"Meditating" -it's a word that can conjure up extreme images for many people.
But in reality, it's a technique with a long history that's practiced by people all over the world today, and is accessible to anyone who wants to learn!
It can also be a great way to improve your mental-and even physical-health.
We'll get to the "how" of meditating in a second, but let's start with the "why." Meditation has been practiced for millennia, most notably in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and can be understood as one part of a larger cultural, social, and spiritual whole.
In recent years, as versions of this practice became popularized in the west, the benefits of meditation have become something of a hot topic in scientific research as well.
What we're finding is that meditating can make you feel better, calmer, etc., while you're doing it, but its positive effects on your health also last far beyond your individual meditation sessions.
As Psychiatric Research Magazine put it, meditation is "associated with changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking." In other words, with a practice of just a few minutes a day, after just a couple months, meditation literally changes and strengthens those parts of your brain that contribute to your mental well-being.
And those are just some of the mental effects.
According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation also can help people manage symptoms of physical conditions such as asthma, heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic pain, and sleep problems.
We're not implying that it should take the place of traditional therapy or medicine, and you may want to talk to your healthcare provider about the pros and cons of meditation in your particular case… But in general, meditation can definitely be a positive contribution to greater health. So, what exactly is meditation?
