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How does meditation benefit your health?

Photo: Unsplash
Photo: Unsplash

Meditation, a 5,000-year-old practice that deeply relaxes the mind and body, can benefit your health in a variety of ways, research studies revealed. The studies suggest that this simple technique that promotes mindfulness or present-moment awareness may help you by:

  • Improving attention, memory and learning

  • Improving positive emotions

  • Lowering blood pressure

  • Improving heart rate

  • Improving symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome

  • Increasing the immune response

  • Decreasing anxiety, depression

  • Alleviating infertility problems, pre-menstrual syndrome, hot flashes during menopause

  • Boosting breast milk production during breastfeeding

  • Reducing the experience of pain

  • Improving insomnia

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the United States who reviewed almost 19,000 meditation studies, concluded that “meditation programmes can reduce the negative dimensions of psychological stress”.

Singapore’s Ministry of Health advises: “For as little as just 20 minutes a day, practising mindfulness can not only help you to relieve stress in the short run, it can also lead to long-term happiness, well-being and greater satisfaction in life.”

Photo: Pixabay
Photo: Pixabay

How does meditation work?

Meditation can be done at home or outdoors for as little as a few minutes to as long as an hour or more. All you require is a quiet location where you can sit or lie down comfortably without any distraction. You can even meditate while walking.

You can close your eyes or leave them open and recite a specific word or phrase (mantra) to focus your attention. You may also focus on a picture, visualise a favourite flower or simply follow the inhalation and exhalation cycle of your breathing. You can do this on your own or if you prefer, you can follow a teacher’s or guide’s instructions in a guided meditation.

The repetition of a mantra and focusing on your breath during meditation can help take your attention away from your thoughts and centre your mind in the present. Meditation can also help relax your body’s biological processes.

Experts say meditation may help you feel calm and relaxed even hours after you conclude the practice.

3 types of meditation

  • Mantra meditation: You recite any calming word, thought or phrase silently or loudly.

  • Mindfulness meditation: You can focus on your breath or observe your thoughts and emotions without judgment.

  • Transcendental Meditation: In this meditation technique developed by Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, you silently repeat a mantra that is assigned to you based on factors such as your year of birth and gender.

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