Mindfulness meditation benefits – There are different focuses for Mindfulness Meditation which may include:
Breath awarenes
Body sensations/feelings
Mantra
Visualising an image or memory
Connecting with source/higher power
Meditation effects all aspects of human existence:
physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social.
Self Regulate your Emotions
As we practice meditation our attention moves from the external world to a quieter internal world. This is known as moving from exteroception to interoception.
With interoceptive awareness we have the capacity to feel sensations in the body allowing us to have a clearer sense of who we are, and our purpose.
As we develop this skill we can then use it during our daily lives, if we notice that we are becoming agitated, angry, tense, anxious, lethargic, heavy, passive, then we can stop and say:
“what does my body need right now?”
Listen to the body sensations and act accordingly, bringing ourselves back home to a more grounded and calmer place.
Perhaps we may wish to :
Take a few deeper , longer breaths
Open our awarenss out to our surroundings
Listen to sounds
Go for a mindful walk
Have a mindful pause
Sit and meditate on your emotion by noticing the body sensations
Listen to calming music
Then we can bring ourselves back into a state of homeostasis, where we want to be, back home.
Training of Mindful Attention
Focusing our attention on something:
e.g. the breath, a sound, sensations in the body, an image,
is good training for the Attention Neural Networks in the Front Brain.
The brain uses different neural networks for rumination and attention so the more we practice re-focusing our attention on what we are doing in the current moment, the neural pathways of attention become more embedded in the brain.
We can gradually improve our attention skills making it easier each time to bring our attention back to the task in hand. When we are focused in the Now we are not ruminating.
Training attention also improves memory. We don’t forget what we went into the room for when we are paying attention!!
A Flow State
Mindfulness meditation benefits also include Meditation! Meditation can bring us into a flow state like an artist in the flow of painting or a musician in the flow of playing we come into a feeling of oneness. Feeling connected to your spirituality, a supported presence or higher power.
2 Skills Foundational to Well-Being
Mindfulness Meditation Benefits develops these 2 complimentary skills:
- Presence – Your connection to what is happening in the here and now.
- Agency – the ability to effect change in your life.
Meditation develops self empowerment and confidence giving you the ability to make decisions to change your life.
Research Based Benefits of Meditation
by National Institute of health 2018
- Reduces Pain by releasing endorphins the body’s natural pain killer
- Reduces Heart rate Variability
- Reduces Irritable Bowel syndrome
- Reduces Ulcerative Colitis
- Reduces anxiety, depression and insomnia
- Benefits smoking cessation
- Reduces menopausal symptoms
- Reduces inflammation by reducing cortisol levels
Mindfulness Meditation Benefit Takeaways
- Improves Attention and Memory
- Develops Presence and agency
- Self Talk is diminished in the Front Brain
- Reduces gray matter in the amygdala which means we are less likely to go into fight or flight, this correlates to a reduction in stress levels.
- Increases levels of endorphins and dopamine bring us into a flow state.
- Reduces inflammation therefore helping to reduce symptoms of illness
If you need any further information about Mindfulness please do not hesitate to contact me HERE.