Meditation has become increasingly popular over the last decade. Rightfully so!
Daily meditation and mindfulness practices have many amazing benefits for your emotional health and wellbeing…
Below are a few of our favorite benefits of daily meditation:
1.) Reduces Stress
Who would have thought that sitting still and focusing on your breathing might reduce stress?
Seems like common sense, but many people have difficulty taking the time out of their day to reap the benefits of meditation.
One thing leads to another and we get distracted.
The phone rings, the dog barks, the T.V is on in the other room.
All of this is ok, and is part of life.
Do your best to find 10 minutes during the day when you can sit quietly and focus on your breathing.
Daily meditation can lower your heart-rate and slow your breathing and racing thoughts.
You will start to notice the benefits of this faster than you may think.
2.) Helps Manage Anxiety
Reduced stress naturally leads to better management of anxiety.
Daily meditation and the self discipline of a daily practice, reinforces stress reduction as a type a reward system.
After several weeks or months of consistent practice, you will start to recognize the feeling and headspace that you tap into when you meditate.
You will begin to tap into the calm that meditation brings you throughout stressful or potentially stressful times during your day.
This is not a “cure” for stressful situations, but mindfulness and meditation can take the edge off of otherwise agitating situations throughout the day.
According to a 2019 study, “mindfulness-based meditation has positive effects on depression, and its effects can last for six months or more…”
3.) Promotes Positive Emotional Health
Daily meditation improves your emotional health by getting you more in touch with the emotions that you feel throughout the day.
Meditation and mindfulness is a practice of noticing your thoughts and emotions for what they are, and then letting them pass or stay.
Observing your thoughts and emotions objectively, without judgement.
Simply recognizing your feelings and emotions ultimately allows you to own them.
4.) Enhances Self-Awareness
Daily meditation, even just 10 minutes a day, can get you more in touch with yourself.
Self-awareness is important not just in how we relate to ourselves, but also how we relate to others in our daily lives.
5.) Increase Attention Span
A daily practice of meditation can increase your attention span in other aspects of life.
Do you ever feel like you are multi-tasking throughout the entire day? Many of us spend our days jumping from one task to another, shifting focus back and forth between projects.
Meditation is the practice of “single-tasking“; focusing on the breath.
Focusing on your breathe and thinking about nothing, is the antidote to our fast-paced, multi-tasking lives.
Even just a few minutes of daily practice will improve your ability to focus on one-task at a time throughout the day.
6.) Helps Prevent Age-Related Memory Loss
A 2017 study of adults with early memory loss, found that a practice of simple meditation or music listening program may have multiple benefits for older adults with preclinical memory loss.
7.) Increases Empathy and Kindness
Daily meditation was shown to increase empathy of participants in a recent facial-emotion recognition study.
When you practice slowing down daily, you will begin to recognize nuances in your own emotions and the emotions of others as well.
Eliminating distractions increases awareness, and your awareness of the emotions of others is no exception.
One big aspect of this is your increased patience. You will be less rushed and more empathetic and kind without the need to rush through the day.
8.) Improves Sleep
Learning to calm your mind through daily meditation will also improve your sleep.
The practice of daily meditation teaches you not just how to slow your mind, but also your heart rate.
As you progress, your ability to get into “the zone” of calmness will improve.
This can be utilized to calm your self before bed to get a great nights sleep!
In conclusion…
Daily meditation has many benefits for people of all ages!
There is little to no down side of taking the time to sit and focus on your breathing every day.
Do your best, and don’t be too hard on yourself when getting started.
Check out our List of Free Meditation Apps to get started with guided meditations, trackers and soundscapes for beginners!
Recommended Links:
- Mindfulness in Plain English (Amazon) – A great introduction book for anyone wanting to learn more about mindfulness meditation.
- 10% Happier – Dan Harris (Amazon)
- Meditation mobile apps Including Waking Up, Calm and Headspace. (You certainly don’t need an app to meditate, but their guided meditations and trackers can be a good way to build a consistent habit when you’re first getting started.)
