5 Powerful Benefits of Meditation & How to Start Meditating (Tips)

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Iโ€™m Harsh Agrawal

Blog Scientist & a passionate blogger. Love minimalist life & talk about things that matter. Adventure from heart & doer by action.

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Meditation

As the day comes to a closure, we start to feel worse instead of feeling satisfied with the day. All of the craving and longing throughout the day and the numerous hours glaring at the computer screens leaves us drained completely by the end of the day. There is no room for introspection and taking the time to reflect on everything.

There’s a lot of monkey chatter going on in our minds and self-criticism is at an all time high. With so much to take in every day, how does one still manage to remain sane and mindful? Well, the people who are succeeding in their life while being content and mindful will tell you that meditation is the answer.

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Everyone around is promising the benefits of meditation and how good it is for your life and health. While there has been a recent upward trend in the mentioning of meditation for a mindful life, it has been in practice since the 1500 BCE from the times of the Hindu traditions of Vedantism. With the concerns of stress and anxiety rising at an alarming rate, there is more mentioning of ‘Dhyana’ or Sanskrit for meditation.

Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch, 50 Cent, Lena Dunham, Jennifer Aniston, Padmasree Warrior Oprah Winfrey, to name few, are some of the most outrageously successful people who practice meditation daily. It is what keeps these people from staying sane while handling all of the nuances of the day.

Meditation: The silent retreat you need

Meditation art

‘Meditation is good for you, You must try it’, is something you might hear very often over the past couple of years.

While we all know intuitively the benefits of practicing meditation on a daily basis, it takes much more than that to compel people to practice it. Of all the chaos that surrounds us on a daily basis, it has become important to cherish silence and take a break on all of the fuss around us. This practice of silent retreat is all about taking your time and space to process everything that is going on in your life.

Meditation preaches to simply concentrate on your breath and focus on one thing. Sitting silently, focusing on your breath and trying to calm the mind is what meditation is all about. Now while this may sound mundane, the simplicity of meditation overshadows the benefits associated with it, which we’ll be talking about in a bit.

Living life in the present moment and worrying about the future or feeling sorry for the past is something you are never taught anywhere. Living in the present moment is as difficult as simple it may sound.

All of our cravings are the cause of the increasing stress and anxiety levels and it is a plague that has struck all over the world. We often forget about our inner selves, the one that makes us who we are, all for the promises of the hoax of the material and success cravings.

Meditation brings the mindfulness back to us and helps in regulating all of those emotions inside us. Meditation helps people in developing self-discipline and practicing taking on one thing at a time, in the world that has accustomed to multi-tasking as the norm.

5 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation

First let me tell you what Meditation won’t do for you! Meditation won’t mend your broken relationships, it won’t make you any happier or it does not make one behave better. While that may sound as a bummer, the simplicity and approach of ‘Less is More’ makes meditation as effective as it gets. Now, let’s lay down the scientifically-backed of Meditation and how it can help your life and your learning process.

1. You get more focused

Meditation improves mental focus

In our addiction with the digital world and multi-tasking, we are losing focus of the present moment, of the here and the now.

Do you ever find it hard to concentrate on your tasks at hand, no matter the situation you’re in?

A lack of focus is one of the primary concerns of many people all over the world and meditation would help you fix the issue.

Single task vs multi tasking

According to a study by the University of Washington, meditation was found to make people better focused on a single task. Moreover, meditation helps in fighting stress and anxiety, two of the main causes of distress and discomfort among people.

2. You become self-disciplined

Be it in learning a new language, trying to quit smoking or anything that you’re trying to achieve, it takes a lot of self-discipline. Recent studies have shown that meditation helps people improve their self-discipline abilities, given the effect it has on the self-control regions in the brain.

Consistent meditation helps people to develop a sense of self-confidence, self-acceptance and self-awareness. Meditation helps people becoming more conscious and aware of oneself and awareness.

3. You become more healthy

According to multiple studies, meditation was found to help people recover quickly from acute respiratory infections and also reduced the risks of a heart attack stroke. Reduce your health care bills by taking care of your body through regular meditation.

A perfect combination of a healthy mind and body is struck through the daily practice of meditation. The health benefits of meditating far outweigh the difficulties associated with making it into a daily habit.

4. Brings clarity and peace of mind

According to a paper published by Psychological Science, meditation was found to help people come to terms with their shortcomings. This self-awareness helps people achieve peace of mind and brings clarity to the events in one’s life.

Paying attention to one’s present experiences is important and consistent meditation could help you achieve it easily.

5. Sharpens the mind and consciousness

Conciousness

According to a study in UCLA, meditation helped its practitioners preserve their brains better, with better quantities of grey matter compared to those who didn’t meditate.

With improved concentration and focus skills, meditation helps people improve their memory retention and recalling. Meditation has been found to help people manage ADHD, improve cognitive skills, decision making and an overall better information processing ability.

Which of these benefits resonates most with you? Imagine how even one could improve your daily life

How to Start practicing Meditation:

The quieter you become

So now that you’ve come to the terms with the fact that meditation is beneficial in more than one way, how do you get started practicing meditation.

First, remember the fact that overdoing meditation won’t help you much. Remember the mantra, ‘Less is more’. Practicing meditation, even for three to five minutes a day is much better than doing it for 2 hours straight one day and not showing up the entire week.

Start small. Take 10 minutes out of your busy schedule daily to connect with yourself. It is usually tougher in the beginnings, to sit ideally, simply concentrating on your breathing.

Meditate with timer

Here is a 10 minute beginner Anapana meditation by Acharya S.N. Goenka

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But over time, it becomes easy & within first 2 weeks, you could start seeing the benefits.

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Practice meditation, Practice mindfulness.

Free Guided meditation Source:

Here is a list of free guided meditation sources that you can listen online or download them to listen to offline. Thanks to Chris Winfield for putting up this great list.

  • Daily Anapana session (10 minute) – Anapana is a powerful meditation practice taught by Gautam buddha to improve your awareness and mindfulness. Use this as 10 minute guided meditation.
  • Calm app, Wakingup: One of the best meditation app to start practicing meditation. Available for Android and iOS.
  • UCLA Mindfulness Research Center
    These 8 audio tracks are a great introduction to mindfulness meditation that you can practice on your own.
  • The Chopra Center for Wellbeing Podcast
    Deepak Chopra, M.D. and David Simon, M.D. run The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and put out excellent guided meditations on their podcast. The sessions focus on specific themes ranging from gratitude to taking the plunge.
  • 20+ Hour Playlist on Spotify
    This is a wonderfully curated playlist of guided meditations for Spotify users.
  • YouTube is FULL of guided meditations
    YouTube is a goldmine of guided meditations. You can choose to watch & listen or just listen. The link above will bring you to a list of the most popular ones.
  • AudioDharma
    This site offers a wealth of guided meditations from different teachers and on many different themes. Download them all for free or stream them directly.

So, what about you?

What were the challenges that you came across as you first began meditating daily and how did you deal with it?

Shout out your thoughts and comments below.

23 comments on “5 Powerful Benefits of Meditation & How to Start Meditating (Tips)

  1. meditation is very good thing by this we can focus our work after this article i will give daily 10-15 minutes for it. it will help in blogging also thanks for sharing such a good post.

  2. True Words. One another great post. So you have changed your Blog’s slogan from “Internet Power User” to “Blog for Bloggers” Nice! ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. A quiet good research on meditation. You pointed out the benefits of meditation very clearly moreover you created enthusiasm and interest towards it.Thanks for providing the sources too nice job srikanth

  4. Naturally in the earth , many powers are existed. but we can’t use directly. we need right ways to take natural power. In this way, Yoga and Meditation are these ways.
    +One more thing, think about work done by you in a day, find out errors and try to correct it in future surely.

    1. Nisha all are says same thing, that find out your errors in day down but no one can say, think only those good things which you have done a day down…so for my opinion always think those good thing which u done a day before sleeping…!!! because if u think only good things than for a one day you are not make errors…

  5. I meditate everyday for a little bit. This was recommended by my doctor months ago. For once I listened to my doctors advice and it’s helped me a ton. I’m more active at work and get more work done everyday then before I meditated. Strange how this has helped my life.

    Thanks for the blog post

  6. Meditation and yoga are 2 way to keep your healthy going up. But with meditation, you have to have a quite room or environment and keep your brain out of thinking. I’m learning meditation now ๐Ÿ˜€

  7. I’m a meditator above 7+ years and I’m enjoying this very much. I never think such kinds of life before. Meditation makes life more beautiful. It enlightens our mind and increases our thinking capability.
    As Shouter, I’m happy to see this kind of post. Thanks Harash & SRIKANTH also for giving us a better life. I always try to engage Man in good things. Again thanks a lot. ๐Ÿ™‚ Well being for the shouter!

  8. Yes that is true, meditation helps your to release your stress. It stops the thoughts running in your mind and let you to be calm and relax. The health benefits of meditation is amazing as explained in the article. One more place where you will get health and fitness tips is Damroobox. Damroobox also selling fitness and health suppliments.

  9. Every man must do Meditation. Our Ancients are very Scientific. There is a Reason behind everything what they tell.
    Our Mind will Refresh by doing Meditation. This is what I know.

  10. Meditation has already opened my eyes a little Is this normal? I can only imagine the beneftis after years of doing this. This is the best discovery I ever made.. How I have been using other people to try to satisfy myself and other external factors

  11. Indeed, Meditation is the best way to be a focused person. It helped me a lot for being focused to blogging. While we work individually, then we have to face several troubles. In all of those troubles, meditation helps to keep calm and happy.

    Thanks for this awesome write-up Srikanth…:)

  12. Meditation Keeps Our Body Calm And Comfortable. i Love Meditation and i do it regularly. MeditationRocks ๐Ÿ™‚

  13. Meditation is a form of Dhyana, one of the 8 limbs of Ashtang Yoga. It is the means to reach the divine. This article explains its benefits in day to day life in a very simple and nice manner.

  14. i’m doing meditation for last 1 year. with listening osho. it really useful in reducing stress and improve ur concentration power. information i get here is really beneficial and everyone should read this.

  15. For wellbeing care also, we can use meditation method, it can change our behaviour to become more compassionate and more sociable with other.

  16. We all have a beautiful gift of creativity. When you will open to learning- your unique gifts of creativity will fill like you. Creativity opens you to Spirit, and Spirit brings you the gift of creativityโ€” a beautiful circle of joy! so, meditation helps us to realize all these small things about our creativity, talent, interest, social values n all…

  17. SRIKANTH… well-written post. Meditation is something which takes a lot of practice and persistence. I insist on professional guidance for anyone starting it for the first time. I am practising yoga for 20 years and knows the importance of meditation. There are many ways in which you can start practising meditation.
    One of the ways is to gaze steadily at a fixed point for some time and later visualise the object clearly with your eyes closed.

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