Have you ever been stressed out and wondered if you should try meditating, but then laughed off the idea? Meditation delivers excellent health benefits at a bargain price; it’s free. Take into consideration these scientifically proven health benefits.
Meditation is an excellent stress-buster. If you're a typical American, you probably live a stressful life and pack too much into your schedule. If you meditate for as little as a quarter of an hour each day, your body will show lower levels of cordisol. What’s cortisol? It’s a hormone your body produces when stressed as part of your fight or flight response, and it can wreak havoc on your nerves and immune system if produced in high levels.
Meditation is good for your heart. Every time you meditate, your body responds by lowering your blood pressure and slowing your heart rate. It is also believed to bolster your body’s ability to heal, which is why the Mayo Clinic recommended daily meditation for its cancer patients and provides classes on how to meditate.
Meditation supports mental focus and feelings of serenity. When studied, monks who meditated regularly were found to have more activity between neurons and synapses than those who did not meditate. The monks also had larger hippocampuses, the piece of your brain that makes you feel good. In general, people who practice meditation see improvement in mental focus.
What is a good way to start meditating? Establish a time and place for meditating each day; you may want to start out with something reachable, like fifteen minutes a day. Find a quiet place, set a timer, sit comfortably, and close your eyes. Focus on a single word and repeatedly guide your mind back to that thought. Distracting thoughts will try to dissuade you, but you will ignore those thoughts and return to the one chosen word. Stay still and focus on that word until your alarm goes off. Increase your meditation commitment by small increments until you’ve established a meditation practice you find rewarding.
