▷ Benefits of Meditation » Key Contributions to Well-Being

How to meditate for beginners? The practice of meditation is one that has gained strength and popularity, in part due to the list of benefits of meditation, which makes it a very attractive exercise, especially since there are many types and it is relatively affordable with the existence of even 5 minutes of meditation.

Meditation and its physical benefits

What is meditation and how do you meditate? Meditation is a practice that has become more popular over time, especially during the pandemic, a period of time in which many found themselves unable to leave their homes and were forced to adapt and create new habits, including meditation.

What is meditation about? The benefits of meditation have been reported by many people and vary in scope and intensity, from people who say they simply feel better after meditating to those who claim to have overcome a condition thanks to the practice. This time they will talk about the physical benefits, the psychological benefits generated by meditation and finally a material that tests the reality of these claims, does meditation really work?

low blood pressure

To begin with the physical benefits, we will talk about the effects they supposedly have on the human body, the first being the reduction of blood pressure, stress meditation practitioners claim that when you enter this state of relaxation, the pressure drops to as well as the heart rate, which helps reduce the likelihood of getting a headache. Other people go even further and claim that regular meditation practice prevents and protects cardiovascular health.

Reduces muscle tension

The second benefit is also related to the state of relaxation sought during guided meditation in the morning and is the reduction of muscle tension. Stress and bad posture generate exhaustion and tension in the body, especially in the back, meditation helps to relax and dissipate this tension, especially when practiced in conjunction with other disciplines such as yoga.

sleep improvements

One of the most mentioned benefits is related to stress or rather its dissipation, which is why many people who suffer from stress or follow a very fast lifestyle come to consider or practice meditation in the morning in search of solutions.

Sleep problems are something relatively common among the elderly, either due to their resignation or maintenance, and many times it is related to those stress and anxiety problems that we have already mentioned, therefore some people assure that meditation can improve sleep not only for the effect of meditation on stress (which should reduce it, which would make the act of sleeping a little easier), but since meditation generates learning that allows a person to enter a state of relaxation at will more easily, this comes with practice time, of course.

Immune system

The most surprising and clearly proven benefit is the effect that meditation has on the immune system. As is well known, the immune system is a collection of cells and organs that are responsible for fighting the diseases and infections that people suffer from. means that meditation as a regular habit would reduce the number of times someone gets sick (an important health improvement).

Mental benefits and how to calm the mind?

It is clear that the physical benefits are not the most popular of meditation, practitioners of this technique express more benefits or improvements in the psychological aspects of their personality. It should also be made clear that many morning meditation practitioners report improvements in the spiritual areas of their lives, but this article will not discuss that, partly because there is no way to really test these claims and partly because some of these spiritual areas can be translated into psychological aspects that if scientifically proven

better concentration

Attention problems are a phenomenon that is becoming more and more relevant and has entered the consciousness of many people, especially with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), which is known to a significant number of people. It’s no secret that the average person today is subject to so many distractions and factors that concentrating on a task can be really difficult, especially if the task is not interesting or challenging to the person.

Meditation is a process in which a person tries to concentrate on specific elements and thoughts, and practitioners assure that practicing this discipline improves the ability to concentrate, probably because it is an exercise that forces you to “switch off” from many distractions and abilities. used for meditation can be used to focus on another task.

Relaxation (meditation to calm the mind)

In the physical benefits section, it was seen how relaxing the body affects different systems such as the muscular and cardiovascular; however, relaxation does not only happen physically, but also has psychological effects. Meditation can work to create a state of relaxation and “peace” that relaxes a person psychologically, like many other benefits of the practice, there is a difference between the immediate effects and the long term effects that come with meditation. regular meditation practice, a meditation session can work for mental relaxation for a short period of time, but die-hard practitioners claim that maintaining the habit can have more intense effects such as “making you happier”, which is much more a big claim and complicated to prove.

List of supporting studies

Now that you’ve seen some of the purported benefits of meditation, it’s time to ask yourself the most important question: is it true, does it really work? This question has crossed the minds of several scientists who have undertaken the task of conducting studies to verify it. However, the research does not end there, some people have conducted studies on meditative research, such as the case of G. Sánchez (2011) from the University of Costa Rica, who collected quantitative and qualitative studies with different populations and analyzed the results to observe their results, their validity and also provide references.

The conclusions of their study are that meditation can be effectively used for a specific purpose, but often ends up generating adjacent or general benefits that do not fall within the scope of the original purpose, among them reducing stress and anxiety elements such as intrusive thoughts, improving of self-control and emotional regulation.

The general effects of meditation are evident in people who have practiced it for a long time and in those who have only started for a short time.

However, it is not all positive, some criticisms or suggestions of these studies were that they focused a lot on one type of meditation (mindfulness) and it would be positive to evaluate the results of an investigation with other variations of the practice, studies with samples were also suggested more extensive and with safer procedures to avoid any contamination in the results and to get a wider picture of the phenomenon.

In conclusion, some of the benefits of meditation are true, especially the psychological ones, as studies seem to show a real improvement in people’s quality of life, in terms of the physical aspect of the benefits of meditation, some exist, but others are somewhat exaggerated, however, if if it is taken into account that meditation helps the psychological aspect of a person, it should be expected that the physical environment presents some improvement as the mind and body influence each other and vice versa.