Meditation and Your Mental and Emotional Health
By Benjamin Hernandez
Have you struggled to manage your mental or emotional health? Has your life been put on pause because of it? Have you ever wondered, “how can I take control of my mental and emotional health to lead a more successful life?”
Meditation is something that people view as a joke, or they at least do not take it seriously. But, the benefits it has can be tremendous. Through it, we can clear our minds and remove any stressors that make our life more difficult. We can gain new perspectives or outlooks on our lives and become more self-aware. And ultimately, we can improve our mental and emotional well-being.
What Does Science Say?
A study at Harvard Medical School revealed that meditation affects the brain of depressed patients. Benjamin Shapero, who is a psychiatry instructor at Harvard, shared that some people do not respond to frontline interventions. He found that in a lot of cases, medications such as antidepressants do not benefit people so well. This sparked his interest in finding alternative methods of dealing with mental and emotional health.
Public interest in mindfulness meditation has skyrocketed over the last several years. With that, attention toward the subject has also significantly increased. With the help of Shapero, Gaëlle Desbordes conducted a two month meditation experiment to determine if it had any effect on clinically depressed patients.
In the duration of Desbordes and Shapero’s experiment, they took numerous scans of the patient’s brain. Using fMRI scans, they were able to detect slight changes in the brain’s amygdala. For those who do not know, the amygdala is a part of our brain which controls our fear and anger responses. The interesting thing about this is that the scans were not taken during periods of meditation, but rather several hours later. This proves that meditation does have a direct impact on our emotional health.
One of the more important benefits is that meditation can also help improve our relationships with others.
What Are Its Benefits?
Meditation can have several outstanding benefits for our mental and emotional health. From the broad term of “stress reducing,” to improving our relationships with people we care about, meditation is largely impactful on our lives.
When we meditate, our body responds to stress more positively, which can help lower cortisol levels. This has the potential to reduce feelings of anxiety and stress, which can improve your mental health.
Because of meditation’s reduction of stress and anxiety, it has been proven that we are more likely to fall asleep faster and for longer durations. Getting more sleep allows us to be better rested and energized, which directly affects how we can handle such feelings throughout the day.
By driving our attention inward, and to ourselves, we become more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. This helps us identify patterns in our behavior and thought processes that may be causes of our mental or emotional health issues.
Through the practicing of mindfulness, we train our brain to be more present and focused on the task at hand. This leads to increased productivity, which has a positive impact on our mental and emotional well-being.
One of the more important benefits is that meditation can also help improve our relationships with others. Through becoming more self-aware, we better understand our own needs and emotions, which leads to improved communication and even empathy with others.
Are There Multiple Types?
There are many types of meditation that one may encounter. They all serve their own purposes, and many of them differ from one another. Listed below are a few examples of the types of meditation, along with a quick video for each.
- Mindfulness Meditation focuses your attention on present moments and allows us to be aware of our thoughts and feelings, void of judgment.
- Loving-Kindness Meditation involves expressing love, kindness, and compassion to not only others, but also yourself.
- Yoga Meditation combines physical postures with breathing techniques and meditation.
- Guided Meditation requires you to listen to an instructional meditation recording, which helps focus your mind and relax your body.
How Can I Start Meditating?
If meditation is something that interests you, there are many ways to get started. It may seem overwhelming at first, but rest assured, following these steps can help:
- Find a comfortable and quiet space where you can sit or lie down comfortably without any outside distractions.
- Choose a meditation practice you find to be most comfortable, and is one that resonates with you.
- Begin with just a few minutes a day and naturally increase the time as you become more comfortable with your meditation exercises.
- Remember to control your breathing. Focusing on your breath is a simple and effective way to anchor your mind and enter a meditative state. You cannot establish a good connection to meditation if your breathing is not controlled.
Be sure to stay both persistent and patient if you want to reach your meditation goals. It is a practice, and like any other, it takes time and effort to see results. Be patient with yourself and continue to make meditation a part of your daily routine. Change will not happen overnight, but if you keep at it, I promise you will see the changes.
What Do I Do With This Information?
Having learned just how powerful of a tool meditation can be on an ill mind, you should at least be a little convinced to try it out for yourself. Its benefits have been proven to work, and it can be a transformative practice for those who are interested and are willing to commit to it. Sure, starting your meditation practice will not be easy, but with patience, persistence, and the right approach, anyone can learn to meditate and experience its benefits. So if you are looking to take control of your mental and emotional health, consider giving meditation a try.
For further reading:
Meditation and benefits for our mental health
Harvard researchers study how mindfulness may change the brain in depressed patients
5 Minute Mindfulness Meditation
5 Minute Loving Kindness Meditation
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