Humans yearn for happiness, health, prosperity, love, and peace of mind. However, often we don’t believe it is attainable or it’s for others, but we can’t possible live a peaceful life because of _________ (insert reason here).
Happiness, love, peace of mind are achievable in many forms, if we choose to accept this way of life is attainable. One of the many tools available for creating a peaceful, fulfilled life is meditation. For many, the idea of meditating sounds great, but somewhere inside there is a disbelief that it will work, or in our minds we believe meditating is so hard that we are intimidated to even try.
Meditation: The New Medication
Meditation is a buzzword that has quickly become trendy over the last few years, with many people using the term without having a clear idea of what it means or the benefits it produces.
For thousands of years, meditation has been a mental practice that cultures have utilized in their daily life. It’s a time-tested method of maintaining harmony in the body and mind. Even though it is viewed as a new, trendy topic the reality is it has been passed through generations and traditions. Over the last 50 years science has taken a special interest in meditation as instruments and tools have been invented to measure the outcomes and performance within the body of meditation.
Science is showing huge benefits for meditation being better than many medications for treating long-term ailments of the population.
According to a some of the latest research on meditation, meditation helps relieve, anxiety, pain, and depression. Meditation has also shown as effective as an antidepressant in treating depression. Meditation is thought to work via its effects on the sympathetic nervous system, which decreases heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure during times of stress. Meditation also shows positive results for improving the immune system, cardiovascular health and lowering blood pressure.
Numerous studies show that those who frequently meditate feel less discomfort than those who don’t. The practice of mindfulness meditation changes how people perceive pain and encourages you to appreciate every moment, including those that are painful. When you meditate, you can experience feelings like pain, fear, or rage without succumbing to the negative ideas or cycle of actions that usually follow.
Non-meditators, on the other hand, have the propensity to become hooked on negative emotions. For instance, people with fibromyalgia often find themselves thinking about pain because they live with chronic pain on a daily basis.
Thoughts Heal
In a bestselling book, “The Biology of Belief,” of Dr. Lipton, he confirmed that since our cells, genes, and DNA are manipulated by our mind — then we can literally “think our way to great health.”
Why is meditation such a good thing? When you meditate, your body undergoes physiological changes similar to those that occur when you exercise. Eight weeks of regular meditation has been shown to improve brain density in the region of the brain responsible for executive function, which helps control emotions, stores information, and enables you to function at your best. In the meantime, your brain’s amygdala, which serves as a stress button, decreases. It is comparable to going to the gym for your mind.
Mindfulness Is The Way
Meditation is a mental exercise, that when practiced consistently trains the brain to think, process and react differently. In the simplest of terms, meditation is the ability to relax and calm the mind. It is calming the mind to one thing or into a state of nothingness – a place of just being present. In other words, it brings the mind into a state where it focuses on no-thing.
However, there are several techniques that can be used that have nothing to do with coming into stillness. For example learning to observe your thoughts and not attach to them can be just as powerful as learning to “quiet the mind”.
Meditating helps to improve your attention span, keep your stress levels low, boost your memory, lowers your blood pressure, and much more.
Research shows that benefits of meditation includes:
- Cardiovascular health & immune support
- Reduce stress and anxiety
- Calm the nervous system
- Improve Concentration
- Increase information retention
- Slows aging
- Increase happiness
- Intensify acceptance
- Encourage a healthy lifestyle
There is no right or wrong way to meditate. It is a practice that is meant for you and as you learn effective ways of meditating, you can build your meditation toolbox. Thus, allow it to fit your lifestyle and integrate with who you are as a person. The brain is like a computer, what you put in will be the output. The brain is a physical, tangible part of you. The mind is invisible and deals with thoughts, beliefs, and imagination. Both are reprogrammable.
The brain is the hardware. The mind is the software.
Allow the body and mind time to relax and rejuvenate. It is important for your health and vitality of life. Practicing meditation daily helps make it easier over time, none of us start out being able to quiet the mind – that’s why we call this mental exercise. The stronger the mental muscle becomes the more empowered it is to calm.
Join Briana for “Living Life with Less Stress & Overwhelm“
Our society has created a norm of “managing stress” rather than being proactive to live a life without it. When we’re under stress the body holds fat, the brain functions less, and our overall health is compromised. Rather than manage stress, learn to live a life without it. This webinar teaches how to calm the body, reprogram the mind and remove feeling overwhelmed daily.
Briana Bragg is the founder of Vacation of the Mind®, a mental wellness company dedicated to helping one million people or more reduce stress, refocus the mind, and lead healthier and happier lifestyles through practical techniques of nature-centered mindfulness and meditation. Briana is the author of “Journey into Tranquility®”, a meditation teacher training course that utilizes science-based methodologies of nature, meditation, and creative visualization in a three-step process Breathe, Refocus, Journey, curating guided journeys that connect people to nature and stillness. Briana’s dynamic energy and passion are fueled by her devotion to the well-being of others.
