The practice of meditation originated in India between 5,000 and 3,000 BCE. Archeologists, while at the Indus valley, discovered evidence of meditation.
The images depicted people sitting in what could be recognized as meditation postures. They also discovered descriptions regarding meditation techniques that were found in the Indian scriptures that date back to 3,000 years ago.
Over the centuries the practice was adopted by some of India’s neighboring countries where it formed part of the religions. It then spread to other parts of the region and is now practiced throughout the world.
While the practice of meditation varies depending on the cultural and religious influences, it has been identified as a significant cornerstone of spiritual development. The various aspects of meditation, including the mystical elements, has been incorporated by almost all the major religions.
One doesn’t have to follow the religious traditions to enjoy the benefits of meditation, making it a universal act that can be practiced by anyone in the world.
The practice of meditation continues to rise in popularity due to numerous studies that have been conducted to reveal the various benefits.
Meditation should be practiced on a regular basis as a way to train the mind and improve concentration, focus, and to control your thoughts. Numerous benefits have been associated with the practice of meditation.
Along with clarity of mind, meditation can help improve your sleeping patterns, provide you with relief from depression, stress, and anxiety, enhance your levels of self-discipline, enhance your levels of positive mental attitude, as well as improve your mood.
There are many other valuable benefits that can be experienced through the practice of meditation. Just as in the same way that meditation alters the mind, it also changes the structure and functioning of the brain, resulting in various mental benefits.
There are numerous benefits of meditation, added to the fact that it can be done freely from the comfort of your own home, makes it extremely useful. Meditation provides spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional benefits. Here are some of the benefits you can gain from practicing meditation on a daily basis.
Mental Benefits
There are numerous mental benefits that are associated with regular meditation. Here are just a few of the mental benefits that you can gain by practicing mindfulness through meditation on a regular basis.
Reduces Stress, Anxiety, and Depression
One of the main reasons why people engage in meditation is to find relief from stress, depression, and anxiety. They have determined that meditation helps to reduce stress levels and depression, both mentally and physically.
When the body experiences a sudden threat or increased stress, it immediately triggers the fight or flight response. This leads to a sudden rush of adrenaline due to the release of epinephrine hormones.
These hormones cause your pulse rate and blood pressure to rise, and increases blood flow to your muscles, and results in faster breathing. The relaxation process that occurs during meditation helps relieve stress and the symptoms associated with stress.
After just eight weeks of consistent meditation practice, the benefits you gain are enormous and may even last for years.
Mindful meditation, when combined with breathing techniques has the potential for dramatically reducing or in some cases, eliminating cases of stress, anxiety, and depression that occur when the daily pressures of life and other unpleasant situations become greater than you can cope with.
Stress and depression don’t occur because the situation at hand is valid or not. It is influenced more by how you respond to the situation. Practicing meditation gives you the opportunity to analyze the stressors and determine if they are valid or not.
Meditation creates a level of awareness where you are able to see things from another perspective. Training the mind through various meditation techniques will increase the mental resources that are used to help you in addressing stress and depression.
With consistent meditation practice, you can improve the clarity, focus, and calm in your mind, which leads to a reduction of stress. All that is required to be free from stress and depression is practicing meditation for about 10 minutes a day.
Recovery from Addiction
It has been proven that regular meditation practice can be extremely useful in helping with recovery from addiction. Meditation helps change how the brain is able to process information.
This helps to enable addicts to evaluate cases of addiction and allows them to act appropriately without the use of drugs. Mindful meditation helps to induce the state of relaxation, giving addicts the ability to monitor their breathing as they stay calm.
Being in this kind of state helps them to reduce negative feelings and the cravings that cause addicts to seek out the drugs or substances that they are addicted to. Anyone can learn the process of meditation for recovery from addiction.
Engaging in meditation helps those recovering from addiction to clearly observe their desires and thoughts without being compelled to act on them. It allows them to come to the understanding that they aren’t responsible for the thoughts that come into their minds, but that they are responsible for how they ultimately react to those thoughts.
With the clarity of mind that meditation brings, addicts can make healthier choices that help in the recovery process.
During the early stages of the recovery process, addicts often experience severe mood swings. By engaging in meditation, their mind is forced to focus on one thing, such as breathing, a mantra, or an object that can help them to focus on overcoming addiction.
Reduces Pain
There have been various clinical settings that have used meditation to help patients that deal with chronic pain. Numerous studies have discovered that if you are capable of focusing and calming your mind and body that you are equally capable of controlling pain.
The practice of meditation makes it possible to face muscle tension, irritability, and sweating that is often associated with chronic pain. When you practice mindfulness through meditation, you are better able to come to terms with the pain that you are experiencing instead of running away from it or masking it with medication.
Increase Happiness
You can significantly increase your level of happiness and good feelings by engaging in mindfulness through meditation. Participating in regular practice will allow your brain to better focus on positive emotions.
Just like when you train your muscles and exercise for better performance, you can also work on your feelings of happiness. Engaging in meditation regularly increases your feelings of joy and happiness.
Mindful meditation helps to improve the psychological function of the brain, leading to the release of the hormones that are responsible for feelings of joy.
Health Benefits
The health benefits that are associated with meditation are pretty diverse. Some have even been proven scientifically to be extremely effective. Here are some of the health benefits that you can experience when you engage in meditation regularly.
Increased Immunity
It has been proven that when you get into a relaxed state through meditation, it helps to boost the immunity in patients that are recovering from cancer.
With the continued practice of muscular relaxation, you can reduce the risk of cancer coming back. It also helps to boost the natural killer cells that are common with the elderly, giving them a higher level of resistance to viruses.
Emotional Balance
Your emotional balance entails being free from the neurotic behavior that leads to a troubled ego. If you want to remain focused and find mental clarity, it is critical that you achieve emotional balance.
Meditation helps to cure cases of emotional imbalance, leading to the release of soaked memories, which then results in mental freedom.
Your reaction and responses to issues will no longer be influenced by the emotional burden when you start to practice meditation. It will allow you to view things in their true nature.
Lowers Blood Pressure
Practicing meditation has been shown to help with reducing blood pressure levels. It also helps to make the body become less responsive to the hormones that cause stress. Meditation provides similar results that can be experienced when taking blood pressure medication.
Engaging in meditation will help to significantly reduce stress levels, which enables your body’s systems to normalize, resulting in overall improved health.
Improved Cardiovascular Health
When you are in a meditative, relaxed state, the release of nitric oxide by the brain increases. This causes the blood vessels to open up, resulting in a drop in blood pressure.
Nitric oxide is responsible for improving the function of the immune system, regulating blood pressure levels, improving the role of the central nervous system, behavioral activities, and improved memory.
Practicing meditation alters the physiological functioning of the body. This positively impacts some parts of the brain which results in experiencing deep levels of relaxation and calmness. This deep level of relaxation results in the heart pumping blood slowly and steadily, delivering sufficient levels of oxygen throughout the body.
Spiritual Benefits
Many different religions have incorporated meditation into their religious practices. However, because meditation is more like a science, it can be practiced by anyone, regardless of their faith or religion.
There are numerous spiritual benefits that you can experience through the practice of meditation.
Increased Self-Awareness
One of the significant spiritual benefits of practicing meditation is self-awareness. Self-awareness involves going deep within yourself through mindful meditation, with the intention of connecting with your inner self.
Self-awareness forms the basis of meditation and entails being able to identify with the very core of being, being aware of the present moment, how you react to things, the subtle issues of the mind along with the behaviors and habits.
Once you are aware of this, you will learn how to keenly monitor how you respond to situations from a disconnected point of view.
Practicing meditation allows you to rise above the domain of your senses to connect deeper with the spirit.
Operating at this level supersedes the emotional level and provides you with the capability to usher yourself into a state of high revelation and insight, which isn’t attainable at the emotional level.