Why You Should Start to Meditate Today! 5 Scientific Meditation Benefits

Scientific meditation benefits are just as important as spiritual ones. If you still haven’t meditated, today is a good day to start. Not just because meditation is popular, but because it is worthy. If you see meditation as a panacea for your troubles, you might be starting on the wrong foot. Doing that may only breed disappointment.

Solving your problems requires you to have a clear mental state. When you are stressed out or anxious, it is easy to attract negativity. For that, yoga and meditation can help you provide clarity and live in the present moment.

Meditation is an age-old practice. The practice is supported by a variety of tools, scientific findings, and advice on it. Below are some studies, explaining the scientific benefits of meditation. To the very least, these will help you fall in love with the practice itself.

5 Scientific Meditation Benefits

There is a growing interest in meditation. Because of it, research institutions dug deeper in order to understand the practice. And this is what they found:

Effects on anxiety

Dr. Elizabeth Hoge and colleagues published their related study on meditation benefits. The study illustrated the scientific meditation benefits against anxiety disorder. In this study, they compared how people who underwent mindfulness meditation and benefited more than those who never meditated. Many people who never meditated faced a form of anxiety disorder,. These included chronic worry, insomnia, irritability, and hypervigilance.

They found that both stress management education and meditation are beneficial in reducing nervousness.

A further research showed that people who meditate have lower anxiety and distress ratings. This is in comparison to those who underwent stress management education. Not only that, meditation has greatly encouraged people to have positive self-statements. This was far more successful than any stress management education technique used.

Health care savings

A more recent Harvard study proved that scientific meditation benefits prevent unnecessary medical expenses services. Proving this was Dr. James Stahl’s team. Basically, participants underwent an 8-week relaxation program that includes yoga and meditation. In the study, people used 43% fewer medical services than they did the previous year. That means they have saved up somewhere between $640 to $25,500 per person annually. 

Stress-related health problems are among the top reasons why people visit their doctor. With mind and body exercises, these visits have become minimal. In other words, it might not just be an apple that keeps the doctor away; meditation does, too.

Physical effects

There are also studies that prove the physical benefits of meditation. Not only are there mental benefits of meditation, the exercise can actually change the brain structure, too. A study published in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Journal have illustrated the benefits of meditation on the brain. The study analyzed long-term practitioners of meditation. Specifically, cognitive ability turned out positively different in people who meditated over two years.

Many meditation exercises empower the mind. They also release negative emotions and focus on bodily sensations. All these encourage the production of cortisol in the brain. Specifically, these areas are linked to a person’s will to live. The same is true for a person’s expression, decision-making process, and social behavior.

Workplace satisfaction

Employees of large companies who are hired as front liners often feel distressed and unworthy. Facing daily tasks of dealing with customers, who are sometimes irate, puts them under a lot of stress. Such situations pushed a research duo to test a mindfulness-based intervention on call center agents of a financial institution. The effects were amazing.

Scientific meditation benefits in the workplace help both employees and clients surround themselves in positivity. Guided meditation sessions on audio lower stress, depression, and fatigue symptoms. At the same, they also increased the client’s satisfaction level.

Improvement in learning

Science has also found a link between meditation and learning. There are studies that demonstrate the scientific meditation benefits for students. This was done in terms of improving memory and attention. Others have also seen how meditation has helped people with learning disabilities.

In a study with Taiwanese students, students who underwent a semester of meditation showed improved attention span. At the same time, their information retention increased as well. 

Mindfulness meditation helped students with difficulties in learning. Additionally, students dealt with anxiety and focusing more effectively. After meditating for five weeks, these students showed decreased symptoms of stress. Instead of having a focus attention, they became more social. Consequently, their academic performance also improved.

Conclusion

Bad news is all over the TV and Internet. Due to this issue, we cannot blame ourselves for feeling stressed. Such feelings can be dangerous to our well-being. That is why mind-body practices such as yoga and meditation are important. It’s not because we are currently living in the worst decade. More than anything, it is because we need to start taking care of ourselves. Also, we need to start paying attention to our mental state as well. 

Worldwide studies have shown how the scientific meditation benefits helped improve our lives. From our working habits to our personal lives, meditation matters. Achieving its benefits is a process, but a one surely deserving of your efforts.