The Influence Of Meditation On Your Brain And Body
Meditation teaches you to focus on your breath and forget the external world. Every time your mind starts wandering, you have to bring it back to focus on your breath. According to certain neuroscientific findings, meditation rewires your brain circuits that promote both mental and physical health. Mediation also improves your brain’s functioning and lets you experience several enduring health benefits.
A Harvard study found that meditation elicits your body’s relaxation response, which could influence your genes within minutes. It was also found that meditating for a few minutes daily may possibly reduce the genes triggering inflammatory response, while promoting those genes linked to DNA stability (which in turn may help you enjoy longevity).
Short-Term Effects
Meditation makes you more aware of your surroundings, improves your concentration and lets you control your interaction with the environment, rather than being driven by the environment (and other external forces). So, you feel calmer, in control and can make smarter choices. Since you can regulate your thoughts better, you don’t make quick judgments and thus can stay away some potentially detrimental effects (fights, strained relationships, etc). Other short-term benefits include reduced blood pressure and stress.
Long-Term Effects
Mediating for a long time paves way for denser gray matter in your brain that significantly improves your emotional processing and memory. It also makes you feel more relaxed and improves your resilience, empathy, and mindfulness. All these make you beat several ailments like stress, anxiety, loneliness, depression, insomnia, diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension – to name a few, and live a healthy, balanced life.
You can’t separate your physical health from your emotional well-being. So by rewiring your brain the right way, mediation brings a sense of calm and relaxation, which benefits both your body and mind.