It seems like everybody has caught on the trend of mindfulness and meditation.
Today, you can see many celebrities who share their experience with meditation. Oprah is one of the most active proponents of mindful meditation, having shared her tradition of reading a mantra and doing transcendental meditation for several minutes every morning.
There is a reason why so many successful people swear by the effectiveness of meditation and its potential to change your life for better.
Research has shown that mindfulness and meditation have a significant impact on CEOs and business executives, as it helps them bring up resilience, emotional intelligence, and develop focus.
What are other positive changes that meditation can bring into your life?
Let’s take a look.
1. Establishing Body-Mind Connection
We often feel that we’re not in control of our bodies. This is especially true for people who have a chronic illness. Those people know that sometimes flare-ups appear all of a sudden, and it makes them feel lost and exhausted, as they suddenly lose control of their body.
Meditation is one of the coping tools in this situation.
Several studies have shown that meditation has the power to physically change the brain and body. The results of these studies have proven that regular meditation practice helps control certain areas of the brain that respond to pain.
As a result, meditation helps those who practice it on a regular basis to establish the body-mind connection, as breathing techniques used in meditation are effective in coping with pain.
This can be life-changing for those who’ve been battling with chronic illness for a long time or those who regularly go through stressful situations or anxiety.
2. Developing Positive Perception
What do people often expect from meditation?
sense of tranquility
experience of absolute gratitude
a shift towards more positive perception of the world
While you can already experience the first two points after 3-5 meditation sessions, the third one comes only after a long time of practicing meditation.
And this shift can be life-changing.
But why doesn’t it come easy to use?
Meditation is not a magic pill, it’s a practice that takes a long time to perfect. “Multiple studies have shown that people, who just started meditating, can experience emotional drought after the first few sessions,” says Martin Harris, a researcher at Flatfy.
The same happens after the first therapy sessions. As you dig deeper and learn more about yourself, you become more sensitive to situations around you. As a result, you tend to exaggerate your emotions.
But as you keep practicing meditation, your emotional intelligence grows, and so does your positive perception of the world. It happens as a sudden shift in worldview, and it is absolutely life-changing.
3. Promoting Self-Awareness
Besides the positive changes in your worldview, regular meditation sessions also change how you perceive yourself.
As you develop emotional intelligence, you learn how to program your emotions not to harm you but to empower you. Meditation can help you cope even with the strongest negative emotions that may have a destructive effect on your body.
Take a look at this.
A study that involved 21 women with breast cancer has found a positive effect of meditation on their self-awareness.
Women participated in tai chi sessions, which is a martial art complex involving meditation practices. The study found that after more than a dozen of tai chi sessions, the self-esteem of participants improved significantly.
Researchers also compared the results of these women to those, who received social support sessions, and their self-esteem and self-awareness were significantly higher.
Why did it work that way?
During a meditation practice, you try to catch yourself in the moment and study the emotions that you experience right now. This is a mindfulness practice, helping you understand the root of the emotion.
As a result, you learn how to listen to yourself and understand yourself better. It can, without a doubt, change the quality of your life for better in the long run.
Wrapping Up
Meditation can hardly be a cure for all your problems.
However, it can be a great coping mechanism, helping you establish the connection between your body and your mind, develop self-awareness, and as you continue practicing, change your entire worldview.
Ryan is a passionate writer who likes sharing his thoughts and experience with the readers. Currently, he works as a digital marketing specialist at https://hu.flatfy.com/. He likes everything related to traveling and new countries.