People have long known about the various spiritual and mental upsides to meditation. However, fewer people know about the other benefits of meditation and mindfulness.
Namely, the health benefits associated with meditation are often overlooked or downplayed. Let’s look into the top meditation benefits for your health!
Health Benefits from Meditation
Stress Reduction
One of the primary reasons people meditate is in order to reduce their amount of stress. Stress is a silent killer. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is created in larger quantities in people who have extreme stressors in their life. One of the best things stressed people can do is meditate on their stress and reduce their stress levels.
High cortisol levels can lead to a higher number of cytokines in the body. Cytokines, in turn, can lead to trouble sleeping, anxiety, depression, higher blood pressure, and fatigue. Essentially, the more stressed you are, the more stressed you’ll continue to be. Meditation can break this cycle by cutting out the production of cortisol.
Outlook
It can be very difficult to keep a positive outlook on life in the face of adversity. However, meditation can have a huge positive impact in this regard. When one lets go of their thoughts and embraces stillness and meditation, it’s easier to have a positive outlook.
In short, remember that your problems are all entirely temporary. Love, beauty, kindness and the goodness of the human spirit are indefinite and will last far longer than anything troubling you. When your outlook is more positive, your heart health and mental health both enjoy the benefits.
Attention Span
In the modern world, attention spans have shortened dramatically, thanks in large part to the prevalence of media for consumption. From binge-worthy TV to online videos to video games, there’s no shortage of things to take your attention. Meditation can lead to increased attention span lengths as well as helping reduce reliance on social media.
If you find yourself often swapping between several social media apps, listening to music with the TV on and trying to read all at once, you know how it feels to have a short attention span. Meditating can help you focus in and take more time doing things you want to do. Nothing quite beats sitting down and reading a good book after a nice session of meditation!