages you to slow down, allow for deeper self-reflection and helps you discover positive traits about yourself. Mindfullness helps elevate self-awareness by increasing the ability to examine one’s thought and feelings without judgement which ends up improving self-esteem.
19) Social Gratitude:
Gratitude comes naturally when meditate. You’ll begin discovering value and many of the things you once took for granted. Especially the people who matters the most in your life. Meditation provides a newfound appreciation for the connection you’ve made.
20) Unexpected Happiness:
Happiness, the next major benefits of meditation hits you when you least expect it. According to a 2008 study in the Annals of Behavioral medicine, many people who meditate experience a small boost in their mood. It’s one of the most reliable ways to increase well-being and quality of life, but here’s the part most people don’t expect. Meditation can also helps you find happiness in the world around you, frequent meditators view people in places in a new light, their meditation helps them discover new perspective they find joy in small unexpected events and they learn to appreciate everything that lie has to offer.
21) Deactivate Your Network:
Your brain is full of systems and networks like the defaults mode network. This large pack of neural structures spans across the majority of brains and its handles all kind of cognitive functions from creations of selfhood to episodic memory. It even covers theory of mind to put it.
22) Healthy Lifestyle:
Meditation is not a substitute for other medical adviced or a healthy lifestyle. But much like hitting the gym can grow your muscles and increase your overall health, it seems that meditation may be a way of working out your brain with extra health benefits.
23) Healthy Body:
When we look at the entire body, not only do we see decreased blood pressure, but it can also increased the variability of your heart rate. While this may sound harmful, it actually a critical role in properly transporting oxygen and Carbon Dioxide throughout your body. In a study where both meditators and non-meditators were given the Flu-Virus, meditators were able to produce a great number of anti-bodies and had increased immune function.
24) Telomeres:
If we go a little deeper, we can even see changes on a cellular levels. Your Chromosomes have protective protein complexes called Telomeres which help reduce damage to your DNA and lower cell death. And a shortened Teloremes length has been linked to several diseases such as Cardiovacular diseases. Diabetes. Alzheimer’s and Cancer. Amazingly, when cancer survivors completed a meditation program, their bodies showed significant increase in Telomeres length. It is believed that Psychological Intervation particularly decreasing stress, has a direct effects on the enzymes telomeres, which has been shown to countered shortening by adding DNA to the shrinking Teloremes.
25) Healthy Brain:
During Meditation, brain-scanes see increased activity in regions directly correlated with decreased anxiety and depression, along with increased pain tolerance. The default mode network, in particular is activated when one’s mind is at rest and not focusing on the outside world, and has been found to improve memory, self-awareness and goal setting.
PEOPLE ALSO ASK:
Why is meditation so powerful?
- Concentration and focus better
- Structural transformtion
- Perception of Pain
- Makes You happier Person
- Extremely Healthy:
- Physically Changes Your Brain
- Helps overcome Bad Habits
- Reduces Bad Emotions
- Healthy Brain
- Healthy Lifestyle
- Deactivate Your Network
- Improve Self-Esteem and Self-Awareness