At the workshop on “How to get a good night sleep,” we were discussing how to calm your mind to help you sleep. A number of the participants talked about how they use meditation to help them. Meditation became part of the vernacular of lifestyle choices and a source of a lot of conversation as far back as the 60s when there was a big interest in eastern religions and for us boomers, all things eastern were exotic and new. But while many of the flash in the pan interests in exotic religions during that time frame faded away, meditation has endured and become a common practice and resource that has benefited us in every decade of our lives.
There is a good reason meditation has endured and even grown in popularity. Meditation has tremendous benefits for virtually every aspect of life and those who integrate it into their daily lifestyles can experience those benefits virtually as soon as they start. You don’t have to be a guru at meditation to realize that it may have other benefits than helping a person get a good night’s sleep. Benefits can occur for an individual from the very first time they try. Some of those benefits include:
· Meditation is calming. Because the act of meditation calls for you to bring your thoughts into captivity and to still your mind and focus it, that sense of your soul is in turmoil eases and you are able to address the cause of your anxiety and see a solution more clearly because your emotions are not clouding the issue.
· Meditation helps you focus and concentrate. The great thing about meditation is that the effects of meditation continue past those few moments when you are meditating. Those few moments of calm create an atmosphere of focus and clarity of thought that goes on throughout your day helping you focus your mind and more easily concentrate when you need to.
· Meditation reduces stress and mental anxiety. So often the stress that comes out of problems and difficulties is dominated by emotional reactions even more than by the problem itself. Meditation clears away the effects of the stress making it easier for you to solve the problem itself.
· Meditation helps reduce physical anxiety. The process of meditation involves extended periods of quiet deep breathing. This simple action floods the brain with oxygen and energizes blood flow throughout the body which refreshes tired muscles and causes your entire physical system to relax and release pent-up anxiety.
· Meditation helps you sleep and digest your food. The refreshed blood flow, rich in oxygen that comes from the session of meditation, takes action immediately on the digestive system often reducing or eliminating digestive problems and even easing the symptoms of ulcers. Because the mind is relaxed and well supplied with vital oxygen and blood flow, sleep comes more easily and is more recuperative.
Some successful role models in all walks of life that come out of our generation credit meditation to why they are able to accomplish such great things. In addition to all of these benefits, meditation is easy to integrate into your lifestyle and you can go at your own pace learning to become better at meditation and grow in your ability to use it.
Meditation is easy to do. The image of a meditation practitioner in painful “lotus position” going into a virtual trance is the extreme of the discipline. Because meditation has been adapted so that any of us can benefit from the health benefits it brings, you can begin meditating immediately and see the benefits from the very first session.
Small wonder many of us have continued down through the decades to be enthusiastic proponents of meditation. And there is no reason we cannot continue to enjoy the tremendous benefits as we move into our retirement years.
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