The Magic of Meditation: Benefits and Consequences

British philosophical writer, James Allen, once said:

“Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.” 

According to the American Institute of Stress, the number of stressed people out of 143 different countries globally is 35%—that’s 20% lower than the percentage of Americans who currently deal with frequent stress.

 

It is a tricky skill to be able to manage not only stress but the world of mental health in general. Having a good relationship with the spontaneous thoughts we receive each day can significantly improve multiple areas of life including mental and physical health.

 

Meditation can be an essential tool for anyone looking to alleviate those common mental tolls. So what is meditation and how can I benefit from it?

 

Here, we will be taking a deep dive into what meditation consists of along with its vast benefits.

 

What is Meditation?

The earliest written records of meditation date back to around 1500 BCE, coming from Hindu traditions, in India, of Vendatism. Vendatism is a school of philosophy and is one of the earliest known Indian paths for spiritual enlightenment. Other forms of meditation are then cited around the 6th and 5th centuries BCE within Taoist China and Buddhist India.

 

It wasn’t until the 1960s that meditation was first scientifically researched and praised in a more modern era. New and interesting research would cause more research that caused more research until meditation became less of religious practice and more of a proven way to benefit one’s mental and physical health.

 

From then on, meditation stemmed into different and more complex forms but had become a widespread normal, and common practice across the globe.

 

The word meditation stems from meditatum, a Latin term that means ‘to ponder.’

 

In today’s fast pace society, it can be easy to allow everyday obstacles to fill up our brains; obliviously allowing our emotions to run wild. Meditation creates a mental environment that allows us to observe or ponder our thoughts and how they influence our emotions and behaviors.

 

In meditation, you are using something simple to focus on. The most common being the breath, but can also be sound, physical sensations, or even what you observe with sight.

 

As you focus, thoughts will start to appear in your mind. The main practice or goal of meditation is to observe those thoughts, for a moment, before letting them pass and returning to a focus.

 

By practicing this consistently, you get in the habit of allowing your thoughts to pass, rather than getting caught up in them. This creates a better relationship between you and your thoughts; allowing you to focus on more important things without the stress and brain clutter.

 

Meditation is an essential tool that can turn a cluttered brain into a peaceful state of mind. But in what ways?

 

The Benefits of Meditation

Meditation and its benefits have been backed up by years of repeated research. Here I will list not all, but the most common and major benefits of meditation: reduction of stress, enhancement of self-awareness, and management of anxiety.

 

1. Stress Reduction

Stress is probably one of the main reasons people try meditation. The exchange of a few minutes of meditation for a more peaceful mindset is an easy deal.

 

In one study, scientists would examine the effects of mindfulness meditation on stress in 34 college students. Their studies had shown promising results as 74% of college students had reported a significant decrease in stress.

 

The experiment had also shown diminished anxiety and enhanced mindfulness as well.

 

Scientists wouldn’t stop there as Gaëlle Desbordes, an instructor in radiology at Harvard Medical School and neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, had paired up with Benjamin Shapero, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Due to her personal experience with stress in her academic life, Desbordes wanted to study how meditation affected stress a little closer in order to shed light on how it could help her with her own stress and others as well.

 

In 2012, Desbordes and Shapero would use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan brain activity. Desbordes took before-and-after scans of subjects who learned to meditate over the course of two months.

 

In conclusion, their research “detected changes in the subjects’ brain activation patterns from the beginning to the end of the study, the first time such a change—in a part of the brain called the amygdala—had been detected.”

 

Again, valuable research has displayed the magical benefit of stress reduction. In this way, meditation can be a lifesaver when stress is the only thing keeping you from mental well-being.

 

2. Enhanced Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don’t align with your internal standards. In simpler terms, self-awareness is the process of studying one’s self.

 

The skill of studying yourself internally is key to a healthy mindset as it allows you to notice the actions, thoughts, and emotions within you and how it influences your overall mental health. Again, today’s fast pace society makes it easy to pass up these key factors in one’s mental health. For example, if you don’t recognize that your anxiety is wearing you down, then you will only become more anxious.

 

On the other hand, if you noticed that your anxiety was hurting your mental health, you could start to solve the issue. You could then begin asking yourself questions: what is causing my anxiety? What can I do to fix it next time?

 

The practice of noticing how something influences your mental health allows you to know what wears you down and what keeps you healthy.

 

According to Headspace, “When we step away from all of this—without ideas, judgment, inner-dialogue, or the need to define—we step into a space of awareness; a space where we merely observe how the mind behaves, and where we experience the present moment … without thinking, without distraction.”

 

When we meditate, we are simply observing how the brain interacts with its thoughts. When we observe this interaction, we are able to understand how certain thoughts affect us. We become self-aware.

 

3. Managing Anxiety

Anxiety is a mental state connected to an inability to regulate your emotional responses to perceived threats. Mindfulness meditation strengthens a person’s cognitive ability to regulate these emotions.

 

One study, suggests that “Mindfulness meditation has long been known as an antidote for anxiety.” The researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center would recruit 15 volunteers with normal signs of everyday anxiety without any meditative experience.

 

The 15 subjects were taught mindfulness meditation that focused on breath and body sensations and non-judgmentally evaluate distracting thoughts and emotions in 20-minute sessions. Anxiety was significantly reduced in every session the subjects meditated.

 

In conclusion, “Brain imaging found that meditation-related anxiety relief was associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and anterior insula. These areas of the brain are involved with executive function and the control of worrying.”

 

Meditation-related activation of these three regions was directly linked to anxiety relief. This goes to show how meditation can not only help mentally but also physically as parts of the brain are positively impacted by simple 20-minute sessions of meditation.