Meditation is an activity that people swear on today. Yet, the practice had been in vogue from ancient times and resulted in helping a lot of people during different eras. However, it is only recently that Western civilization has begun to sit up and take notice of the age-old system of yoga. Meditation is a part of yoga while the reverse is definitely not true.
Yoga can be rightly summed up as a physical activity of sorts that pushes the body to certain limits in order to attain a certain ability of the body. It can be quite grueling with many different postures to master as well as acquiring balance and exercising various parts of the body. Meditation, on the other hand, is extremely easy and all you will need is a comfortable place to sit. However, you do have to focus on your objective and direct the mind while breathing properly but not in a hurried manner. You would also have to keep your mind calm and in control. This is easily said than done, however, as it is extremely difficult to keep the mind blank no matter how much your trainer might coax you. Thankfully, you will succeed one day and reap the benefits of meditation in the process.
Benefits of meditation
When you learn meditation techniques from a qualified yoga and meditation practitioner, you can fully enjoy its benefits with quick results. Here is the list of benefits of meditation-
- Build a new way to manage your stress
- Gives you a new perspective to handle the stressful situations
- Teaches you to live the present moment
- Reduced negativity and increased self-awareness
- Improved decision-making power
- Increases patience and endurance
- Boosts creativity and imagination
Can meditation be practiced to treat health issues?
Maditation can be most of the times is recommended to complement to the medicines and medical treatments of various disorders. It is especially the complementary therapy for both treatment and prevention of many stress and anxiety-related conditions. Medications may suppress the symptoms but meditation has the ppower to not only reduce the symptoms experienced by patients but also heal the root cause of the wide range of illnesses and disorders.
Mindful mediation is known to provide the appropriate therapy for panic attacks, generalised anxiety disorders, stress handling, and anger management. It has immense significance in the treatment provided for the rehabilitations of people having history of substance dependence or abuse, also for cancer survivals for their morale boost. It helps to build the pain pain endurance capacity necessary to fight chronic diseases, chronic pains.
Disease caused due to stress like psoriasis, colitis, steady and depressed mood or the fatigue can be treated successfully with he fastened recovery with the inclusion of meditative practices in the treatment course. Moreover, it can be an adjunct therapy for the moderate level of hypertension, valuable in prevention of cardiac arrest, prevention of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), migraine, stroke, and insomnia.
Additionally it is of great help in improving the neurological health, reducing the symptoms of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy.
Side effects, duration and other
Are there any side effects of meditation? How long does it take to show the results? Are these results temporary or goes for long time?
There are many such questions that clicks one’s mind before starting the meditation. Meditation, yoga are such form of therapies which has minimal or no side effects, but make sure to perform them under the guidance of expert yoga teacher to avoide any injury or reverse effect due to wrong techniques. Some people with long hours of meditative practices or retreats with wrong techniques can have difficult and challenging experiences. But practicing even simple long breathing mind relaxing practices at quite place can start showing the results in a week also. Some of the techniques can be learned easily but some may take years to master them. But you start experiencing the change from the very first day also. This is how powerful the meditation is.
Now comes the crux of the matter. Yoga or meditation –which one is best for you? Well, the answer depends on your goals, of course. Opt for a yoga studio if you want to challenge your body physically in order to remain fit. Choose meditation when you seek to calm your mind and accept the realities of life. The benefits are different as is the process but both are equally helpful. So, go ahead and select wisely!