What Are The Health Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation (????? ?????) practice couldn’t be simpler: take a good seat, pay attention to the breath, and when your attention wanders, return. When we are mindful of our actions, we pay more attention to what we are doing. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to enhance self-insight, morality, intuition, and fear modulation, all functions associated with the brain‘s middle prefrontal lobe area. Having considered the numerous health benefits, Siddha Spirituality of Swami Hardas Life System recommends our valuable readers surely read this article for well-being.

What is Mindfulness (????? ???? ??)

Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. It’s not all in your head—you can practice mindfulness by sitting down for a formal meditation practice, or by being more intentional and aware of the things you do each day.

How to practice Mindfulness meditation on the Go (??? ???? ??? ????? ????? ?? ?????? ???? ????)

Nearly every task we perform in a day—be it brushing our teeth, eating lunch, talking with friends or exercising can be done more mindfully.

When we are mindful of our actions, we pay more attention to what we are doing. It’s the opposite of going through the motions—instead, you are tuned into your senses, noticing your thoughts and emotions.

By building mindfulness into your daily life, you can practice mindfulness even when you’re too busy to meditate.

How to learn Mindfulness meditation (????? ????? ???? ?????)

At the outset, it helps to set an amount of time you’re going to “practice” for. Otherwise, you may obsess about deciding when to stop. If you’re just beginning, it can help to choose a short time, such as five or ten minutes. Eventually, you can build up to twice as long, then maybe up to 45 minutes or an hour. Use a kitchen timer or the timer on your phone. Many people do a session in the morning and in the evening, or one or the other. If you feel your life is busy and you have little time, doing some is better than doing none. When you get a little space and time, you can do a bit more.

Find a good spot in your home, ideally where there isn’t too much clutter and you can find some quiet. Leave the lights on or sit in natural light. You can even sit outside if you like, but choose a place with little distraction.

This posture practice can be used as the beginning stage of a period of meditation practice or simply as something to do for a minute, maybe to stabilize yourself and find a moment of relaxation before going back into the fray. If you have injuries or other physical difficulties, you can modify this practice to suit your situation.

How to practice Mindfulness meditation step by step (????? ????? ????? ??? ????? ???? ????)

Get comfortable (??? ?? ????)

Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Ideally, this would be a room in your house where you can be alone and at peace.

Get in position (???? ????? ????)

You might try sitting cross-legged on a low cushion on the floor, or upright in a chair. Some people prefer to meditate lying down.

Get relaxed (???????? ?? ???)

Close your eyes, set a timer for five minutes if you are just starting out, and begin by taking a few deep, cleansing breaths. Breath in deeply but naturally through your nose, and out through either your nose or mouth, whichever feels more comfortable to you. Let the breaths flow all the way down into your abdomen.

Focus on breath (???? ?? ????? ???)

Become aware of the sound of your breaths as you inhale and exhale. As you inhale, you breathe in all the peaceful and joyful things around you. As you exhale, you rid your mind and body of all the stress and toxins that have been bothering you. Let your mind become mesmerized by the rhythmic pattern of your breathing.

Bring thoughts back to the center (??????? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ????)

Your mind will wander. When you notice your thoughts wandering off from your breath, don’t chastise yourself, it’s totally normal. Simply acknowledge it and bring your focus back to the center, back to your breaths. Take in your immediate surroundings. What do you hear? What do you feel right now, at this moment? Try not to ruminate on the past or worry about the future, but be present in this pure moment.

Make a commitment (?? ??????????? ????)

Like exercise, meditation takes practice. And the more we practice, the better we get, and the stronger that mindfulness muscle becomes. Even just five to ten minutes per day has been shown to make an enormous difference to well-being after just eight weeks of meditation practice.

What are the health benefits of Mindfulness meditation (????? ????? ?? ????????? ??? ???? ???)

Researchers theorize that mindfulness meditation promotes metacognitive awareness, decreases rumination via disengagement from perseverative cognitive activities, and enhances attentional capacities through gains in working memory. These cognitive gains, in turn, contribute to effective emotion-regulation strategies.

More specifically, research on mindfulness has identified these benefits:

Reduced rumination (?? ?????)

Several studies have shown that mindfulness reduces rumination. In one study, e.g. Chambers et al. (2008) asked 20 novice meditators to participate in a 10-day intensive mindfulness meditation retreat. After the retreat, the meditation group had significantly higher self-reported mindfulness and a decreased negative affect compared with a control group. They also experienced fewer depressive symptoms and less rumination. In addition, the meditators had significantly better working memory capacity and were better able to sustain attention during a performance task compared with the control group.

Stress reduction (???? ??? ???)

Many studies show that practicing mindfulness reduces stress. In 2010, Hoffman et al. conducted a meta-analysis of 39 studies that explored the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. The researchers concluded that mindfulness-based therapy may be useful in altering affective and cognitive processes that underlie multiple clinical issues.

Those findings are consistent with evidence that mindfulness meditation increases positive affect and decreases anxiety and negative affect.

Boosts to working memory (???????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??)

Improvements to working memory appear to be another benefit of mindfulness, research finds. A 2010 study by Jha et al., for example, documented the benefits of mindfulness meditation among a military group who participated in an eight-week mindfulness training, a nonmeditating military group, and a group of nonmeditating civilians. Both military groups were in a highly stressful period before deployment.

The researchers found that the nonmeditating military group had decreased working memory capacity over time, whereas working memory capacity among nonmeditating civilians was stable across time. Within the meditating military group, however, working memory capacity increased with meditation practice. In addition, meditation practice was directly related to self-reported positive affect and inversely related to self-reported negative affect.

Focus (????? ???????? ????)

Another study examined how mindfulness meditation affected participants’ ability to focus attention and suppress distracting information. The researchers compared a group of experienced mindfulness meditators with a control group that had no meditation experience.

They found that the meditation group had significantly better performance on all measures of attention and had higher self-reported mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation practice and self-reported mindfulness were correlated directly with cognitive flexibility and attentional functioning (Moore and Malinowski, 2009).

Less emotional reactivity (?? ????????? ???????????)

Research also supports the notion that mindfulness meditation decreases emotional reactivity. In a study of people who had anywhere from one month to 29 years of mindfulness meditation practice, researchers found that mindfulness meditation practice helped people disengage from emotionally upsetting pictures and enabled them to focus better on a cognitive task as compared with people who saw the pictures but did not meditate (Ortner et al., 2007).

More cognitive flexibility (???? ???????????? ???????)

Another line of research suggests that in addition to helping people become less reactive, mindfulness meditation may also give them greater cognitive flexibility. One study found that people who practice mindfulness meditation appear to develop the skill of self-observation, which neurologically disengages the automatic pathways that were created by prior learning and enables present-moment input to be integrated in a new way (Siegel, 2007a).

Meditation also activates the brain region associated with more adaptive responses to stressful or negative situations. Activation of this region corresponds with faster recovery to baseline after being negatively provoked (Davidson, 2000; Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000).

Relationship satisfaction (?????? ?? ????????)

Several studies find that a person’s ability to be mindful can help predict relationship satisfaction. The ability to respond well to relationship stress and the skill in communicating one’s emotions to a partner. Empirical evidence suggests that mindfulness protects against the emotionally stressful effects of relationship conflict (Barnes et al., 2007), which is positively associated with the ability to express oneself in various social situations.

Other benefits (???? ???)

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to enhance self-insight, morality, intuition, and fear modulation, all functions associated with the brain’s middle prefrontal lobe area. Evidence also suggests that mindfulness meditation has numerous health benefits, including increased immune functioning.

How to sit for Mindfulness meditation (????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ?????)

Take a seat (??????)

Whatever you’re sitting on—a chair, a meditation cushion, a park bench—find a spot that gives you a stable, solid seat, not perching or hanging back.

Notice what your legs are doing (????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?? ??? ???)

If on a cushion on the floor, cross your legs comfortably in front of you.

Straighten but don’t stiffen the upper body (???? ????, ????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ? ????)

The spine has a natural curvature. Let it be there. Your head and shoulders can comfortably rest on top of your vertebrae.

Situate upper arms parallel to the upper body (???? ???? ?? ???????? ???? ?????? ????)

Then let your hands drop onto the tops of your legs. With your upper arms at your sides, your hands will land in the right spot. Too far forward will make you hunch. Too far back will make you stiff. You’re tuning the strings of your body—not too tight and not too loose.

Drop chin a little and let gaze fall gently downward (????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?? ?????)

You may let your eyelids lower. If you feel the need, you may lower them completely, but it’s not necessary to close your eyes when meditating. You can simply let what appears before your eyes be there without focusing on it.

Be there for a few moments (??? ???? ?? ??? ???? ????)

Relax. Bring your attention to your breath or the sensations in your body.

Feel your breath—or some say “follow” it—as it goes out and as it goes in. Either way, draw your attention to the physical sensation of breathing: the air moving through your nose or mouth, the rising and falling of your belly, or your chest. Choose your focal point, and with each breath, you can mentally note “breathing in” and “breathing out.”

Inevitably, attention will leave the breath and wander to other places (???????? ??? ??, ????? ???? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ?????)

Don’t worry. There’s no need to block or eliminate thinking. When you get around to noticing your mind wandering, in a few seconds, a minute, five minutes—just gently return your attention to the breath. Practice pausing before making any physical adjustments, such as moving your body or scratching an itch. With intention, shift at a moment you choose, allowing space between what you experience and what you choose to do.

You may find mind wandering constantly (?? ?????? ????? ??? ????? ????)

That’s normal, too. Instead of wrestling with or engaging with those thoughts as much, practice observing without needing to react. Just sit and pay attention. As hard as it is to maintain, that’s all there is. Come back over and over again without judgment or expectation.

When you’re ready, gently lift the gaze (?? ?? ????? ???, ?? ???? ?? ????? ?????)

Take a moment and notice any sounds in the environment. Notice how your body feels right now. Notice your thoughts and emotions. Pausing for a moment, decide how you’d like to continue on with your day.

That’s it. That’s the practice. It’s often been said that it’s very simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. The work is to just keep doing it. Results will accrue.

Reference:

• https://www.mindful.org/mindfulness-how-to-do-it/
• https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner
• https://www.livehappy.com/practice/6-steps-mindfulness-meditation