Chapter 11 - The Benefits of Mindful Meditation
As you learn to understand yourself, you will develop a better understanding of why you act in certain ways. Some habits may be helpful, but other automatic behavior may be holding you back. That’s what makes mindful meditation so effective. Greater awareness leads to opening doors in many areas of your life.
Recent studies on mindfulness have shown that the benefits of regular mindful meditation go far from what was originally believed. The mind and body do work together as a team. The practice has shifted from guru-led-hippies-chanting to scientific studies at institutions such as John Hopkins University and physicians recommending the practice to their patients. And the results have been phenomenal.
Let’s take a look at some of the proven benefits of mindful meditation.
Many of us suffer from chronic pain. While mindful meditation is not a cure-all, studies have shown it can greater alleviate the suffering. In clinical trials, mindful meditation has shown that mindful meditators experience over 50 percent less chronic pain, while long-term meditators have reduced their chronic pain by 90 percent.
How is that possible? Pain can come in two forms: physical and mental. When the brain reacts negatively to pain, the pain becomes amplified. By controlling how we react to the pain, we can greatly reduce its intensity. Mindful meditation includes actually focusing on the areas of the body that feel pain, observe, and release the struggle both physically and mentally.
2. Mindful Meditation Can Improve Sexual Experience
Many people find it difficult to discuss sexual dysfunction, even though it can be a pervasive problem. From low libido, poor self-esteem and body image to feelings of anxiety and depression, the brain can wreak havoc with sexual enjoyment. Non-judgmental mindfulness enables partners to communicate more effectively about sexual needs and concerns.
3. Mindful Meditation Can Improve Mood
We all have “moods.” The happiest person can feel down for a while, and the bluest person can feel up on occasions. But many people’s moods get bogged down with chronic depression and anxiety until there is little else. Research has shown that people with severe mood disorders actually show changes in certain areas of the brain.
People suffering from depression and anxiety frequently live in the past or the future. Their mind can ruminate on hurts and injustices that happened years ago, with mental narratives obsessing around “should haves.” Or else, they can worry about things that have not yet happened, and aren’t likely to happen. Mindful meditation is the perfect tool to bring troubled thoughts back to the present.
4. Mindful Meditation Enhances Empathy
Stress, anxiety and depression can keep the brain stuck in negativity and self-absorption, thus reducing opportunities for compassion and empathy toward others. Through mindful meditation, the brain can be retrained to enhance these positive emotions.
5. Mindful Meditation Can Enhance Focus
We live in a world of distractions. People proudly boast of multitasking, although multitasking decreases efficiency rather than increasing productivity. When we check email while on the phone and at the same time read an important report, neither task has our full attention.
Our brain, too, can “multitask.” When we need our attention on a project, it can intrude with worries about unpaid bills, an unhappy relationship and an updating event for the weekend. And while our mind is attempting to deal with this mental tsunami, we remember an overdue library book and phone messages we failed to return.
For many people, this out-of-focus state of mind is a normal occurrence. When the brain is overwhelmed with a flood of unrelated thoughts and keeps jumping from one thought to the next, it cannot concentrate on the task at hand.
Regular mindful meditation lets us in control our wandering mind. We learn to recognize interruptions and set them aside for a more appropriate time. Mindful meditation allows us to get more done because it keeps our mind focused on the present.
6. Mindful Meditation Reduces Stress
We have already discussed that mindful meditation will relieve stress. It’s such a critical, it bears a closer look. We experience thoughts and emotions every moment of our waking life. It’s important to understand that emotions are neither good nor bad. They simply are. When negative emotions occur, we can either react, or we can acknowledge and move forward.
The problem is not the emotions themselves, but how we respond to them. These negative emotions are frequently caused by something that happened long in the past or hasn’t happened at all. By increasing our awareness, mindful meditation keeps us from dwelling on these negatives that are utterly irrelevant to the present.
When our brain becomes jumbled with emotions, mindfulness helps us clarify what is important and what is not. As we let go of mental stressors, our body automatically functions on a higher level, enhancing health and alleviating life-threatening diseases. Statistics from the Center for Disease Control reveal that 110 million deaths each year are the result of stress-related illnesses.
That is a staggering number. Mindful meditation can greatly increase your chances of not becoming a statistic.
7. Mindful Meditation And Resilience
Bad things can happen to good people. To quote Nelson Mandela, “Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
That is the essence of resilience – not our failures, but how we deal with them. Resilience lets us deal with the ups and downs of life. Change and challenges are seen as just another opportunity for growth.
Resilience is the ability to get back up after adversity. Due to the unpredictability of life, there will always be joys and sorrows. Resilient people are able to greet change and difficulty as an opportunity for self-reflection, learning, and growing.
How we react to life’s stressors is a choice. We can turn fearful, bitter and blame the world for being unfair. Or, we can use mindfulness to change our thinking. We can’t control the world, but we certain can control how we react to it.
A study published in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences showed that mindfulness helps people cope with hard times – and there will always be some hard times. Instead of reacting, mindful meditation allows us to hit a mental “pause” button and simply accept.
“Bad” feelings or thoughts aren’t the enemy. The problem is our reaction to those thoughts. When we use mindful meditation to become aware of these thoughts, we have the power to accept and move forward.
8. Mindful Meditation Boosts Creativity
By creativity, we’re not just talking about art and music. Every day, we face situations and questions where some creativity could move us to the head of the line. “How do I get the boss to notice my report?” “How do I approach this popular person and ask for a date?” “How do I dress for success on my limited budget?”
The reptilian part of our brain approaches these situations with severe caution. Its sole purpose is to ensure our survival, so anything new and different is automatically seen as dangerous. This part of our brain immediately calls for safety. Don’t make waves. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t do anything crazy.
Anything new and creative has a hard time getting past this reptilian brain. But mindful meditation can calm the reptilian brain and make it less reactive. This allows new, creative ideas to flourish. Some of the world’s most creative companies, such as Walt Disney, General Mills, and Google, encourage innovation and creativity in their employees by making meditation rooms available to their employees.
Studies have shown that people who practice mindful meditation are less rigid in their approach to new ideas and problem-solving methods. The next time you’re stuck while preparing a report, let mindful meditation help you stand out from the crowd that plays it safe and get noticed.