11 scientifically proven benefits of meditation

Meditation is a mental and physical technique that allows you to control your attention and your thoughts. Or rather, it prevents involuntary, automatic thoughts from controlling your mind.

Therefore, the first beneficial effect of meditation is that provides greater control over one’s life, which helps you achieve objectives and react appropriately to each situation.

However, the physical and mental health benefits of meditation Scientifically proven they go much further.

The main benefits of meditation

In addition to providing better control over one’s life, meditation provides a series of advantages that have been scientifically proven. This is the list of the main benefits of mindfulness:

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1. Meditation reduces stress and anxiety

A study with 3,500 people carried out at Johns Hopkins University (United States) shows that it is effective for reduce levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Stress causes general discomfort, disturbs sleep, causes physical inflammation, increases blood pressure and impairs immunity.

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2. Improves emotional well-being

People who meditate regularly score high on self-esteem and optimism tests, and tend to suffer fewer symptoms of depression. In habitual practitioners the positive effects are maintained indefinitely.

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3. Helps cultivate concentration

Increase your ability to decide what how long you can concentrate and how long you can perform a task without getting distracted. The improvement can be seen after 4 days. This makes meditation a practically essential tool for people who study, who do intellectual work or who cannot afford to make a mistake in their work.

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4. Preserve memory

Meditation reduces age-related memory loss and enhances clarity of thought, according to a review of 12 scientific studies. In particular, the meditation method called Kirtan Kriya, which combines mudras (hand gestures) and mantras (chanting) is especially beneficial for memory.

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5. Helps keep addictions under control

It is one of the therapeutic applications, but all We can benefit from the self-control that comes from meditating for at least 10 minutes each day. Meditation allows us to discover the causes of addiction through the observation of our own thoughts.

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5. Improves sleep

People who meditate fall asleep quickly and wake up later. Special help to not fall into the spiral of thoughts that lead to insomnia. A study published in Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine concluded that people who meditate fall asleep sooner.

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7. Helps control pain

The ability of meditation to reduce pain perception It has been able to be visualized in brain scans, where the effect on the pain control centers is seen. Meditators have a greater ability to cope with pain.

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8. Lowers blood pressure

By reducing blood pressure through action on the hormonal and nervous systems, Meditation also reduces the workload on the heart. Consequently, the risk of cardiovascular disease is reduced.

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9. Strengthens attention

A recent study carried out by different Spanish universities in collaboration with the University of California (USA) and King’s College London (UK) suggests that practicing Sahaja Yoga meditation, which allows people to achieve the state of mental silence, could strengthen brain networks for attention and executive control.

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10. It could help in case of Parkinson’s

A review of studies carried out at the University of Girona and published in the journal Medicina Naturista concludes that the mindfulness technique improves both motor and non-motor symptoms in case of Parkinson’s disease.

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11. Improves academic performance

A study by the University of the Basque Country showed that the daily practice of just ten minutes of relaxation, meditation and mindfulness provides physiological, cognitive, emotional, social and academic benefits among adolescent students. Another investigation from the University of Coruña concluded that meditation significantly improved the coping strategies of university students.

If you think that for all its advantages it is worth starting to meditate, you can read the following articles:

Learn to meditate in 5 steps
How to make meditation a daily routine
7 anti-stress meditations for any time of the day
3 meditation techniques to connect with nature