Benefits of Meditation - (How Meditation is Good for You!)

Meditation is good for you! Scientists say so, psychologists and doctors say so, your neighbor says so and media agrees. Very well, but why is meditation good for you? How does it help? First of all, there are many kinds of meditation and they may potentially have different benefits. Many people focus on the physical benefits—improved sleep patterns, a better immune system, more ability to focus, less stress, higher pain tolerance, for example—while others may be more interested in psychological benefits, such as increased empathy, patience, focus, and so on. Another benefit that inspires people to meditate can be spiritual: the space to go deeper into their faith, a greater sense of connection and an opportunity to explore the non-material are just a few facets of the spiritual dimension.

The reason why you should meditate is very much connected to what you’re interested in developing. Once you’ve established a regular meditation practice, you may discover that meditation is benefiting you in ways that you hadn’t even imagined.

For the best course to learn the benefits of meditation, we recommend Meditation Fundamentals.

Meditation Benefits for the Mind and Body

2023-05-25T11:10:37-07:00By Trungram Gyalwa, PhD|

Our minds and our bodies are connected. If we’re unhappy for an extended time, our bodies become weaker and more susceptible to illness. In the same way, when we’re physically run down, it adversely affects our minds. If you have a healthy, peaceful mind, your perception of the world reflects that. You make informed [...]

The Art of Letting Go

2023-03-28T20:20:33-07:00By Trungram Gyalwa, PhD|

Meditation and letting go: the antidotes to suffering Is it possible that many of the difficulties in our lives come from our reluctance or our inability to let go? Whether we’re aware of it or not, our minds are constantly roaming and zeroing in on what we want to acquire and what we want [...]

Long Term Benefits of Meditation

2023-05-22T17:09:07-07:00By Mindworks Team|

It often feels like there are just not enough hours in a day and not enough days in a week to get things done. The forty-hour work week is a distant memory. We barely find the time for all our chores and errands, let alone to unwind with our family and friends. The [...]

Meditation for Sleep

2023-05-09T18:10:45-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Meditation before going to bed If you’ve been struggling to catch some shuteye lately, meditating before bed might help. Statistics show that more than 70 million people deal with sleep disorders - in America alone! Insomnia is an unhealthy condition that plagues far too many people. Several issues are to blame, and notably the [...]

Why is Meditation Important? 6 Facts You Need to Know

2023-05-09T18:11:47-07:00By Mindworks Team|

When the topic of mindfulness comes up, there are people out there who still imagine that meditation is the domain of free spirits who enjoy zoning out on a woven grass mat somewhere. But the fact is that there’s nothing woo-woo about mindfulness and awareness meditation. These life-altering practices have been around for millennia, [...]

Mindfulness and Healing

2022-08-14T20:12:23-07:00By Cynthia Thaik|

The importance of mindfulness to self-regulate and build resilience As a physician who practices mind-body medicine, I truly believe that mindfulness is the most powerful tool that I have. I share it with my patients so that they have access to this tool as well. Mindfulness is more powerful than any drug, surgery, or other [...]

Change Your Perception of Stress through Meditation

2023-05-25T11:16:51-07:00By Maria Camara|

How can I change my perception of stress? Authentic meditation practice can help us change our perception of stress and our reaction to it. “Stress” is a catchall term that covers a variety of reactions to unwelcome circumstances, from anxiety to panic. When we allow stress to run the show, it impacts our bodies and [...]

How Meditation Will Change Your Life

2022-10-04T12:12:25-07:00By Mindworks Team|

There’s an old meditation joke that says everyone should meditate for 30 minutes per day. But if you’re too busy to meditate, then you should do it for an hour. The humor points to a truth that meditators know from experience. Meditation will change your life, but for it to work, you have to change [...]

How Breath and Health are Connected

2022-07-16T19:46:33-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Deep Breathing and Physical Health Benefits for Stress and Anxiety You know you depend on breath to live, but did you know you can live better by breathing more intentionally? Shallow, interrupted breathing is correlated with several poor health conditions. We can prevent and even reverse these conditions by purposefully breathing for health and vitality. [...]

Can Meditation Help Lower My Heart Rate or Blood Pressure?

2022-07-03T20:22:36-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Meditation can lower and regulate your heart rate and blood pressure The physiological effects of meditation include a reduction in stress hormones and adrenaline, improved breathing and blood flow to the brain, and improved melatonin regulation. Two more benefits, a reduced heart rate and lower blood pressure, have encouraged doctors to increasingly recommend meditation to [...]

Meditation for Uncertain Times

2022-09-04T19:20:13-07:00By Mindworks Team|

The Challenge of Finding Stability In Times Of Change & Uncertainty Change is hard, even when it’s expected. In times of great uncertainty, stress and anxiety increase as we attempt to ground ourselves to anything stable or permanent, but find very little we can hold on to. Meditation for uncertain and difficult times reduces stress [...]

How Meditation Improves Physical Health

2022-09-25T01:33:56-07:00By Mindworks Team|

The Proven Health Benefits of Daily Meditation According to Science When considering its benefits, most people focus on how meditation can improve mental health. But because body and mind are connected, meditation has great influence over our physical health too. How Meditation Improves Health A healthy body is the manifestation of a healthy mind. So [...]

The Benefits of Exercise, Meditation and Brain Health

2022-11-29T20:31:54-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Upon first glance, exercise and meditation offer similar benefits. Both help improve mood, reduce anxiety and depression, and can lead to a calm, balanced state of mind. But exercise is not a replacement for meditation, nor is meditation a replacement for exercise. The two have distinct benefits that are equally important for maintaining general wellbeing. [...]

Common Meditation Myths Debunked

2022-11-29T20:32:34-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Mistaken assumptions about meditation, how it works, and what the outcomes should be can prevent us from starting a practice or may interfere with our current practice by creating unreasonable expectations. By debunking the myths of mediation we open ourselves to the possibility that meditation can benefit us in unexpected ways. Let’s take a closer [...]

Why Breath Meditation is Not Only for Beginners

2022-04-24T07:18:58-07:00By Mindworks Team|

What are the Benefits of Advanced Breathing Meditation? Most people who are new to meditation are instructed to begin with mindfulness of breath. The breath is a convenient point of focus for meditation, because it’s always with us. But breath meditation is not only for beginners. In fact, it can be quite an advanced practice. [...]

The Benefits of Body Scan Meditation

2022-09-14T20:37:57-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Promoting our body awareness, stress awareness, and overall relaxation Body scan meditation is just one type of mindfulness meditation. In mindfulness meditation, we often use the breath as an anchor for our distracted, wandering mind. But we can also use sensation in the body (or lack thereof) to keep us connected to the present moment. [...]

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome with Meditation

2022-10-15T20:09:34-07:00By Mindworks Team|

How to Use Meditation to Overcome Imposter Syndrome Effectively The thoughts and emotions that tell us we’re not enough, incapable or unworthy are referred to collectively as imposter syndrome. Although not an official medical diagnosis, this fear of being exposed as a fraud is a form of anxiety. It can become a true disorder [...]

Calming Nighttime Anxiety for Better Sleep

2022-10-24T20:27:08-07:00By Mindworks Team|

What is Sleep Anxiety? (How to Calm Anxiety at Night) If your anxiety gets worse at night, preventing you from sleeping well, you’re not alone. More than half of adults in the US say their anxiety keeps them awake at night. And when anxiety makes falling asleep or staying asleep difficult, that lost sleep leads [...]

Stress Reduction And Meditation

2022-09-25T01:41:31-07:00By Mindworks Team|

How Meditation Helps Relieve Stress (Simple and Fast Improvements) When we’re faced with unexpected or challenging circumstances that we don’t have the resources to handle, stress arises. The stress response occurs on a physical, mental and emotional level. Our heart rate and breathing quickens and our sweat glands activate. We may have self-defeating or judgmental [...]

Meditation on the Job | Practicing Mindfulness at Work

2022-06-20T17:20:18-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Five ways to bring more meditation into your work life Meditation is an oasis of calm in our busy lives, a time to check in with ourselves and simply be instead of do. And the wonderful thing is, this dedicated daily session of focused presence has a spillover effect: we generally find that we’re better [...]

Benefits of Mindfulness & Awareness Meditation

2022-07-24T10:40:43-07:00By Bart Mendel|

The many benefits of meditation can be grouped into two categories. In the first, we find all of the improvements to our health and general well-being that mindfulness is known for, including stress reduction, improved focus and resilience. The benefits in the second category are more subtle. Thanks to awareness meditation, we gain insights into how the [...]

Morning Meditation

2022-04-24T07:23:12-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Four mindful ways to wake up your body and energize your mind What are the benefits of morning meditation? As soon as the alarm goes off, we’re probably already thinking about work or study, the people we need to see and those we’d rather not, unfinished business, laundry lists and that all-important cup of coffee [...]

Self-Esteem and Meditation

2021-05-14T17:21:44-07:00By Tokpa Korlo|

Discovering Genuine Confidence and Self-Worth through Meditation Self-esteem or self-worth come from knowing, unwaveringly, that you are who you are and that you belong. There’s a contentment, a confidence, not in an arrogant sense but an honest one. When you are at ease with your place in the world, there’s no need to compare yourself [...]

Patience is Power

2022-08-19T11:04:41-07:00By Mindworks Team|

What can meditation teach me about the power of patience? Modern society doesn’t know quite what to make of patience. On the one hand, patience may not seem to be assertive or driven enough, while on the other it’s known to be a virtue of the wise. As Master Po tells his student in the [...]

This Precious Human Life

2023-03-04T19:01:13-08:00By Mindworks Team|

We’re human—how fortunate and precious! Now what? Reflecting on the preciousness of being born human is an exercise in gratitude and in defining priorities. Here we are, human beings able to make life choices, to try them on for size, and to adjust where necessary. Among those choices, we have access to spiritual teachings and [...]

Meditation: Discovering the Gold Mine Within

2021-11-01T16:58:39-07:00By Trinlay Rinpoche|

All emotions are related to worries about the self. That’s ego: the fact that you are always concerned about your self. Take depression and fear, for example. These emotions arise due to a way of thinking or to a situation you’re dealing with. Is it possible for you to analyze the situation? What are the [...]

How Does Meditation Reduce Stress?

2022-04-19T11:49:42-07:00By Maria Camara|

Mindfulness Meditation for Stress and Anxiety Stress and anxiety result when we feel we can’t handle the pressures and adverse situations of everyday life. It’s a simple question of supply and demand of available emotional resources. It’s not about whether the perceived stressor is valid or not—we feel a responsibility to respond to [...]

Unconditional Well-Being

2023-05-25T11:14:14-07:00By Khaydroup Podvoll|

Our best qualities are revealed through meditation practice When we meditate, we’re training in being present to each moment without judging or allowing ourselves to be fascinated or repelled by what arises. We’re able to meet each moment, each challenge that appears, with equanimity because we can access the essence of each moment as [...]

Mindfulness Meditation Improves Love & Relationships

2022-08-19T11:12:16-07:00By Maria Camara|

Expectations and Relationships If we really think about it, most of our concerns and daily conflicts happen within the context of relationships. We are constantly connecting with people at different layers of intimacy, and yet it seems like we always have to deal with unfulfilled expectations related to these connections. It might be a [...]

More Than Your Thoughts: How Meditation Can Expand Your World

2022-12-09T20:40:33-08:00By Bart Mendel|

An Interview with Mindworks Chief Meditation Officer Bart Mendel Having studied and taught meditation for over 35 years throughout the US, Canada and Europe, Bart Mendel founded Mindworks, an online meditation system, to help a wider audience experience the transformative benefits. We talked to him about the mental and physical power of developing a regular [...]

Physical & Mental Benefits of Meditation

2022-12-09T20:41:26-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as more and more people discover its wide-ranging benefits. Although this practice has been around for centuries and mental benefits of meditation are well-known, modern science has only recently discovered a compelling link between meditation and physical well-being. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by thoughts [...]

Health Benefits of Meditation

2023-05-25T11:15:20-07:00By Mindworks Team|

For centuries, meditation has been used as an effective technique to work with the mind, and also to provide relaxation, well-being and better health. Long before the advent of modern science and medicine, dedicated meditators from a variety of spiritual traditions had already discovered the tremendous benefits of their practice. Beyond its original spiritual purpose, [...]

The Challenges of Silent Meditation

2021-05-14T11:34:47-07:00By Mindworks Team|

For centuries, silent meditation was reserved for the privileged few who had renounced the world and sought communion – with the divine, the universe, or their own inner being - in remote cloisters and retreat settings around the world. Nowadays though, intensive silent meditation practices have become widely available through a variety of organizations, [...]

How Does Meditation Improve Memory and Focus?

2023-05-22T17:25:46-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Memory and Focus Meditation Wouldn’t it be great if you could wave a magic wand and presto! Your memory and ability to focus have been magically enhanced! You would be more productive, your goals could be achieved with less effort, and you would find it much easier to prioritize. The resulting reduction of stress [...]

What Are the Health Benefits of Meditation?

2022-04-19T11:55:02-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Many meditation health benefits have a common denominator Beyond serenity: the health benefits of meditation Many of us associate meditation with serenity and mental focus. But meditation comes with a number of very convincing health perks as well. For some practitioners these may be fringe benefits, but for others they may be the most [...]

Can Meditation Help Deal with Tragedy and Death?

2021-05-14T11:34:48-07:00By Pamela Gayle White|

Losing a loved one is devastating. Everyone has their own, personal way to cope with the death of a beloved friend, relative, or even a pet. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Many factors enter into how grieving unfolds, including cultural and religious backgrounds, the closeness of the relationship, social support systems [...]

Meditation for Healing

2022-04-19T11:55:22-07:00By Mindworks Team|

In recent years thousands of people have participated in studies that confirm the beneficial effects of meditation for stress, depression, managing chronic pain, insomnia and other conditions. Clearly, there are forms of meditation practice that can help people cope with what ails them. But did you know that in some cases meditation can even help [...]

Does Meditation Improve Memory?

2022-07-24T10:49:42-07:00By Mindworks Team|

The benefits of meditation are far-reaching, and researchers have already identified a number of patently positive effects that meditation can have on the human brain. So naturally, many of us wonder if improved memory is one of those fringe benefits. And the answer is… YES! A number of studies carried out by neuroscientists have confirmed [...]

How Does Meditation Help You Stay Calm?

2021-05-14T11:36:41-07:00By Mindworks Team|

How To Stay Calm - How Does Meditation Help? For many of those looking to “keep calm” and de-stress, meditation might just be the ideal solution. Meditation practices vary widely around the globe, and among them are calming meditation techniques that can effectively help body and spirit relax. Today’s busy lifestyles not only tend to [...]

Meditation Techniques to Reduce Pain

2022-07-24T11:00:06-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Have you ever had to cope with pain? There are two main kinds of physical pain: chronic and acute. Chronic pain is often defined as any kind of pain that persists for 12 weeks or more, such as arthritis. Acute pain arises suddenly and is usually the result of an injury or other identifiable cause, [...]

Can Meditation Help With Anxiety?

2022-05-10T19:57:31-07:00By Mindworks Team|

If you constantly feel nervous, worried or uneasy due to past or future events, you may be suffering from anxiety. Everyone gets anxious at some point or another. Generally speaking, being anxious is not a malady – it’s a normal apprehension that’s connected to concerns about the future. But when worry dominates our actions [...]

Can Meditation Help With Depression?

2021-09-23T18:57:27-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Abraham Lincoln, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Vincent Van Gogh, J. K. Rowling, Adele and countless other artists, bereaved individuals, recent mothers, and John and Jane Does struggled or struggle with depression. In today’s intensely demanding world, stress is a major contributing factor to this increasingly common malady. The symptoms [...]