Why You Should Meditate Every Day

The practice of meditation has become wildly popular over the last decade. What used to be seen as something that Hippies and Far Eastern religious practitioners engaged in, has now become mainstream. The reason is simple: people in the West have become increasingly aware of the many benefits to be gained from daily meditation.

Stress Reduction
We live in a hyper stressed world. It can leave our mind reeling and make us feel as if we are drowning in a sea of challenges, responsibilities and obligations. Daily meditation has been shown in study after study to be an effective stress reduction tool. In one study, which involved more than 3,500 participants, daily mindfulness meditation was seen to significantly reduce cortisol levels along with other markers of the stress response.

In addition to directly lowering the stress response, meditation has been linked to a reduction in the symptoms of conditions that are connected to stress. These include irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia.

Enhanced Self-image
When you adopt the habit of daily meditation, you are able to slow down your thought processes. This, in turn, allows you to take control of your thoughts rather than letting them run away with you. Whereas you may have previously been overwhelmed by irrational negative thoughts about yourself, you are now able to sort out and discard them.

Meditation has the ability to help regulate the control of hormones and chemicals that excite us emotionally, including cytokines. Lowering the levels of these hormones and chemicals has been shown to help people who are suffering from depression.

Improved Focus and Concentration
The discipline and attention required for daily meditation will build your mental resilience, improve your focus and enhance your ability to concentrate. As a result, you will be able to focus on work tasks for longer periods of time, become more productive and get more done. Your mind will be far less likely to wander or concentrate on negative thoughts.

Improved Memory
When you meditate daily, you give your mind a break, allowing it to filter through all of its files, clean and put your mind in order. This improves mental clarity and as a result of this your mind, including your memory, will work better.

Certain forms of meditation involve performing a repetitive chant along with some bodily motion. This has been shown in a number of studies to be transferable to general memory improvement. Other research has shown that the daily practice of meditation can reduce incidences of age-related memory degeneration and improve the memories of people with dementia.

Better Sleep
Daily meditation practice, especially when done in the evening, can dramatically help people who are suffering from insomnia. It will help relax the body and the mind and prevent us from hitting the pillow with a mind full of racing thoughts that prevent us from getting to sleep.

In one study, a group who practiced daily evening meditation were able to fall asleep faster, get into REM sleep quicker and have a longer quantity of sleep then a group who did not practice meditation.

Control Addiction
When you engage in daily meditative practice, you become a more disciplined, self-controlled and resilient person. This helps people who are dependent on substances or prone to other addictions to strengthen their willpower to resist. In one study involving recovering alcoholics, taking on the habit of daily meditative practice was seen to boost their ability to avoid alcohol. Other research has shown that meditation is just as effective in helping people to overcome food cravings and other obesity related addictions.

Pain Relief
Our ability to feel pain, both physical and emotional, is connected to our mindset. When we are in a heightened state of anxiety we feel more pain. The calming effects that meditation has on the mind will lower our perceptions of pain. In one large study, people who meditated daily reported lower incidences of pain than those who did not.

Summary
Taking a few minutes out to engage in a mindful meditative practice is a wise investment in your time. It will help you to turn off the white noise in your head, relieve your stress levels and provide balance and direction to your life. If you haven’t already added meditation as part of your daily habits, we recommend you try one of our meditation classes today.