Meditation Will Bring Amazing Benefits To You
There have been many studies performed on meditation in the last decade trying to understand its effects, as well as how it manages to help us so much, both in mind and body.
Research into meditation has demonstrated that meditating for a short time increases alpha waves, which makes us feel more relaxed, while simultaneously decreasing our feelings of anxiety and depression. Alpha waves flow through cells in the brain’s cortex, where we process sensory information. These waves help suppress irrelevant or distracting sensory information, allowing us to focus. The more alpha waves we have, the better we focus.
In his book, “What Is Meditation?”, Rob Nairn refers to meditation as a state of “bare attention.” He explains, “It is a highly alert and skillful state of mind because it requires one to stay psychologically present and ‘with’ whatever happens in and around one without adding to or subtracting from it in any way.”
Meditation has many health benefits. Interestingly, an increased ability to focus allows those who suffer from chronic pain to ease their pain by choosing not to focus on it. It can also help with various other health problems, including: anxiety, depression, stress, insomnia, HIV/AIDS and cancer. It can also enhance the body’s immune system, making us less likely to get sick.
Studies have also shown that meditation can help to reverse heart disease. In the journal Stroke, 60 african/americans suffering from a hardening of the arteries were asked to meditated for 6-9 months. Those who meditated showed a notable decrease in the thickness of their artery walls. Those who didn’t meditate showed an increase in thickness. The conclusions were quite dramatic. Meditation offers a potential 11% decrease in risk of a having a heart attack, and 8-15% decrease in risk of having a stroke.
Meditation benefits our minds as well. It teaches us to better control our thoughts. This gives us the ability to quiet those nagging negative thoughts we may have from time to time.
A 2007 study, titled “Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources” in PLOS Biology, suggests that frequent meditation leads to longer attention spans.
A 2008 study, titled “Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: effects of medtative expertise” in PLOS One, found that those who meditated had stronger levels in areas of the brain tied to empathy.
Through meditation, we gain better concentration, spontaneity and creativity, happiness and peace of mind. Actors experience the effects of meditation on creativity first hand during acting classes. Whenever they make use of their creative impulses, they first meditate. It may seem odd at first, but the results are amazing. Creativity floods to the surface once the mind is cleared of clutter.
Finally, meditation can help us to discover our purpose in life. By turning our attention inwards, and focusing purely on our own being for long periods of time, meditation can help us gain a new perspective at life, unhindered by our own egoistic perspective. If you want to ask the very philosophical question, “Who am I?,” there is no better way than through meditation.
Enough, though, about the many benefits of meditation. There are many other websites that describe meditation and how it can help you. Source
Post a Comment