The Joys of Meditation

I have always encouraged the practice of meditation, I have experienced the transformational qualities of the practice myself, and on top of that, in my degree of Psychology and Neuroscience, I have learnt about the benefits of meditation, in recent years the discovery of these benefits have led to conventional medicine integrating the practice of Mindfulness and Meditation into treatments for a variety of physical and psychological disorders.

Starting this week, I have the privilege of teaching a meditation class at the YMCA gym (UNSW branch). I cannot express my excitement at this opportunity, my excitement is coupled with slight anxiety.

How can I ensure that the amazing benefits of meditation can be translated to each an every person who steps into the class?

 My anxiety has subsided with the realization that the practice of meditation will work its magic on each person willing to put in the effort. So if you are wondering what meditation can do for you, or you're just looking for reasons to start a daily meditation practice, here are just a few of the incredible benefits: 

Increasing concentration 

One of the things I love about the practice of meditation is that not only does it have incredibly calming effects on the mind and body at the time of the practice, but long after you have completed  the practice you will still reap the benefits. The Journal of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience publish findings that a 10 minute daily meditation practice can increases your ability to concentrate of every day tasks.

Manage anxiety, depression and stress 

Goyal, at John Hopkins, conducted a meta analysis and discovered that meditation can be on par with antidepressants in the treatment of depressive symptoms. A regular practice of meditation improves your ability to regulate your emotions, and therefore has the ability to decrease stress and anxiety (for links to the papers where these finding were published comment below) 

Ease Pain

In 2011 Zeidan and his colleges publish findings that meditation can decrease the perception of pain by approximately 57%. The ability that meditation has to increase cognitive control, and regulate emotions results in the perception of pain as being fleeting.

Increase Grey Matter 

The Journal of Psychiatry Research publish findings in 2011, which demonstrated that an 8 week program of Mindfulness-Based Stress reduction, significantly increased grey brain matter. By increasing grey brain matter we improve learning and increase memory, concentration.

These are just a few of the many benefits of meditation! If you have any questions about meditation, or how it can help you comment below!!

Hopefully I'll see you all in class on Friday :)

Namaste