Meditation is becoming an increasingly popular recommendation from therapists and medical professionals alike and for good reason. There are seemingly endless benefits to practicing mindful meditation on a daily basis. The benefits of meditation may be difficult to imagine when you have never successfully meditated but if you haven’t given mindfulness a chance, it may be time to start. Here are just a few ways that practicing meditation can drastically change your quality of life.
1. Increase Your Ability to Focus
Though constant access to entertainment through the internet can be a wonderful thing, never-ending stimulation leads to a lower attention span. Most people find it difficult to just sit with their feelings, quietly read a book, or take a stroll around the block without looking at their phone. If you’re someone who struggles to put their phone away, meditation will help. Forcing yourself to silently sit and exist in the present moment will diminish your need for unending stimulation.
2. Lower Stress and Anxiety
Numerous scientific studies have proven that meditation leads to lower levels of stress and anxiety. Many therapists now use mindfulness and meditation as the center of their practice. Meditation forces you to deal with the present moment without judging your experience. You cannot experience stress and anxiety if you’re actively focusing on the present moment. Of course, being able to live in the present moment without judgement is a skill that will need to be developed. But if you practice the skills involved with mindful meditation you can greatly reduce your stress levels.
3. Better Sleep Quality
It can be difficult to fall asleep when you have a racing mind distracting you. Many adults find it difficult to fall asleep within thirty minutes of crawling into bed. With meditation, you can change how difficult it is to fall asleep at night. Meditation teaches you the skill of ignoring intrusive thoughts. A lot of people experience tiredness when meditating even during the day time. Meditating right before bed will relax you in a way that allows you to fall into a peaceful sleep with minimal effort.
4. Encourage Empathy
There are a wide variety of meditative practices and several focus on manifesting kindness for both yourself and others. If you struggle with self doubt or deprecating thoughts, you can find a meditation that promotes self-love. Inevitably, that self-love is going to bleed into other areas of your life. You will likely find that with regular meditation you experience more patience and sensitivity to others in your daily life.
5. Changes the Perception of Pain
One essential lesson in meditation is that no sensation is necessarily good or bad. That tingle on your foot, that tightness in your neck, you are supposed to experience the sensation without judging it while meditating. It is difficult to learn to experience the inner workings of your body without judgement but doing so will alter your perception of pain even outside of meditation.
Meditation is not easy to practice. It will take focus and perseverance to master mindfulness. But taking time every day to develop the skill of meditation will most certainly improve your quality of life.