Benefits of Meditation
Find Peace in Everyday Life | Build Resilience to Stress | Be Your True Self
Why Meditate?
Meditation is a wonderful way to improve your mental health and support your immune system. Feel happier, calmer and more like yourself. Explore the many benefits of meditation below.
Meditation can help you... Click to learn more!
- Reduce your stress response.
- Build resilience to stress in daily life.
- Boost endorphins, increasing positive thoughts and emotions.
- Repair stress damage in the body.
- Reduce inflammation.
- Promote genes associated with DNA stability and longevity.
- Promote long term health of cells!
- Increase the brain's ability to be flexible and learn new things.
- Lower heart rate and blood pressure.
- Increase oxygen to the body and brain.
- Increase antibodies.
- Decrease stress hormones that suppress the immune system.
- Experience fewer colds and flus!
- Enhance areas of the brain associated with memory, empathy and self-control.
- Increase dopamine in the brain to boost focus, feel good, get motivated, regulate emotions and improve organizational skills.
- Increase serotonin in the brain to reduce anxiety and depression, stabilize mood, improve sleep, support digestion and healing.
- Increase endorphins in the brain to increase positive thoughts and emotions.
- Activate nueroplasticity: the brain's ability to adapt, reorganize, be flexible and learn new things.
- Increase your sense of self, sense of humor and connection to others.
- Strengthen empathy and self-control.
- Restore emotional balance and well-being.
- Be more present with friends and loved ones.
- Create healthy boundaries.
- Become less judgmental and easily triggered.
- Increase compassion, tolerance and flexibility in the brain.
- Improve sleep quality and ease insomnia.
- Activate alpha (relaxation) waves in the brain.
- Allow the brain to rest, repair and process information and emotions.
- Help the brain detoxify, fight infection, repair cells and release beneficial hormones during sleep.
- Spend time in your own unique energy.
- Get to know your true likes and dislikes.
- Explore your passions and dreams.
- Disconnect from media pressure and comparing yourself to others.
- Increase self-worth and decrease dependency on outside sources of validation like money, status and appearance.
- Practice living in the moment.
- Experience more gratitude.
- Enjoy being yourself.
- Meditation practice helps us access and become more attuned to the subtle worlds of energy within us and around us. It's like navigating the world with an extra sense of perception.
- Deep breathing, guided visualizations, and focusing on present moment awareness allow our brain waves to shift from conscious thinking and living (beta waves) into a slower subconscious states (alpha and theta waves). As our focus shifts from the outer world to our inner world, we are able to access deeper wisdom, intuition and guidance.
- This intuition can help us solve problems and find more peace and meaning in everyday life.
- Barrett B, Hayney MS, Muller D, et al. Meditation or exercise for preventing acute respiratory infection: a randomized controlled trial. Annals of Family Medicine. 2012;10:337–346.
- Brook RD, Appel RJ, Rubenfire M, et al. Beyond medications and diet: alternative approaches to lowering blood pressure: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Hypertension. 2013;61(6):1360–1383.
- Carim-Todd L, Mitchell SH, Oken BS. Mind-body practices: an alternative, drug-free treatment for smoking cessation? A systematic review of the literature. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2013;132(3):399–410.
- Chan, Cecilia, et al. The effect of a one-hour Eastern Stress management session on salivory cortisol 403. Stress and Health. February 20,2006
- Chen KW, Berger CC, Manheimer E, et al. Meditative therapies for reducing anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Depression and Anxiety. 2012;29(7):545–562.
- Cherkin DC, Sherman KJ, Balderson BH, et al. Effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction vs cognitive behavioral therapy or usual care on back pain and functional limitations in adults with chronic low back pain: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2016;315(12):1240–1249.
- Clarke TC, Barnes PM, Black LI, Stussman BJ, Nahin RL. Use of yoga, meditation, and chiropractors among U.S. adults aged 18 and over. NCHS Data Brief, no 325. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018.
- Dakwar E and Levin FR. The emerging role of meditation in addressing psychiatric illness, with a focus on substance use disorders. Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 2009;17(4):254–267.
- Davidson RJ, Kabat-Zinn J, Schumacher J, et al. Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosom Med. 2003 Jul-Aug;65(4):564-70.
- Desbordes G, Negi LT, Pace TW, et al. Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2012;6:1–15
- Experimental Biology 2018. Even a single mindfulness meditation session can reduce anxiety: People with anxiety show reduced stress on the arteries after 1-hour introductory session. ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 April 2018.
- Fang CY, Reibel DK, Longacre ML, et al. Enhanced psychosocial well-being following participation in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program is associated with increased natural killer cell activity. Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2010;16(5):531–538.
- Goldstein CM, Josephson R, Xie S, et al. Current perspectives on the use of meditation to reduce blood pressure. International Journal of Hypertension. 2012;2012:578397.
- Goyal M, Singh S, Sibinga EM, et al. Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2014;174(3):357–368.
- Hwang WJ, Lee TY, Lim KO, Bae D, Kwak S, Park HY, Kwon JS. The effects of four days of intensive mindfulness meditation training (Templestay program) on resilience to stress: a randomized controlled trial. Psychol Health Med. 2018 Jun;23(5):497-504.
- Luders E. Exploring age-related brain degeneration in meditation practitioners. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2013;1307:82–88.
- Luders E, Kurth F, Mayer EA, et al. The unique brain anatomy of meditation practitioners: alterations in cortical gyrification. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2012;6:1–9.
- Nidich SI, Rainforth MV, Haaga DAF, et al. A randomized controlled trial on effects of the transcendental meditation program on blood pressure, psychological distress, and coping in young adults. American Journal of Hypertension. 2009;22(12):1326–1331.
- Morgan N, Irwin MR, Chung M, et al. The effects of mind-body therapies on the immune system: meta-analysis. PLOS One. 2014;9(7):1–14.
- Ong JC, Manber R, Segal Z, et al. A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation for chronic insomnia. Sleep. 2014;37(9):1553–1563.
- Pagnoni G, Cekic M. Age effects on gray matter volume and attentional performance in Zen meditation. Neurobiol Aging. 2007 Oct;28(10):1623-7.
- Reiner K, Tibi L, Lipsitz JD. Do mindfulness-based interventions reduce pain intensity? A critical review of the literature. Pain Medicine. 2013;14:230–242.
- Rosenkranz M, Davidson RJ, MacCoon D, et al. A comparison of mindfulness-based stress reduction and an active control in modulation of neurogenic inflammation. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 2013;27(1):174–184.
- Rubia K. The neurobiology of meditation and its clinical effectiveness in psychiatric disorders. Biological Psychology. 2009;82(1):1–11.
- Schneider RH, Grim CE, Rainforth MV, Kotchen T, Nidich SI, Gaylord-King C, Salerno JW, Kotchen JM, Alexander CN. Stress Reduction in the Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: Randomized, Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation and Health Education in Blacks. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2012 Nov;5(6):750-8.
- Sharma H. Meditation: Process and effects. Ayu. 2015;36(3):233-237.
- Simon NM, Smoller JW, McNamara KL, Maser RS, Zalta AK, Pollack MH, Nierenberg AA, Fava M, Wong KK. Telomere Shortening and Mood Disorders: Preliminary Support for a Chronic Stress Model of Accelerated Aging. Biological Psychiatry, U.S. National Library of Medicine. 2006 Sep 1;60(5):432-5.
- Sloan, Richard P, et al. Socioeconomic Status and Health: Is Parasympathetic Nervous System Activity an Intervening Mechanism? International Journal of Epidemiology, Oxford University Press. 2005 Apr; 34(2): 309–315.
- Tang Y-Y, Tang R, Posner MI. Brief meditation training induces smoking reduction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2013;110(34):13971–13975.
- Tugade MM, Fredrickson BL, Barrett LF. Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. J Pers. 2004;72(6):1161-1190.
- Yang, CC., Barrós-Loscertales, A., Li, M. et al. Alterations in Brain Structure and Amplitude of Low-frequency after 8 weeks of Mindfulness Meditation Training in Meditation-Naïve Subjects. Sci Rep 9, 10977 (2019).
- Zeidan F, Adler-Neal AL, Wells RE, et al. Mindfulness-meditation-based pain relief is not mediated by endogenous opioids. Journal of Neuroscience. 2016;36(11):3391–3397.