Alleviates Stress and Anxiety: Stress, pressure, fatigue, poor diet, alcohol, and drugs damage neural connections between the brain’s prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain. When you are fatigued or under intense mental or physical stress, the brain bypasses its rational frontal executive circuits. This respectively causes you to respond to daily tasks impulsively with shortsighted decisions. Emotions, such as fear and anger, are heightened and take over.
Meditation brings restful alertness, reducing stress and strengthening the communication between the brain’s prefrontal cortex and different areas of the brain. Neuroscientists have found that meditators shift their brain activity to different areas of the cortex, causing brain waves in the stress-prone right frontal cortex to move to the calmer left frontal cortex. This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression, and anxiety and there is less activity in the amygdala, where the brain processes fear.
Helps fight Disease: Meditation can help reduce pain and enhance the body’s immune system, enabling it to better fight disease. Emotional stress has been shown to increase activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis. This results in activation of adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol, which lead to faster heart rate, increased cardiac output, and narrower arteries. These processes result in increased blood pressure and enable the path to coronary heart disease and stroke. Meditation techniques reduce activation of the sympathetic nervous system dilating the blood vessels and reduces those stress hormones, such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol, providing stress relief.
Brings Peaceful Sleep: Without a doubt, meditation is excellent to battle insomnia. Techniques such as So Hum Mantra Meditation or Breath Awareness Meditation, and Zen Meditation Technique are excellent to help you get to a peaceful place in sleep.
Helps Invigorate Effectiveness in the Workplace: When the immune system is receiving some assistance, brain functioning is heightened and stress is handled effectively, anyone will experience ease in your everyday lifestyle. Relationships are more easily kept and increased, leadership behavior is increased, overall satisfaction is increased, impulsiveness is decreased, and there is a blissful calmness and desire to contribute to your work life more effectively with enthusiasm.
By Elise Fabricant
Elise Fabricant is a top teacher on YogaDownload.com. She's also always at your service for one-on-one coaching. If you’re ready to make big changes in all aspects of your life, sign up for a complimentary clarity session with her from her website here.
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