People in modern society often feel exhausted due to overwhelming physical and mental stress. If you often feel nervous, anxious, or uncomfortable, you can perhaps set aside a short period of time to practice meditation daily. I believe that meditation can help you relieve stress and improve physical discomfort. If you are a beginner and do not know much about the effects of meditation, learn about the effects and benefits of meditation through this article. In addition, you will learn three key tips for practicing meditation and experience how meditation transforms body, mind, and spirit.
What is meditation? Recognizing the effects and benefits of meditation
Meditation is an ancient method of cultivating one’s body and mind. It’s been passed down over thousands of years. Some people call it contemplation, sitting meditation, or zazen. Since ancient times, many famous scholars and cultivators have recognized meditation as infinitely marvelous. It not only relaxes our bodies and calms our hearts but also helps us live longer. Furthermore, it is the key to self-cultivation and enlightenment. In recent years, more studies have confirmed that meditation can indeed benefit the body in many ways. Here are three main benefits of meditation:
1. Meditation helps to regulate stress.
When we face stressful situations, our body secretes the stress hormone cortisol to help us withstand increased pressure. However, if we let our bodies stay in such a tense state for a long time, our health suffers. In 2013, a study on meditation and stress hormones pointed out that meditation can regulate the secretion and level of stress hormones, help the human body restore balance under stress, downregulate the body’s response to stress, and as a result reduce the incidence of stress-induced diseases.
2. Meditation helps to improve sleep quality.
When we meditate, our body is calm, which helps us relax physically and mentally, release anxiety and tension, improve restlessness, settle our disorganized thoughts, and make our minds calm and focused. Such a state can energize and balance our bodies and open up our meridians. This brings about good quality sleep so we are not as fatigued and miserable the next day.
3. Meditation helps to manage our emotions.
Diseases come from the mind. Grandmaster JinBodhi once said, “If we often overthink things and stay in a bad mood, we will easily block our qi and meridians. Therefore, emotion controls our life. Positive emotions power the flow of life, clear and healthy as a free-flowing stream. Negative emotions stagnate our spring of life, accumulating into disease.” Practicing meditation can reduce anxiety and irritability so that our restless mind can settle down gradually and our hearts return to a calm state. In turn, it helps to refine our ability to manage emotions. In the long run, a persistent meditation practice can steer us clear of disorganized thinking and enhance our mental health.
Grasp these three important tips for practicing meditation to improve the outcome
For beginners who would like to benefit from meditation, grasping the following three key tips is very important. They can help you enter a state of physical and mental tranquility more quickly:
1. The environment should be quiet, without disturbance.
For a meditation experience free from disturbances, choose a quiet, safe, draft-free environment with a comfortable ambient temperature. If you live with others, you should try to notify your family and friends before practicing meditation. In this way, you will avoid being frightened by external influences when you enter a deep meditative state. In addition, please avoid meditating during thunderstorms, lightning, and other severe, alarming weather.
2. Don’t force yourself to meditate.
Meditation can bring many benefits, but we should not force ourselves to meditate inappropriately. A persistent daily practice is best, but a meditation plan can be adjustable. We suggest that as a beginner you choose a schedule according to your circumstances and meditate at a consistent time daily. If life gets too busy or you are too tired, take a day off and make up for the missed meditation time the next day or within a week. Meditation is a spiritual practice that should be flexible and free-flowing.
3. Do not meditate when you are emotionally unstable, hungry, or overly full.
Meditation is not a way to suppress emotions. When your emotions fluctuate greatly, such as when you experience anger, sadness, or fear, you should avoid suppressing your feelings through meditation. Otherwise, it will negatively affect your physical and mental health. In addition, hunger tends to make people feel uneasy and weak. Eating too much will increase the burden on your digestive organs, distract your mind, and reduce the benefits of meditation. Being hungry or too full is not suitable for meditation. Eating until you are 70 or 80 percent full before meditation is recommended, and it’s better to wait for one hour after a meal to meditate.
How do you feel during meditation? Here are two common phenomena in meditation
1. During meditation, your body may feel hot, itchy, painful, sore, numb, etc.
When you first learn to meditate, you might wonder about various bodily sensations. For example, you may feel your body getting hot and sweaty or some parts of your body may feel sore, numb, painful, or itchy. These phenomena are normal reactions while your body is detoxifying. You do not need to control these feelings or pay more attention to them deliberately. Just remind yourself to relax and calm your mind. Usually, these sensations will disappear after a while.
2. You may see light during meditation
During meditation, your body and mind may experience some unusual phenomena, such as seeing light, feeling your whole body or a part of your body disappearing, or feeling like you are floating or rising in the air. You may even have a time illusion. For example, you feel that you have only meditated for 10 minutes, but the actual time has already passed an hour. You may experience amazing feelings, such as seeing wonderful sights, hearing delightful music, smelling pleasant fragrances, and tasting sweet nectar. These are all normal phenomena. There is no need to seek them or be worried. It is better to focus on following the guided visualization and continue practicing.
What changes will a persistent mediation practice bring to our body and mind?
Through the above descriptions, you are starting to understand the effects and benefits of meditation. The following will introduce how long-term meditation can transform your body and mind:
How meditation transforms our “body”
Our brains receive a myriad of information from all directions every day. When we accumulate too many disorganized thoughts in our brains, our ability to think and make decisions weakens. Through meditation, we can effectively eliminate distractions in our brains. When we calm down, we’ll regain wisdom. Then we can handle current difficulties with a clearer thinking process, and can easily solve many seemingly complex problems. Moreover, meditation can also relax us from the inside out so that we can easily receive extraordinary energy from the Universe, unblock our meridians, and improve our health.
How meditation transforms our “mind”
Many people practice meditation to pursue peace of mind, hoping to elevate their state of being to a higher level. Meditation can help to develop our spirituality. Through practicing meditation, we can awaken our inner compassion. When our hearts fill with compassion, we can connect more deeply with the Universe, which brings incredible gains. Through meditation, we can receive the energy of compassion and integrate it into our lives, which helps us understand the Way of Nature and the Way of Life. In doing so, we’ll soon be within arm’s reach of a happy and auspicious life.
Bodhi Meditation ｜ For beginners, you should receive professional guidance for the most effective experience
Do you want to reap the benefits of meditation but don’t know how or worry about making mistakes and not being able to enter a meditative state?
Bodhi Meditation, founded by Grandmaster JinBodhi, aims to spread effective meditation methods all over the world for those in need. At present, Bodhi Meditation has established many meditation centers worldwide to provide beginners with an environment where they can practice in comfort and ease. With the guidance of professional teachers, you can improve your concentration during meditation and fully appreciate its wonders.
If you are interested in trying it out, feel free to register for meditation retreats at Bodhi Meditation centers or take Bodhi Meditation online courses. In addition, you can also follow Grandmaster JinBodhi’s Facebook page, or subscribe to his YouTube channel to learn relevant information right away.
Further Reading:
Recognize the benefits of meditation, regain inner peace, and eliminate disorganized thoughts
