Benefits of Meditation

Although meditation began as a spiritual practice where one strives to achieve enlightenment, inner peace and unity, it is also a tremendously powerful form of self-discipline that results in absolute mastery of one's mental, emotional and physical aspects.

Meditation - Antidote For Stress

Today, it is the perfect antidote to the frantic pace of life and its chronic stress and "busy-ness." Mental mastery gives you the tools to determine your life experience.

As you master your thoughts and emotions, you can actually choose how to perceive a situation, how it will impact you, and how you will respond. As a result, life becomes easier. It's stress-free, calm, emotionally stable, happy and deeply peaceful.

But the benefits of meditation go beyond one-ness and self-mastery. Many scientific studies have been performed on the benefits of meditation. The benefits are incredibly varied.

Meditation:

Decreases stress; and since stress is the number one cause or contributing factor of illness and disease, mental and emotional disorders and generally poor life experiences, this benefit is incredibly important.
Accesses your intuition and opens you up to receiving inspiration in a non-judgmental way. Many people dismiss their "gut instinct" by rationalizing and using logic to second-guess themselves; when in fact, intuition never steers us wrong.
Increases focus and concentration - this helps you learn better, and use what you have learned more effectively and efficiently.
Increases your creativity. Meditation gives you greater access to the uninhibited right brain hemisphere where creativity abounds - without the censorship of the logical, time-and-space bound left brain.
Increases your problem-solving skills. Meditation helps you perceive the world from different perspectives and so helps you think out of the box; it also helps take emotions out of the equation, since heightened emotional reactions often result in making the wrong choices.
Increases memory recall by generally "sharpening" your mental faculties, and by creating a still mind so you can locate a memory without distractions.
Helps with behavior modification such as getting rid of undesirable habits.
Increases mental capacity and speed
Increases a sense of unity with others; resulting in greater compassion, understanding and awareness. This, along with a reduction or elimination of stress, results in happier, healthier relationships!
Improves sleep quality and regulates sleep patterns - which results in deeper, better sleep, and you end up needing less sleep!
Teaches you the ability to manage pain without medication by taking your focus away from the pain and redirecting it, you effectively "shut the gate" on your pain response and your perception of pain.
Improves health. The deep relaxation of meditation is a time when the body can heal, repair and regenerate. If your sleep is not restful, this healing time is lost, and the body suffers. During meditation, the brain releases the "antidotes" to the stress hormones that inhibit digestion and put the body on high alert. This lack of proper digestion can have unpleasant and potentially disastrous consequences if the stress is not released, since the organs don't receive the nutrients they need. This is how stress decreases the immune response.
Develops self-confidence. The more control you have over yourself, the more confidently you can approach any situation.
Used to treat depression, anxiety, uncontrolled anger, phobias and other mental/emotional disorders.
Increases your self-awareness so you can engage in meaningful personal growth - thus increasing your self-esteem.
Develops patience, a sense of well-being and allows you to remain calm and centered even amid total chaos

Stress is also the number one destroyer of dreams and goals

If you're chronically stressed, chances are good that your life is unfulfilled and unhappy.

Many people deal with stress with band-aid, temporary escapes such as alcohol, drugs, TV, sex and so forth. These do not take care of the root problem.

Even exercise, long touted as a stress-buster, does not take care of the root problem!

Only meditation teaches you the mental mastery that is absolutely essential to choosing a response other than stress. In meditation, you come to realize that it is your interpretation of a situation that causes stress; and you'll eventually develop the ability to choose a different interpretation and therefore a different experience.

It's a scientific fact that people who meditate regularly lead healthier, happier, more fulfilled lives.

Meditation can be seen as the master key, or the catalyst, to personal growth, achievement and success. If your goals are on hold and your dreams are still only wishes, you can change all that with a meditation practice... and achieve your heart's desires!

Julie Lewin is a world renowned authentic Medical Intuitive and Meditation Teacher and has created a unique healing system by using creative and spontaneous visualization. She teaches these meditations on her website - http://www.besthealingmeditationonline.com/. To find out more about her medical intuitive work go to http://www.julielewin.com/.

Original article