Why Meditate or Practice Mindfulness?

Everyone has heard of meditation and mindfulness, but many still have no clue about why these are such excellent activities to pursue, or what can be gained from them.

Before looking through the long list of benefits that you can enjoy through meditation and mindfulness, I need to point out that they are different. You might choose to practice one or the other, or do both. I suggest both for the best results.

→ Meditation: On the simplest level, meditation is a focused activity. It could be paying close attention to your breathing, repeating a mantra or otherwise clearing your mind of everything beyond your chosen focus.

→ Mindfulness: Paying attention to what is going on within and outside of yourself without judgment or attachment, in the present moment. For example, simply listening to all the sounds you can hear without describing, categorizing or deciding if the sounds you hear are good or bad. Rather, you simply listen with an open-minded curiosity.

You can practice mindfulness as a part of your meditation practice, but you can’t always practice meditation when you are being mindful, such as mindfully driving or operating machinery.
Ideally, practicing both meditation and mindfulness daily, even for just a few minutes per day can help you attain the following benefits:

Physical Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness:

• Lowers oxygen consumption
• Decreases respiratory rate
• Increases blood flow and slows the heart rate
• Increases exercise tolerance
• Induces restorative relaxation
• Helps regulate blood pressure
• Lowers blood lactate levels to decrease anxiety symptoms
• Relaxes muscle tension
• Helps relieve symptoms of chronic diseases
• Reduces Pre-menstrual Syndrome symptoms
• Helps promotes post-operative healing
• Enhances immune system
• Reduces activity of viruses
• Reduces symptoms of emotional distress
• Enhances energy and stamina
• Aids weight loss
• Reduces free radicals to promote deep tissue healing
• Reduces cholesterol levels
• Lowers risk of cardiovascular disease.
• Improves flow of air to the lungs
• Decreases aging process.
• Increases levels of DHEAS
• Helps relieve pain
• Decreases sweat
• Relieves migraines
• Promotes overall brain functioning
• Reduce need for medical care
• Reserves energy
• Relieves asthma and other types of breathing problems
• Enhances athletic performance
• Harmonizes the endocrine system
• Relaxes nervous system
• Promotes enhanced electrical activity in the brain
• Reduces stress to help promote fertility
• Improves sex life

Mental Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness

• Increases feelings of self-worth
• Boosts serotonin levels for mood support
• Relaxes fears and phobias
• Helps control thoughts
• Increases focus and concentration
• Increases creativity
• Increases brain wave coherence
• Improves learning ability
• Sustains an improved memory
• Rejuvenates positive emotions
• Increases emotional stability
• Slows brain aging
• Makes it easy to remove bad habits
• Increases intuition
• Increases productivity
• Expands your thinking to see additional alternatives
• Decreases reactivity
• Increase problem solving
• Purifies character
• Develop will power
• Increases self-regulation capacities
• Opens up left-brain, right-brain communication
• Allows faster response times
• Increases perceptual ability
• Increases motor performance
• Increases intelligence growth rate
• Increases feelings of satisfaction
• Decreases behavioral health symptoms
• Helps in all aspects of recovery, including addictions
• Induces more restorative sleep
• Decreases insomnia symptoms
• Decreases restless and ruminative thinking
• Decreases worry thoughts
• Improves powers of discernment
• Creates a more balanced personality
• Increases emotional intelligence

Spiritual Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness:

• Provides peace of mind, happiness
• Helps gain clarity to better live your purpose
• Induces self-actualization
• Increases wisdom
• Provides a deeper understanding of self and others
• Harmonizes the mind, body, spirit connection
• Increases feelings of self-acceptance
• Helps release resentments
• Increases ability to forgive self and others
• Improves attitude toward life
• Creates a deeper relationship with higher power/God/nature
• Allows the attainment of enlightenment
• Improves inner strength and fortitude
• Increases emotional and mental resiliency
• Improves ability to live in the present moment
• Leads to discovery of TRUE self, beyond the ego
• Allows you to live from an inner sense of knowing
• Increases feelings of oneness with the cosmos
• Increases experiences of synchronicity

Social Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness

• Improves all relationships
• Builds tolerance for self and others
• Improves patience
• Promotes healthy responses versus mindless reactions
• Increases capacity for intimacy
• Opens abilities to give and receive love
• Decreases feelings of social anxiety
• Increases self-efficacy skills
• Increases sense of personal-responsibility and accountability
• Reduces road rage
• Increases listening skills
• Increases empathy for others
• Creates composure to act in constructive ways
• Increases compassion
• Allows you to be more present for others
• Decreases negative feelings such as jealousy and non-productive judgment

Ultimately, practicing meditation and mindfulness helps you feel better, look better, work better, love better and experience life on deeper levels. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today. Taking even just three minutes a day to practice each activity will bring you amazing results.

Here is a three-minute mindfulness meditation that can help: