The benefits of meditation are powerful and show up subtly in your life when practiced consistently. It is simply a practice to help you quiet your mind and disconnect from all the noise and demands of your day. It requires taking time out to just be with yourself and to allow time to listen to your silence, your thoughts, and your body. Our bodies, thoughts, and emotions are always communicating with us. We just need to take the time out to listen.

The goal of meditation is to listen, reconnect within, learn to relax, and just “be” without having to “do” anything. It is both an art and science that has been scientifically proven to have physiological changes on our brain and our body. Research in neuroplasticity has shown through brain imaging that meditation creates new neuropathways and increases gray matter density in areas associated with learning, memory, and emotional regulation. It is an art through its practiced skill that helps you strengthen your mind to stay focused on developing controlled, healthy thinking patterns. It physiologically changes the brain and reprograms the mind at the unconscious level. All these result in benefits that go way beyond those that meet the eye.

To make it more compelling for you to learn more about the power of meditation, below are three top benefits to consider with some links to meditations to help you get started in your everyday life:

Benefit #1 – It reduces daily stress build-up.

One of the most profound benefits of meditation is helping us reduce daily stress that compounds over time. Stress is inevitable in our lives. With life’s daily demands, we naturally experience stress. When we keep that stress compounding without releasing it, it will end up coming out one way or another – one day or another. If we are not aware that we have to consciously release our stress every day in an effective way, we will not realize the build up that we are keeping trapped. This build up eventually impacts our health, our relationships, our happiness and our success. In fact, the most common reason for chronic health issues, anxiety, frustration, unhappiness, relationship issues is due to stress build up. Physical problems are also found often to be a symptom of turmoil on the inside that attack our body as a result of stress.

The way to know if your stress is compounding is by being in touch with how you feel, how you are reacting to situations, how you may be reacting to others, or how you are processing external events. With meditation, what you are doing is calming down the mind, and putting the body in a deeper form of relaxation and healing so you can cope within in a healthier, stronger way. By doing so, you clear away the information overload that builds up every day, which in turn helps you have more focus and see more opportunities and solutions. This also helps overcome inner turmoil and overwhelm and strengthens your emotional and physical well-being. Physically, it also lowers blood pressure, decreases your risk of chronic diseases or other health risks caused by stress.

A simple thing you can do to help yourself when you are feeling off, stressed, restless, overwhelmed, or frustrated is to just take 5-6 deep breaths, pulling your breath all the way up to the top of your head and then exhaling slowly. and allow yourself to take a 15-minute break to calm your mind down by just focusing on your breathing. You’ll be amazed how something that simple can make a significant difference in your day.

Benefit # 2 – It builds your inner power to be a master of your own thoughts.

Another way that studies have shown the benefits of meditation is its ability to help you master your thoughts. Having negative thoughts is part of being human. In fact, studies have shown that 80% of people’s thoughts have negative connotations and 95% are repetitive. We are taught the importance of positive thinking and intellectually know that, however sometimes mastering your mind is no easy feat, why? It’s because our mind works on autopilot and it is conditioned to think in certain patterns. So being positive becomes a skill we have to practice over and over again.

One way you can break a pattern of thought that is not serving you, is to master how your mind works. To do so, you need to become more aware of your thoughts. That’s what becoming more mindful means. It starts with awareness that we all have empowering and disempowering thoughts that run through our mind all day long. In fact, studies have shown that we have over 6000 thoughts a day, which means our mind is in a continuous stream of thoughts that we are mostly unaware of because it is running from the patterns of our unconscious mind Our thoughts create emotions and our emotions create our energy. So it becomes easier to identify what our thoughts are when we become more in touch with our emotions and the energy we feel. 

Mastering your thoughts begins first with acknowledging them and accepting them without judgment regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Once you acknowledge them you want to challenging them by asking yourself how much they are serving you to grow or thrive. This is a form of self intervention to help you upgrade those thoughts to a higher level of energy , The tipping point is when you are able to release them, reframe them, and transform them in the moment to uplifting and inspiring thoughts., Most people who are stressed don’t believe they’re able to control what they think or feel. They fall victims to their thoughts and in fact validate them by continually reinforcing that they are stressed or frustrated or depleted.

Gratitude is one of the most effective ways to start to replace any thought. Gratitude is a great way to start your meditation practice and enables you to reset your thoughts with a focus on happiness and peace. This is how meditation builds on your peace of mind and happiness. By spending some time in focused and targeted personal reflection, you’ll gain a greater wisdom and appreciation of all your experiences both good and bad and learn to consciously start your day in the most productive way.

Benefit # 3 – It improves your focus and productivity

A third way that meditation benefits you is it brings more focus. Practicing meditation helps you practice focusing your mind, Our mind is like a muscle. As John Assaraf says, we have to keep working at “innercising” our mind. With continual daily practice, we eventually rewire our mind, and build a new type of inner strength that welcomes peace and tranquility into our life. When you alleviate the stress at the beginning and end of each day, you’re better able to concentrate on the things that are important and that serve you in positive ways.

With continued meditation your focus will be expanded to encompass many aspects of your life. It helps your mind become sharper and clears it from the chaos and fog that get in the way so you can be more focused and productive in whatever you want to do!

15 minutes a day is all you need to start

Although we all may know that there are many benefits of meditation, it can be hard to make the time to fit it into our day. However, when you practice it consistently, it becomes engrained in you like any other habit. It just takes work and dedication to fit it into your daily routine. Simply, make it a point to start and end your day with it, or find a quiet place and allow yourself to relax and feel at peace for 10-15 minutes.

There are many types of meditation and there are many ways to meditate. Keep it simple as you start out. Create a morning and evening routine to settle your mind down by simply focusing on your breath. Below are some recommended meditations to start with:

• A Heart Coherence Meditation – 22 minutes
• Healing and Recovery Meditation – 15 minutes
• An evening meditation for Gratitude – 11 minutes
• A Morning Meditation to Start Your Day with Positivity and Direction – 15 minutes
• A Meditation for Letting Go – 10 minute
• Meditation music
• You can also do more research on YouTube using the keywords guided meditation

You can use apps like the Calm App, Waking Up App, Mindfulness Coach, or Art of Living. Meditation resources are abundantly available to you, so find something to start, find something you like, and begin practicing.

In summary

By bringing meditation into your life, you will find that you will be more aware and in control of your thoughts and emotions, you will upgrade your thinking patterns, and increase your mental and emotional capacity.

Meditation is personal. Start with finding one meditation that works for you. There is no right or wrong way. It is a practice that evolves. It’s like any other habit. The more you do it, the more natural it is. Over time with regular practice you’ll begin to experience the benefits by your inner state of calm. You will see things clearer, you become more focused, more energetic and you will notice that you become a lot more in touch with your intuition. Things that you need will also start flowing easily to you and help bring you the support you seek in what you are trying to achieve!

Learn More About How You Can Power Up From Within

To learn more about rewiring your mind, you can also check out my book, POWER UP YOUR VISION. The book is based on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, and the science of success, with insights into the inner workings of the mind. It walks you through a framework that will create profound change in your life with tools and techniques that empower you to lead a more joyful, purposeful, and fulfilled life.