12 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation

12 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation:- Meditation is a regular practice that trains your mind to concentrate and change its thoughts. More and more people are becoming interested in meditation as they learn about all the health benefits it offers. It can help you become more aware of yourself and your surroundings. A lot of people see it as a way to manage stress and improve focus. People also use the practice to create other good habits and feelings, like self-discipline, a good mood and outlook, healthy sleep patterns, and even the ability to handle pain better.

12 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation

1. Lessens stress

• One of the main reasons people start meditating is to deal with stress.
• It was found in one review that meditation really does help reduce stress.
• The stress hormone cortisol normally rises when you are under mental or physical worry.
• This causes many of the bad effects of stress, like the release of chemicals called cytokines that cause inflammation.
• These effects can make it hard to sleep, make you depressed or anxious, raise your blood pressure, and make you tired and unable to think clearly.

2. Keeps worry in check

• Meditation can lower your stress, which means you’ll feel less anxious.
• A review of studies with almost 1,300 people found that meditation may help lower anxiety.
• Notably, this effect was largest in people who were feeling the most anxious.
• One study also found that people with generalised anxiety disorder who did mindfulness meditation for 8 weeks had fewer anxiety symptoms, more positive self-statements, and better ways of dealing with and reacting to stress.

3. Good for your mental health

• Some types of meditation can help you feel better about yourself and have a better view on life.
• One study that looked at treatments given to more than 3,500 adults found that mindfulness meditation helped people with sadness.
• A review of 18 studies also found that people who did meditation treatments had fewer depressive symptoms than people who were in a control group.
• In a different study, people who did a meditation exercise had fewer negative thoughts when they saw negative pictures than people who were in a control group.
• Also, cytokines, which are inflammatory chemicals that are released when you’re stressed, can change your mood and cause sadness.
• A review of several studies shows that meditation may also help with depression by lowering the levels of these chemicals that cause inflammation.

4. Makes you more self-aware

• Some types of meditation may help you learn more about yourself, which can help you become your best self.
• One type of meditation called “self-inquiry” is designed to help you learn more about yourself and how you connect to other people.
• Other types teach you to spot thoughts that are bad for you or that stop you from reaching your goals.
• The idea behind this is that as you become more aware of your thought processes, you can change them to be more helpful.
• An analysis of 27 studies found that doing tai chi may be linked to higher levels of self-efficacy.
• This is the belief that one has in their own power to deal with problems.
• In a different study, 153 adults who used a mindfulness meditation app for two weeks felt less lonely and had more social contact than people in a control group.

5. Makes your attention span longer

• Mindfulness meditation helps you pay attention better, just like pulling weights does for your body. It helps make your attention stronger and last longer.
• One study, for instance, found that people who listened to a meditation tape were able to focus and do their work more accurately than people who were in a control group.
  A similar study found that people who meditated regularly did better on a visual task and could focus better than people who had never meditated.
• One review also found that meditation may even change brain processes that cause people to lose focus, worry, and think about other things too much.
• You might gain from meditating even for a short time every day. One study found that relaxing for just 13 minutes a day improved memory and focus after 8 weeks.

6. May slow down memory loss that comes with getting older

• Being able to pay more attention and think more clearly may help you keep your mind young.
• A mantra or chant and repeated finger movements can help you focus your thoughts during Kirtan Kriya, a type of meditation. Studies on older people with memory loss have shown that it helps them do better on neuropsychological tests.
• A review also found some early proof that different types of meditation can help older volunteers improve their focus, memory, and mental speed.
• Meditation can help people with dementia remember things better, and it can also help people who are normal losing their memories as they age. It can also help people who are taking care of family members with dementia deal with stress and get through tough times better.

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7. Can make people kind

• Some types of meditation may make you feel and act more positively towards yourself and others.
• Metta, which is a type of meditation that is also called loving-kindness meditation, starts with having good ideas and feelings about yourself.
• People learn to be kind and forgive others by practicing, first with friends, then with strangers, and finally with enemies.
• A review of 22 studies on this type of meditation showed that it can make people more compassionate towards themselves and others.
• The benefits of loving-kindness meditation were found to depend on the amount of time that 100 people spent on a programme that included it.
• This means that people felt better when they practiced metta meditation for longer periods of time each week.
• Another study with 50 college students found that metta meditation three times a week improved their happiness, ability to get along with others, and understanding of others after four weeks.
• It also looks like these effects build up over time when you do loving-kindness meditation.

8. Could help fight drug abuse

• Developing mental discipline through meditation may help you break addictions by making you more self-controlled and aware of the things that make you want to do addicting things.
• Meditation may help people learn to change their focus, control their feelings and urges, and gain a better understanding of what makes them do the things they do.
• One study looked at 60 people who were getting help for an alcohol use problem and found that practicing transcendental meditation was linked to lower levels of stress, mental distress, alcohol cravings, and alcohol use after 3 months.
• Meditation might also help you stop wanting to eat. A review of 14 studies found that mindfulness meditation helped people cut down on upset and binge eating.

9. Improves sleep

• Almost half of people will have trouble sleeping at some point.
• One study compared mindfulness-based meditation programmes and found that people who meditated were able to stay asleep longer and had less severe sleeplessness than people who did not meditate.
• Learning how to meditate might help you stop or shift the racing or off-track thoughts that can make it hard to sleep.
• In addition, it can help relax your body, letting go of stress and putting you in a calm state where you’re more likely to fall asleep.

10. Takes away pain

• Your mood affects how much pain you feel, and when you’re stressed, you may feel more pain.
• Adding meditation to your daily routine may help you deal with pain, according to some study.
• For instance, a review of 38 research found that mindfulness meditation could help people with chronic pain feel less pain, have a better quality of life, and have fewer depressive symptoms.
• A large meta-analysis of studies with almost 3,500 subjects found that meditation was linked to less pain.
• The things that caused pain in meditators and non-meditators were the same, but meditators were better able to deal with it and even felt less pain.

11. Can bring down blood pressure

• Meditation is also good for your body because it makes the heart work less hard.
• Long-term high blood pressure can make it hard for the heart to pump blood, which can make the heart not work as well.
• High blood pressure can also cause atherosclerosis, which is a narrowing of the vessels. This can cause a heart attack or stroke.
• Meditation was found to help lower blood pressure in a review of 12 studies with almost 1000 people.
• This worked better for older volunteers and people whose blood pressure was higher before the study.
• One study found that different types of meditation all made blood pressure better in the same way.
• Meditation may help lower blood pressure by calming the nerve signals that control heart function, blood vessel tension, and the “fight-or-flight” reaction that makes you more alert when you’re stressed.

12. Easy to get to anywhere

• There are a lot of different ways to meditate, and most of them don’t need any special tools or a lot of room.
• Just a few minutes a day will help you get better.
• Try picking a type of meditation based on what you want to get out of it if you want to start.
• Meditation with focused thought. Focusing on a single thing, thought, sound, or image is what this style does.
• It stresses getting rid of things that are distracting you. You can focus on your breathing, a phrase, or a soothing sound while you meditate.
• Meditation with open tracking. This style helps you become more aware of your surroundings, your thoughts, and your sense of who you are.
• It could mean becoming aware of feelings, thoughts, or urges that you have been ignoring.
• Check out the different free guided meditation exercises that the University of California, Los Angeles has to offer to find the style that you like best.
• You can try on a lot of styles until you find the right one for you.
• If your normal work and home settings don’t give you regular, quiet time to yourself, you might want to take a class.
• This can also help you succeed by giving you a group of people who will support you.
• On the other hand, you could set your alarm a few minutes early to enjoy the morning peace and quiet.
• This could help you make it a habit and give you a good.

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