Everyone is talking about mindfulness and meditation. Even my dog meditates and I’m pretty sure the mice (rats) in my garage do too, because they are ninja stealth at night. Are you the only hold-out? And by you, I mean me, and whomever else out there is as lame as I am to have never really made this a habit? Let’s change this, starting now.
What can I tell you about meditation that you don’t already know (hint: lots). We’ve all heard about the studies and how it’s good for you and lowers stress, and we all gloss over that like ya, ya, subtle improvements, not good enough. But let me tell you what starts to happen when you really commit, like give it a good solid go and make it a daily practice. Much of this is from the publication Psychology Today and based on countless, like 1000s of studies on meditation:
1. Mediation actually boosts your health, as in your immune system, it increases your immunity and immune function and decreases pain. It actually decreases inflammation at the cellular level. Inflammation people – the plague of this century!
2. It boosts happiness! Say what? First, we all know happiness is a choice, but it’s harder to choose happiness when you’re stressed out. Meditation actually increases positive emotion, decreases depression (bye-bye Debbie downer), decreases anxiety and decreases that blasted six letter word, stress.
3. It boosts your social life! And you thought it was alcohol (just kidding, not 20 anymore). It actually increases your sense of emotional connection to others, makes you more compassionate, makes you feel less lonely.
4. It boosts self control. Thank God, because if I have to sit around a table filled with brie cheese and chocolate treats I might just chew my arm off. It helps you regulate your emotions, and that means emotional eating, and improves your ability to go deep and be introspective. The whole world needs a superficiality reboot – i.e. get out of the shallows and into the deep. Do we really care what Kim Kardashian is wearing, or rather not wearing? Come on, we've got more important things to think about and sink our teeth into.
5. It actually changes your brain! Your brain is incredibly plastic. That means if you don’t like the way you think, the way you are, or some of your habits, you have the ability to change this and meditation will help. Meditation increases grey matter – thank God and Buddha. It actually increases volume in areas related to emotional regulation, positive emotions and self-control. It also increases cortical thickness in areas related to paying attention – there’s that better focus again. We could all use some of that in our distracted swipe the screen society.
6. It improves your productivity – by sitting in lotus and doing nothing – now that’s convenient, and free. I like free. Meditation increases your ability to focus and multi-task, your memory, your creativity, your attention, your ability to think outside the box.
7. It makes you wiser. Like Moses. It gives you perspective. By observing your mind through meditation you realize you don’t have to be a slave to it. You realize, outside of the deep you, the watcher you, that your mind on the surface can throw tantrums, yell, scream, be frustrated and irritated and judgey and all those little nasty things we all do, it can be happy, sad, mad, glad, annoying, but that does not have to run you. The clear-headed observer you is always there, underneath that, and you can become more present to it.
Bottomline: meditation is like a daily mental detox, like brushing your teeth, clearing out a closet. Ultimately the quality of your life depends on the quality of your mind. And that is the truth. You can’t be happy with all the riches and the stuff and even with all the friends and what not if you are not in a contented place in your mind – we’ve all seen examples of this.
So get going, get meditating. You can buy the book “The 8 Minute Meditation” – that’s a terrific start. Or you can get an app like Headspace or Mindshift or Calm, or just plain sit down in a corner of your room, when you first wake up, and clear your mind and breathe for 5 or 10 minutes. It eventually gets easy. There is no right or wrong way to meditate. Your mind will bug you and have lots to say, over time, the voice will soften, but never go away, you will notice you are the observer and the voice is just noise that sits on top of that. It takes time but you are worth it. Promise. xx Shannon