The mental health benefits of meditation include better focus and concentration, better self-awareness and self-esteem, lower stress and anxiety levels, and encouragement of kindness. A study of 60 people in treatment for alcohol use disorder found that the practice of transcendental meditation was associated with lower levels of stress, psychological distress, alcohol cravings, and alcohol consumption 3 months later.
One study found that 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation helped reduce anxiety symptoms in people with generalized anxiety disorder, as well as increased positive personal affirmations and improved stress response and coping. One study found that employees who used a mindfulness meditation video for 8 weeks felt better and felt better, and stress and stress at work decreased compared to those in a control group. In a study of Chinese college students, those students who were randomly assigned to participate in a mindfulness meditation intervention had lower levels of depression and anxiety, as well as less fatigue, anger, and stress-related cortisol, than a control group.
A study of 50 adults with ADHD found that practicing mindfulness and meditation reduced their hyperactivity and allowed them better impulse control. In a 2013 review, researchers analysed over 200 studies of mindfulness meditation in healthy people and found that meditation is an effective way to reduce stress. One study found that mindfulness and Zen-like meditation significantly reduced stress when practiced for three months. A Boston University study found that mindfulness and meditation-based programs resulted in significant reductions in clinical levels of anxiety and depression in a variety of conditions, as well as increased patience and positivity.
Continued practice of mindfulness meditation can also have significant beneficial effects on our overall mood, including reducing severe depression and anxiety. The benefits of regular meditation include reducing stress, improving concentration, lowering blood pressure, and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, to name a few. SleepFoundation.org further states, “Meditation not only improves sleep quality, but it also lowers blood pressure and relieves pain, anxiety, and depression.”
Meditation is also good for your physical health, as it can improve your pain tolerance and help fight substance addiction. The beauty of meditation is that it’s free, always available, and incredibly effective for short-term stress reduction and long-term health. Meditation is a mind-body practise that has a long history of being used to increase physical calmness and relaxation, improve psychological balance, fight disease, and improve overall health and well-being.
Many experts believe that there is no better, natural, and side-effect-free way to manage stress than the practice of meditation. There is an entirely new sub-genre of meditation mentioned earlier called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Mindfulness Center that aims to reduce a person’s stress levels, physically and mentally.
Following in the footsteps of Dr. Herbert Bensons, who studied meditation as a mechanism for achieving a balance between mind and body, researchers in an article on Asian Spiritualism discussed how a meditative flow can help the body by optimizing blood pressure, regulating heart disease, and mitigating their effects. stress by reducing addiction and regulating the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for extreme fight-or-flight responses during times of stress. A study by the National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) found that mindfulness meditation reduces pain in the body without the use of natural brain opiates. Research has shown that regular meditation can help relieve symptoms in people with chronic pain, but the neural mechanisms underlying the relief have been unclear.
A growing body of research has shown that, given the effect, meditation has on the areas of the brain responsible for self-control, meditation can be very effective in helping people get rid of various kinds of addictions. A fascinating study has shown that Vipassana meditation can be incredibly effective in helping people overcome alcohol and drug addiction, and similar effects have been found for various types of meditation. Online wellness companies can also help reduce your risk of depression (or help cure it if you’re already struggling), perhaps because it has a positive effect on your brain chemistry, Dr. Rosien explains. Studies of people who have meditated for long periods show changes in areas of the brain affected by stress and anxiety.
These changes in wave size occurred even faster in half of the study participants, a “beautiful demonstration” of the effects of learning to meditate and the ability to develop an inner awareness of one’s bodily sensations, says Centre researcher Clifford Saron. for Mind and Brain at UC Davis, which was not involved in the study. The subjects of this study did not suffer from chronic pain, but the results suggest that in pain sufferers who meditate, the beneficial effects may be related to the ability to significantly reduce the volume of pain signals.
In a study published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity, researchers taught participants mindfulness meditation or included them in a general health improvement program. Believe it or not, different types of meditation, from mindfulness to yoga, have been shown to boost the body’s immune system, making you more resistant to viruses and infections. The strongest link between meditation and overall health is its ability to reduce stress, which can cause or exacerbate several serious health conditions, including heart disease, obesity, and even anxiety.