When I first heard the term “meditation” I immediately pictured someone old, in the lotus pose, and “ohmming” with their eyes closed. While this is a way someone CAN meditate, it’s not the way you HAVE to do it.
Meditation is the practice of focusing your attention with the goal of bringing calm, energy, and awareness.
Let me first tell the how of meditation and then we’ll go into the why — I will cover those 5 health benefits I mentioned in the title.
How to meditate
The most common practice of meditation is to choose a place to quietly sit, without outside distractions, and redirect your attention to one thing. Some people focus on their breath while others choose to focus on an object or a word/phrase.
Another meditation method is while performing a repetitive task or moving in a slow controlled manner i.e. during yoga or tai chi (source).
The method you choose doesn’t matter. The thing that is important is the actual practicing. Remember that your mind will inevitably wander. Bring yourself back to your chosen focus. The act of refocusing your attention and leaning towards peace stretches the brain and allows your body to feel more at ease.
Let me now tell you why it matters.
Health benefits of meditation
Meditation has many health benefits and I am choosing to highlight only 5 of them. At the end of this post I included 3 sources that you can view if you’re interested in learning about additional health benefits.
These benefits are:
- Stress Reduction (Link to when I talked about the effect of stress on inflammation)
- Decreased impact and frequency of anxious thoughts
- Improved mental performance
- Stronger immune system
- Better sleep as well as having a simpler time getting out of bed in the morning.
To bring it all together, there are many benefits of even 5 minutes of meditation a day. I know that when I meditate regularly I am less irritable and am better able to experience joy. But don’t just take my word for it. Try it yourself. Take a minimum of 10 seconds today to bring your attention to your breath and see how it makes you feel.
