Well, meditation is proven to help...
Reduce Stress
__________
In a 2013 review, researchers analyzed more than 200 studies of mindfulness meditation among healthy people, and found meditation to be an effective way to reduce stress.
Improve Focus
__________
According to Science Direct practicing mindfulness meditation for a short time may enhance visuospatial processing, working memory, and executive functioning.
Improve Sleep Quality
__________
This JAMA Internal Medicine Study found that regular meditation practice measurably improves sleep quality.
Increase Productivity
__________
Meditation can increase employees’ productivity by 120%. (Project Meditation). According to ScienceDirect, after only 4 days of practice, meditation can increase your attention span.
A Detroit study took a look at how meditation improved productivity in the workplace. It was found that absenteeism fell by 85%, productivity rose by 120% and injuries dropped by 70%.Dec 12, 2022
And, so what?
Are you actually happier? Are you a better person? Does your life have more meaning?
We are not machines, remember?
Just being less stressed or anxious is not a particularly impressive goal. After all, a rock is not stressed or anxious.
Meditation can help control or reduce pain points, which is great in terms of mental health and ordinary level happiness. But do you just want to be ordinary?
or... extraordinary?
Most meditation research is about stress, anxiety, distraction and related mental and physical illnesses. These ordinary benefits are more measurable.
But there is a separate, less visible category of benefits that can transform our lives, by increasing: happiness, creativity, wisdom, kindness and giving it all meaning.
Things a rock cannot do. Poor rock.
So, what are these extraordinary benefits?
When practiced in the right way, meditation will...
Foster Creativity and Intuition
__________
In a 2013 review, researchers analyzed more than 200 studies of mindfulness meditation among healthy people, and found meditation to be an effective way to reduce stress.
Improve Relationships
__________
According to Psychology Today, meditation improves relationships in multiple ways. This holds true for personal and professional relationships.
Increase Compassion
__________
In this UC Berkeley study, researchers found that meditation makes us act with more compassion.
Develop a Sense of Purpose
__________
According to a Harvard study, practicing mindfulness meditation for at least 30 minutes a day can increase grey matter in the hippocampus.
These subtler effects are harder to measure, but increasing these, in the long term, is much more valuable than just reducing the pain points. This is very real when experienced – meditators have been reporting feelings of happiness, oneness and even bliss or enlightenment for millenia. And they didn't even have to take drugs! That sounds like fun - probably worth exploring.
At 7000 years, and counting, meditation is the most thoroughly tested technique for conscious evolution in the history of the world.
Maybe it's time to give it a try.