Making meditation a part of your daily health and fitness regime is a proven method to experiencing expansive wellness. How does meditation impact health? This question has merited attention from the scientific community and what the Yogis of ancient India have been saying for centuries is now accepted as scientific fact. Meditation is more than just an aid to enjoying wellbeing. While it is certain to bring about a state of inner harmony, both physical and mental, meditation really is a state of being, a way of life. That said, to be in meditation is different from practicing mediation and this article aims to explore the benefits of a regular practice of meditation.
The term meditation, simply put, refers to a group of techniques that help manage thoughts, thinking patterns, emotions and consequently, the mind-and-body’s reaction to stressful situations. These methods are characterized by how they are practiced and applied, and most of them, if not all, have common elements among them. Take mindfulness for example or breath awareness. These two are commonly practiced as meditation, especially in the Buddhist tradition. Mindfulness meditation takes the practitioner through a journey of awareness – awareness of thoughts as they arise, awareness of breath in relation to emotions as they arise, awareness of bodily sensations as they arise, take it a step further and you will even be practicing awareness as you walk, eat, clean or cook.
Meditations that focus on breath awareness will have you watching your breath and using that awareness to traverse the bridge between body and mind, thereby exploring the connection between the two. In either case, the idea is to slow the mind down, increase the space between two thoughts and ultimately slip into that space to experience meditation. Along the way however, your health gets a major boost and your intellectual and cognitive functioning gets a significant upgrade as well. Life will be experienced at a whole new level, time will expand and you will start to feel like there are more than 24 hours in a day. The most amazing thing is you will find yourself happy for no reason.
So why is all this happening?
According to meditation masters, these practices impact the body and mind in certain ways: when you breathe with awareness for example, your mind suddenly fires less thoughts at you because aware breathing leads to slow rhythmic breath, which in turn leads to calm mind and similarly aware breathing means deeper, slower breathing which again means better oxygenated blood and lowered blood acidity from stress and other factors (stress releases chemical by products into the blood causing it to become highly acidic and this creates the body to become unwell) and this overall means a healthy human being.
With the dedicated practice of meditation, the flight or fight response is more in the control of the practitioner. While the mind will be more clear and agile from fewer thoughts bombarding and clouding it, the body will become calm and responsive rather than reactive.
A well-integrated fitness routine should consider the fitness of the mind as an important adjunct to workouts. A sound mind will invariably lead to a healthy body and vice versa. Any fitness routine worth its salt must explore the mind-body connection and encourage wellness first, and fitness next.
Finally, a word of caution: any meditation practice is always best taught by an experienced meditation teacher. There are also instances where meditation is not meant to be practiced such as in cases of clinically diagnosed depression, for example (unless under the expert guidance of an enlightened master). It is worthwhile doing a bit of homework and finding a good teacher before delving into these practices.