The Benefits of Meditation

In the last decades, our daily lifestyle has undergone many changes, from which, some have a negative impact over our general well-being and health. We are required to do more things and do them faster and in a more efficient way. We are literally bombarded with information at every turn of our heads, information we need to filter in order to separate what is useful from spam. The society we live in has managed to convince us that in order to be happy, we need to consume more and therefore also work longer hours in order to receive a payment able to support this claim. Are we becoming the robots we feared someday will take over the world? Where is this trend heading to?

For most of us, not doing anything and standing still, focused at a single object or thought may sound like madness. As we just adapted to multitasking, making the road back to a single activity that requires our full engagement and where no outside disturbance is allowed seems like an involution. The activity described above is called meditation and it is one feature of the human mind we should really be proud off. It has been with us from the dawn of human intellect and has made our journey easier.

The current paradigm tells us that in order to relax, we need to embrace countless energy draining activities or to be exposed to high-ends of directed human emotions we usually call showbiz/television. Doing nothing is considered boring and wrong. Few of us are able to see that by taking a halt from your daily routine you are able to reset the watch and benefit from a fresh start.

Meditation usually involves a temporary cut of connection with the outside world. It is somehow similar to sleep, but it requires the mind to stay conscious. We all know the benefits brought by sleep yet is comes somehow hard to admit that practicing meditation can replicate and enhance those effects. Cutting those connections is made by limiting the input we receive through our senses. In a normal behavior, our mind is set to constantly request and receive information from the outside environment in order to evaluate the position we find ourselves in. In a state that promotes meditation, we need to let go of any concerns or fears. For that, meditation requires a quiet, isolated place, where nobody and no event is able to reach to us. From then on, meditation becomes like a sport. The more we practice it, the better we know ourselves and the more efficient we use it for various reasons.

The main benefits of meditation are first of all health related. The state we put our body in is one of calm and relaxation. Our breathing becomes more deep and regular and the number of heart beats per minute is reduced, thus our body is subject to a lower strain than usual. We are able to reduce stress and fatigue effects by doing mediation exercises on a regular basis. Good things don’t end here, as meditation is also a panacea for the mind. Sitting alone, only with our thoughts and without the need to put on an act for those watching us can be an opportunity to clean our mind and build strategy. It is known that the habit of introspection makes us more capable to render new and better solutions for the problems coming our way daily. After all, we live our lives through stress and recovery, the same way a muscle is trained to become more powerful. Mediation is able to open our minds and make them fertile for new ideas and concepts. Innovation and success always favored those who knew how to take a moment away the activity they were focusing on.

Besides all, the most helpful aspect of meditation is that it enables us to achieve an indestructible sense of well-being, acceptance towards yourself and ultimately happiness. And this is achieved in an organic way, from virtually nothing but directed thoughts. Meditation can efficiently replace the pleasant effects we are after when using alcohol, drugs or any state-altering medicine. We can learn to keep under control a depressive mind and become our very own psychologist, and at the same time get a taste of the hidden features of our mind. After all, we are using just a fraction of its estimated total capacity.