Sometimes stubborn physical ailments bring us down and hamper our enjoyment in life. Many times we’ve tried traditional treatments that may have worked for a while but maybe the effects have worn off. Meditation can be a holistic way to find relief for improving sleep, increasing immunity, relief of chronic pain, and slowing down the aging process of the brain. Continue reading to learn more about studies which have shown physical benefits to meditation.
Meditation does more than just calm racing thoughts; the impact it has on the body is also profound. Some benefits are immediate—like improved sleep or decreased blood pressure—and some can be obtained through consistent practice—like slowing aging in the brain or increased working memory capacity.
When you’re meditating, these natural healing benefits are already taking place. At Elevated Meditations in Colorado Springs, our meditation classes can provide numerous physical benefits such as:
It’s generally known that a good night’s sleep improves overall brain performance, health, and mood. It even has implications for life expectancy and overall life satisfaction. But as crucial as sleep is for us, we often struggle to get the amount or quality we need. Meditation for sleep can help. A joint study between the University of Wisconsin and UCLA found evidence of significant and sustained improvements in sleep quality when participants practiced mindfulness meditation. Meditating starts brain and body processes that are done naturally as we fall asleep, such as slowing down the body’s heart rate, increasing sleep-time brain chemicals serotonin and melatonin, and decreasing the wakefulness brain chemical norepinephrine.
Keeping ourselves physically healthy is key to feeling our best. Many of us take vitamins, eat well, get recommended sleep levels, and exercise regularly. Meditation is often overlooked as a method to enhance immune function. It not only strengthens our immunity, it can help us to recover from illness quicker. A large-scale study by the University of Florida reveals that meditation as a behavioral intervention can improve the immune response for treating various conditions associated with excessive or persistent inflammation with a weakened immune system.
Chronic pain, such as arthritis and headaches, can be exhausting, and relief can be difficult to find. If you haven’t tried meditation yet, it can help! Mindfulness meditation is a technique that has been found to significantly reduce pain in experimental and clinical settings. Research conducted by Wake Forest University and Brigham & Women’s Hospital has shown that mindfulness meditation can help in a variety of ways to cope with chronic pain.
As we age, the human brain slowly degrades. We lose cognitive functioning, memory, and the ability to learn new things, much of which is a result of grey matter atrophy. Grey matter contains a large amount of neurons, and neurons are how information is sent across the brain. Without grey matter our ability to perceive, understand, and use information decreases.
Scientists have been searching for ways to diminish the atrophy of grey matter, and they believe they found one possible solution: meditation. Studies, like this one, have shown that grey matter atrophies less in people who meditate. More research needs to be done to determine how powerful this effect is, but the science is out there: meditation produces new gray matter, which masks and makes up for the atrophying gray matter of age.
Elevated Meditations offers mindfulness meditation to improve physical health in our classes. If you are meditating specifically to improve sleep, increase your immune system, decrease pain, or slow aging, let one of our class instructors know and we can personalize your meditation experience. Discover the healing power of meditation with our meditation center in Colorado Springs—Drop in and Elevate with us!
