How to Get Healthier and Reduce Stress – Without Exercise!
Filed under: Weight Loss
If there was a way to improve your physical and mental health, while feeling happier and less stressed, would you do it? Wait! Stop groaning. This isn’t another lecture on the various health benefits of exercise. We’re actually talking about meditation, which has been proven to convey significant health benefits to people who practice regularly.
Now, let’s make this clear: No one is saying you shouldn’t exercise! But if you can’t exercise, don’t want to exercise, or you’re looking for another way to get healthy aside from exercise – meditation is your answer.
Free your mind. Let’s face it; the stress we all face in our daily lives can make us feel imprisoned by anxiety. But just last year, Harvard researchers demonstrated a positive correlation between daily meditation and better stress management. Self-awareness and concentration also improved. These results weren’t based solely on self reporting, either: MRI scans backed up the claims with real science. The part of the brain that deals with emotions and perceptions thickened after eight weeks of meditation practice, proving that meditation actually changes brain structure and the way we process stress.
Meditate your way to a healthier heart. Studies have proven that people who practice transcendental meditation twice per day have lower risks of heart attacks and strokes. Meditation also appears to lower blood pressure, one of the primary risk indicators of heart troubles.
Relieve pain. Stress reduction, improved mental health, and a healthier heart are all powerful incentives to practice meditation. But if you already suffer from a chronic condition, you will probably be most interested in this last effect. Harvard and MIT researchers discovered that regular meditation actually increases our ability to suppress pain. Alpha waves, the function of the brain that helps to mitigate pain, actually increased after volunteers underwent an eight-week daily meditation course.
In all likelihood, these benefits of meditation are just the tip of the iceburg. As science continues to provide the proof for what we already know, meditating daily can help you boost your emotional and physical health. In the future, we will probably learn even more benefits of daily meditation – so start reaping the benefits today!
