Meditation is sometimes seen as a woo-wooey practice reserved for new age hippies, actors who are “spritual”, self-help gurus, and hardcore yogis, but the truth is meditation is for everyone. Just like yoga, which brings the body in alignment with the mind and helps to quite that incessant babbling of thoughts we have going daily that frequently get in the way of our true happiness, meditation cleans house. It’s like setting the reset button for a few minutes daily, that allows you to truly go with the flow, promotes inner peace, feelings of oneness with others, empathy, service, and even boosts creativity. I have experienced firsthand regular daily meditation can be a catalyst for amazing things happening in your life. As you practice and get deeper in the flow of life, synchronicity or seeming miracles became normal every day occurrences.
Going back to daily practice has re-awakened my love and appreciation for meditation as a scientific tool. Every single time you to sit to practice, you are literally rewiring your brain, and tapping further into THE SOURCE of all. As a result of this you may find yourself extremely calm in usually stressful situations, generally happier, optimistic, and attracting people and things that help you achieve your dreams, effortlessly. There are a bunch of meditation naysayers out there who feel like it’s quackery, or object to meditation because they are afraid it contradicts with their religion. This is not the case. Meditation and mindfulness practices have been practiced and incorporated by every major religion. In the Bible it says, “Be still and know that I am God.” My favorite Deepak Chopra quote is: “Prayer is talking to God. Meditation is listening.” Indeed the silence speaks volumes. Creativity can increase and intuition begins to guide daily decisions more strongly. It sounds like a gimmick until you try it. The only way for you to feel the shift in yourself is to sit down and meditate and stick with it consistently. It does not take weeks to start to feel a shift. Each day, you will begin to notice little things. Oh meditation, mediation, how I love thee! Let me count the ways. Below are seven of many reasons (backed by scientific research) why sitting down in silence daily is good for you. Don’t take my word for it, try it yourself. Namaste. -XoXo Raw Girl
- Stay in the Stress-Free Zone. The journal of health psychology published research that not only does meditation make you feel less stressed, it actually reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
- Rewire Bad Habits. One of the first thing I noticed was that when I kept up with regular meditation it started to shift my emotional responses to situations that were previously aggravating. Going within helps us require bad habits as well as observe our actions and reactions in a way we may have never done before and make conscious adjustments.
- Boosts Your Mental Performance. Research conducted at the University of California, Santa Barbara found that college students trained in mindfulness performed better on verbal reasoning sections on the GRE and also had improvements in retention of material. The outcome of the study suggested that mindfulness improves overall cognitive function.
- Can Keep You From Going Cray-Cray. Mental illness and emotional wellness are two issues that are usually highly medicated when you visit a doctor to address them. Well, according to researchers from the University of Oregon, mediation techniques in the form of integrative body and mind training can result in brain changes which protect against mental illness. Due to meditation practice protective tissue increases as well as signaling connections in the brain.
- Sleep Like a Baby. A University of Utah study found that mindfulness training helps people sleep better at night. You know how sometimes you can’t sleep because of the “monkey mind” that can’t stop making to-do lists and generally stressing about whatever happened that day? Well meditation shuts the monkey up long enough for you to get adequate rest and wake up feeling refreshed.
- Gives You a Major Dose of Happy. In general meditation helps to balance out emotions and moods, and has been shown in numerous studies to reduce the risk of depression. It’s great for pregnant women struggling with post-pardom, teens, and really anyone of any age.
- Boosts Your Immunity. By now you should know that optimal health has to do with emotional, physical, and mental wellness. Just paying attention to your diet alone may still leave you at risk for major terminal diseases if you do not manage your emotions and stress in a healthy way. Meditation and mindfulness practices calm you the heck down, so that you can avoid toxic emotions that may cause disease later on.