3 reasons you should be meditating

If someone told you that relaxing the mind also relaxes the life you lead, would you want to know how?

What Is Meditation?

Before we reach the nitty-gritty part of this of this article, let us think for a moment. What is meditation? What makes it so great? Meditation is key to natural, long lasting calmness in the lives of many people. It is getting to know yourself, learning to focus and analyze your internal depths while providing you with great mental and physical benefits.

What Are These Benefits?

• Positive Thinking
• Maintains Blood Pressure
• Shapes a Better Life

Positive Thinking

Everyone gets angry. Everyone also has various levels of anger and other negative reactions or emotions to certain situations. What would happen if you could lessen that part of your mind? What would happen if you could be more positive before negativity clouded your judgement?

When you meditate for at least 12-20 minutes a day you can improve this positive thinking as you clear your mind, shrink the fight or flight part of your brain (the amygdala). This helps your mind differentiate what is a true threat and what can be resolved or left alone entirely.

This in turn can help you maintain your tranquility which leads to our next benefit; maintaining your blood pressure.

Maintains Blood Pressure

For some, normal blood pressure is hard to maintain and this can be quite the unhealthy way to be. Too high or too low of blood pressure can give you a ride to the ER- especially if you are not aware of it.

When a person meditates, they become relaxed, when they become relaxed they begin to produce nitric oxide which helps your blood vessels open up and increases oxygen and blood flow. In a nutshell, your blood pressure becomes normal and hypertension is least likely to happen, if at all.

Improves Memory

In 1953, a daring neurosurgeon- William Scoville, performed a surgery on a young boy named Henry Molasion (H.M.). H.M. Suffered from epilepsy at a young age and soon found himself on Scoville’s operating table to be rid of this disorder. Though the surgery did work, it was soon realized the boy had lost his declarative memory (i.e., facts or events). Through diligent studies, the job of the hippocampus was revealed to play a heavy part in mediating the declarative memory.

How does this relate to meditation? Well, meditation helps your hippocampus grow while simultaneously shrinking or reducing your amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for the negative reactions we go through on a daily basis (anxiety, fear, and other stress-related issues).

As your amygdala shrinks and your hippocampus grows you are more inclined to remember where your lost items are without throwing a mental fit and beating yourself up over forgetting them.

Shapes a Better Life

Memory improvement, blood pressure maintenance, and positive thinking are just three of many benefits. Meditation rewires your brain to work in a positive, peaceful way and anyone can do it so there are no reasons why you aren’t taking even the smallest times to fit meditation into your life.

If you want your mind and body to stay as it is now, then meditation probably isn’t best. However, if you’d like to live in the present, take life slow and observe the people, the places, the livelihood of yourself in its entirety, get up (or sit down) and get your meditation on!