Benefits of meditation

Benefits of meditation

Meditation was practiced in India for long and there were many benefits that were listed.

People claimed that it can reduce stress, can slow aging, improve concentration and much more. These benefits were too good to believe and hence, researchers from all over the world spent years to find out if it’s all true. So, after numerous experiments, test cases and researches, they found out that not only were these claims true, but there are many more benefits of meditation which most of us don’t know. So, in this article, I am going to tell you about 5 major benefits of Meditation.

  1. So, the first benefit is that it physically changes your brain. There was a study conducted in 2011 at Harvard led by Dr. SaraLazer found that meditating for just 8 weeks increases your brain size in 3 beneficial areas. The Left Hippocampus which is responsible for learning ability and ability to retain information, The Posterior Cingulate Cortex which is responsible for controlling where your mind wanders and Temporal Parietal Junction which is responsible for empathy and compassion. Meditation just doesn’t grow the good areas of our brain but also decreases the areas which are responsible for some not so good things like the same study found out that after practicing meditation for 8 weeks, there was decrease in cell volume in Amygdala which is the area of the brain responsible for fear, anxiety, and stress.
  2. Now the second benefit of meditation is that it reduces bad feelings. Meditating regularly can help reduce stress, overcome depression and reduce anxiety. Now stress isn’t that bad for us, in fact, a little stress is healthy and can help us keep motivated but in today’s world, most of us take a lot of stress which in turn is not healthy for us. Meditation forms like Om Yoga not only help us manage our stress better but also dramatically reduce the side effects of stress. Studies have shown that practicing Om Yoga can help overcome depression. It is as effective as anti-depressant drugs and results showed that people treated with meditation had 31% fewer chances of relapsing. A similar study in 2014 done by Dr. Elizabeth Hoge proved that meditation helps reduce anxiety symptoms for those who are suffering from a general anxiety disorder.
  3. The third benefit of meditation is that it helps us overcome bad habits. Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex is a part of the brain which is responsible for willpower. A study conducted in 2015 proved that meditation stimulates growth in this part of the brain resulting in increased willpower.
  4. The fourth benefit of meditation is that it increases concentration and helps us focus better. Now, there was this experiment conducted where people were asked to perform some extremely boring tasks like finding the differences between drawn lines. It was seen that people who had the habit of meditating regularly performed much better than other people. In our day to day life, we see that people who practice meditation can sit for longer hours in the office and can focus readily on the task assigned. Students who meditate regularly can perform better in studies and can focus better on the courses for a longer duration of time.
  5. The fifth benefit of meditation is that it is extremely healthy. A study conducted on older people at the University of California, Los Angeles found that it decreases the amount of C – reactive protein in the blood which directly correlates with heart disease. The same study found a significant drop in inflammation in the body. Regular meditation can decrease high blood pressure. It also has a direct effect on our body at the genetic level.

So, friends, these were the 5 most common benefits of meditation. I hope that this article will motivate you to join Yoga Classes today.