There are infinite subjective & science-backed advantages to meditation. But just as exercise won’t help you to get fit if you never do it regularly, plans to meditate won’t notably alter the pattern of your life. What’s more, most of the advantages of this practice are reserved for those who practice meditation like a creed. Try to maintain your meditation practice beyond the first 8 weeks, & you can achieve greater benefits. Also, those benefits stay with you, even when you are not meditating. In the process, you can discover many Ways Meditation Can Change your life.
Developing a habit that supports steady meditation practice may need some changes. At first, it may seem a bit awkward, but with time, when you feel the changes, you will get hooked on it.
How Meditation Will Change Your Life
1. It Decreases Stress & Anxiety
One of the significant Ways Meditation Can Change your life is by reducing stress. The byproduct of this fast-paced life we lead is stress & anxiety. Duties & responsibilities of our personal & professional lives sometimes overwhelm us so much that we fall victim to stress. It is evident that practicing meditation regularly can bring down the level of stress significantly.
Meditation allows us to channel our thoughts fruitfully so that we can manage our instincts & thought process better. If we can do it better, we will be able to manage & control the stress we experience daily. That’s why many medical practitioners, counselors & psychologists advise their patients to practice meditation. It is a medicine for stress with no side effects.
2. It Changes Your Perspective On Life
Practicing meditation helps you to vividly visualize the life you want to live, which helps to modify the way you think about your present reality. Meditation helps us to always look at the brighter side of things. Meditation will not make you a wise saint overnight, but the tranquility you feel will help you to develop a higher perspective on situations, incidents & life.
Once you can see things from a higher perspective, you will see the bigger picture & figure out why things are the way they are now & how this experience defines you as a person. Realizing that everything happens for a reason is relaxing because you won’t feel obliged to force things anymore; you’ll just let everything fall into place without resisting it.
3. It Lengthens Your Attention Span & Develops Patience
If you have tried meditation, you will know that it is hard to sit still in one place for more than 5 minutes & have a clear mind. Many people initially struggle with the process of sitting still without any activity. It is because they cannot focus on a single thing properly. That happens due to a short attention span.
Continuous meditation practice can increase your ability to focus & in the process, your attention span. Usually, in the beginning, you will face many intrusive thoughts, like about your unfinished report or what you will have for dinner. It is because your mind wanders off.
With practice, you can keep your mind steady & stop it from wandering off. With enough practice, your ability to focus will increase & you can understand how it can aid you in your personal & professional life.
Meditation also helps you to ignore distractions. Once you are finally in that pensive state, it’s almost as if you are detached from your body, it may sound scary, but it’s quite a therapeutic feeling. You won’t pay attention to outside disturbances or random itches & discomforts on your body. You will just be living in your mind.
4. It Provides Many Health Benefits
If you are still wondering How Meditation Will Change Your Life, consider having many health benefits. It is a proven fact that meditation can help to reduce stress, and anxiety, lower blood pressure, & many other health benefits. If you are suffering from pain, try meditating to reduce the pain. If you are having periods & cramps, meditate.
Concentrating when you are in pain sounds impossible, but it can be done with practice. Once you enter that deep self-aware state, the pain will disappear. It is not implied that meditating will cure your illness or remove the pain forever, but it can help to ease the pain & agony you face.
5. It Helps To Sleep Better
The maximum dose of our re-energize process comes from sleep. A healthy adult must have seven to eight hours of sound sleep daily. Often we struggle to get that. Many distractions, pressures, and tensions keep us from having a sound sleep. Regular meditation practice can help us have a sound sleep at night.
Sometimes we face that even after being tired & lying down on a comfy bed, we can’t sleep. The practice of meditation can help us to fall asleep sooner & helps to improve the quality of sleep. A good night’s sleep ensures refreshed & active day.
6. It Helps with Addiction
Many studies have shown that, because of its effects on the self-control regions of the brain, meditation can be very helpful in helping people recover from different types of addiction.
One study, for instance, mindfulness training conducted by American Lung Association’s Freedom From Smoking (FFS) program, found that people who practiced meditation were more likely to have quit smoking by the end of the training, & at 15 weeks follow-up than people in the usual treatment.
This may be because meditation helps people detach themselves from the craving for smoking. Other research has discovered that mindfulness training, such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) & Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP), can treat other types of addictions.
7. It Increases Resilience While In Discomfort
When we’re stressed, it’s easy to go for an escape from substance abuse or other unhealthy habits. Taking up meditation instead can be life-changing. Our hardships appear as opportunities to grow.
As meditation awakens new viewpoints & philosophies within us, we can quickly identify that whatever discomfort or hardship we face is not permanent. It is best not to lose hope & carry on. Regular practice of meditation can develop that type of resilience within us.
Give It A Try
Meditation is not a magic potion, but there’s a lot of evidence that it does some good to people who practice it regularly. Everyone from Michael Jordan & Oprah Winfrey to companies like Google & Apple is incorporating meditation into their daily schedules. Its benefits can be felt after a comparatively short amount of practice.
Some researchers have warned that meditation can cause adverse effects under particular circumstances, labeled as the “dark night” phenomenon. Still, for most people – particularly if you have a good instructor – meditation is useful, not harmful.
It’s certainly worth a try: If you can spare a few minutes in the morning or evening, instead of turning on your phone or going online, find out what happens if you try silencing your mind to find Ways Meditation Can Change your life, or at least listening to your thoughts & letting them go without reaction. Just a few minutes of meditation will make a big difference.
FAQs
Q: Is meditation a religious practice?
A: Though meditation is often associated with Hinduism, it is a spiritual practice, not religious. You can practice it even if you are an atheist.
Q: How long would it take after following Ways Meditation Can Change my life?
A: Meditation is not a magic mantra. It is a process; one must practice it regularly for at least 8 weeks to attain any notable benefit.
Q: As depicted in stories, do I need to go to a hilltop or forest to practice meditation?
A: Characters shown in those stories are sages & saints. If you do not aim to be one, you can practice inside your room, too.
