Meditation is an increasingly widespread practice all over the world. There are many people who every day take advantage of some moments of the day to meditate and find a little of that serenity, attention, and peace of mind they need to face the day. There are many benefits of daily meditation that we do not know.
When a healthy habit is incorporated into your life it is not difficult for you to do it, your brain has already taken care of putting it inside the routine’s closet, and therefore it does not take up space or effort. Like brushing your teeth, shaving every morning or any other.
Benefits daily of meditation
The first thing I have to say is that this is not my invention, nor is it the result of watching an inspiring movie or visiting a monastery. There are more than 3,000 scientific studies that support what I am going to say in this article.
1. You will lower the revolutions
Meditation calms you down, slow down your revolutions. If something we realize in recent years is that our level of stress (and therefore cortisol in the blood) increases considerably, as well as the pulse resulting from this stress. Meditation helps you calm down. This does not mean that you will do less and you will go more slowly, but that you will act with more tranquility in your life.
Also Read: How To Keep Yourself Away From Negative Life
2. Increase your happiness
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, many scientific studies on meditation were made to discover its benefits. In one of them, it was shown how meditation increased brain activity in the left frontal lobe, something that indicates that the happiness of the people who meditated was greater.
3. Increase your attention and reduce your anxiety
In the same university, in a study with more than 50 people, it was discovered how meditation lowered their anxiety levels and increased their attention. If you realize, one fact that we are all witnessing, is that we lack the capacity to be attentive, our dispersion is perhaps one of our main problems nowadays. A few years ago you could be sitting 20 minutes doing nothing. Now you can not spend 2 minutes without checking your smartphone.
4. It improves your immune system and makes you more positive
In an investigation at MIT, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn discovered how the immune system of participants in a meditation study improved markedly, as well as the part of the brain associated with positive emotions.
5. You will change the structure of your brain
In recent years we have talked about the plasticity of the brain, our ability to “reconnect” or “rewire” our brain, and therefore our attitude, beliefs, and way of relating to the world. Through meditation, we contribute to developing areas of the brain that would otherwise have remained asleep.
6. You will increase concentration and creativity and learning
At the Massachusetts General Hospital, a group of psychiatrists discovered using functional magnetic resonance how people who meditated assiduously had areas of the brain with more gray matter than a control group. One of the most enlarged regions was the frontal lobe, a very important area for decision making and memory. The most important thing about this discovery was that in meditators this area did not diminish with age, preventing the natural deterioration of memory.
In another study, it was discovered how the hippocampus was enlarged, a key area for learning, memory, and regulation of emotions. It is known from many studies that people with depression have less gray matter in this area.
7. Increase your empathy and ability to do good
In addition, it has been discovered how meditation expands our temporoparietal junction, an area above the ear that is important to take perspective, be empathetic and more compassionate.
8. Reduce your stress and impulsivity
On the other hand, it was discovered that it has positive effects on the amygdala, in this case decreasing its size, which resulted in a lower sense of stress on the part of the people who meditate. Although the environment we are in is one of our sources of stress, it has been shown that the size of our amygdala is also very large. By reducing the size of the amygdala we are also calming our impulsiveness to act excessively emotionally.
9. You will know yourself better and you can make better decisions.
If I can add something of my own, my 15 minutes of meditation have helped me to know myself better, to know how I am each day and in each period of my life. The most significant benefit for me is to know what my strengths are and in what areas I will pay attention to improve. And this happens every day, helping me to take the helm of my personal and professional development.
For all that we have said, we could say that meditation increases our emotional intelligence, a simple and practical definition of EI would be this:
“The extent to which we know ourselves and regulate ourselves, and also how much we know others and regulate our relationships with them”
Now you know why companies like Google, Microsoft, and many others include meditation in their training and development programs.
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