Benefits of Meditation

If you are interested in meditation then perhaps you already have some general impressions about what it is and how you can benefit from it. You probably know that meditation can bring more peace and calm to your life, alleviate stress and so on, but there’s almost no end to the ways in which meditation can positively affect your life through working directly on the mind. It has similarities to other activities that require mental focus and concentration but it goes much further than that.

 

It’s an exhaustive subject, and one that I partly address in my Meditation Introduction article which helps to prepare you if you are considering taking up the practice. There are also some meditation practice articles here at The Inspired Warrior that can give some basic initial instruction in meditation techniques and also working with the mental hindrances.

 

Getting full exposure to the multitude of riches that come from these practices will go a long way to helping you stay motivated and inspired to continue and deepen this profound mental training. So please read on and find out the way in which your whole being can enjoy continuous and profound positive improvements!

 

Improved focus and attention span

 

The first thing we find out when we try meditation is how distracted by distraction our mind is, hence the reasons why people think they can’t do it. This is the point of meditation, of what it addresses. If you hadn’t seen the inside of a gym for ten years, you wouldn’t expect to be lifting much weight or feeling very fit. So, the practice of focusing our mind on a meditation object specifically trains the ability to stay focused on what’s happening. 

 

As we practice this mental activity more and more, we’re training our usually scattered energies and interests to come together and be interested in the task at hand. In daily life, this trains our ability to not be distracted by other concerns when we are engaged in whatever our present activity is.

In this way, while we attend to the present concern with full consciousness, we can still be aware that we have other concerns vying for out attention, but not be pulled off task by them. Cultivating this attentiveness is ever more necessary in a world where screens are serving up a constant barrage of highly stimulating content in every spare second of our day.

 

As we become more adept at meditation and can stay for longer periods with our meditation object, we will notice that our attention span also increases, we can focus on our tasks at hand for longer periods without tiredness. This is similar to building physical fitness with regular exercise. We are building mental fitness and endurance.

 

Breadth of awareness

As with focus, meditation also trains broader awareness. In sitting practice, the preliminary exercise is to systematically bring our attention to all parts of the body, then our feelings, emotional condition and the state of our mind. This is a grounding process that brings our overall experience into awareness, most of which we’re usually completely oblivious of.

 

This broader overall sense of ourselves is the basis of then focusing on a particular meditation object like the breath. This doesn’t mean we then disregard this broader sense of being, it stays with us as a background awareness that supports the one-pointed focus on the breath.

 

This practice means we start to notice more in our lives, things on the periphery of our awareness. It therefore improves our acuity of mind, our curiosity and interest, and we become more detail oriented. All this can improve our instincts and intuition as we perceive and process information that we never even used to register. The more we are aware of, the more we can effect change about aspects of our lives that we didn’t even know were important.

 

Greater emotional health and intelligence

 

Awareness is fundamentally revealing in nature, it’s implicit in the definition of the word. Many people may have little or no knowledge or understanding of their emotional landscape, how they feel, what their emotional triggers are, weaknesses, strengths and so on.

 

As described above, meditation isn’t just about concentrating on one thing to the exclusion of all others, it’s also breadth of focus, meaning we not only focus on the breath, but we are also receptive to everything else that arises in our experience whilst meditating, this broad perceptive faculty translates to our everyday life off the cushion.

 

In that, we start to become more familiar with our emotions, for some of us, possibly seeing them as if for the first time. As we gain more meditative experience, we get a much deeper understanding of how we experience life through our emotions and how they affect us, how they distort our reality. We become able to work with them and abide more regularly in positive emotional states which had significant effects.

 

Improved self-image

Meditation is often described as a condition for integrating our disparate selves. It does this because, through sitting practice, and greater mindfulness during our daily activities, we become aware of all these disparate and often conflicting manifestations of ourselves.

 

Seeing more of ourselves means we not only see the ‘bad’ bits that we might over identify with, we also start to acknowledge our positive qualities, especially if we practice the cultivation of positive emotion meditation.

 

This results in improved self view and confidence, we start to entertain a more balanced and positive outlook on life in general which affects our overall attitude. This can also improve symptoms of depression and other debilitating negative mental states.

 

Willpower and mental strength

Before we start meditating we mostly exist as a mind flitting from one desire or concern to the next, constantly distracted by whatever grabs our attention. There’s no sense of a guiding, controlling or discerning influence in what we do or where we’re going. It’s like we are an unruly child without the kind but firm care and guidance of a parent.

 

Practicing meditation firstly reveals this fact, and then through the practice we begin to train the watcher to keep returning us to the present moment, also with a sense of our overall purpose. This all includes the aspects of self control and broader awareness. By practicing the discipline of our commitment to our meditation routine and the techniques of the practice of focusing and absorbing the mind, we build out mental strength and will power.

 

This is part of the integrative process of the mind that unites the psychological energies of those disparate selves that exist separately from each other and are driven in different directions. As we continue to train the mind in meditation, we begin to be guided by a broader united self. In other words, we have more conviction and commitment to our goals and values than we did before which is an expression of this improved will and mental strength.

 

Reduction of  overall suffering

 

Meditation helps reduce suffering by cultivating a more grounded being, which is about fostering a more robust and stable mind. By observing our thoughts and emotions with a centred and clear mind, we see how insubstantial,  changeable and wayward they are. This insight leads us to become less attached to them, to believe in them less.

 

All our suffering arises from our habitual desires not getting met, which stimulates negative emotional states like disappointment, anger, grief, depression and so on. The less attached we are to the thinking and emotions that relate to those desires, the less suffering we feel.

 

Supports more ethical living

 

Meditation is fundamentally about cultivating absorbed and concentrated states of mind, higher states of consciousness. This means that the usual grosser and unskillful aspects of mind that we live with a lot of time are dormant. Positive states of mind are a condition for insightfulness to arise and greater ethical and moral sensitivity.

 

The more we abide in these positive states, both in and out of meditation, the less enamoured we are with the negativity we experience that’s associated with unskillful or harmful behavior. We can experience greater ethical sensitivity to not only our own actions but that of others, and eschew it for a more virtuous existence. Once again, the integrating aspect of meditation practice also supports our conscious desire to act more ethically and adhere to our core values and integrity.

 

Greater IQ

Meditation reportedly increases IQ. It’s well known to improve cognitive function also things like intuition, logic and reasoning. Awareness by its very nature means we are receiving more sense data into full consciousness as well as improved memory. This means that we have more information at hand to cognise our surroundings and solve problems, understand the nature and significance of what is unfolding in our reality.

 

Reduces stress and anxiety

Greater awareness enables us to head off the kind of thinking that exacerbates anxieties and life stressors. The practice of meditation settles the mind and brings an overall sense of calm. This helps to not only decrease compulsive thinking and emotions in mediation itself, but manage it in our daily life.

 

Meditation improves our overall mindfulness which means we are more aware of what's going on in our mind than we usually are. Consequently, we catch our anxious and stressful states of mind much sooner and naturally interrupt the unconscious build up of momentum that causes so much pain.

 

Kindness and compassion

It is well known that meditation practice has profound benefits in terms of cultivating a calm and peaceful mind, and removing all sorts of mental and emotional stressors and agitation. A lesser known effect of meditation is its ability to cultivate insightfulness of mind. By its very nature, meditation brings the mind into an absorbed state where the usual mental activities we experience in daily life are dormant. This brings clarity, pliability of mind and breadth of awareness which cultivates the conditions for understandings to arise.

 

With all the other benefits of meditation, we come into a better relationship and understanding of ourselves and therefore others. In that, we come to really see the human condition more so we become less judgemental and biased, more inclusive in our thinking. As we accept ourselves more and engender a healthier self view, we experience the same towards other people.

 

This is because the conflict with ourselves is not separate from the external world we experience, the divide between self and other ceases to be a solid boundary of separation. We begin to see the world with kinder and more compassionate eyes. We acknowledge the shared struggle more than the differences that keep us in conflict, and therefore our own internal conflict also subsides. 

 

Help with addiction

 

Addictive tendencies are no less impervious than our other unhelpful behaviours to the power of awareness. Mindfulness brings greater self control and the ability to see and understand triggers that set off addictive behaviours and their associated negative cycles.

 

Since meditation also improves general quality of life and our relationship to self, it can undercut the purpose of addictive behaviours to escape the cycle of suffering it causes. We can start to connect to self care and shift our intentions from destructive to supportive behaviours.

 

Improved sleep patterns

Many people suffer insomnia and disturbed sleep patterns which can often be caused by compulsive mental activity and associated physical symptoms of unrest.  With the positive effects of mindfulness on mental activity like stress, anxiety, compulsive thinking, and negative emotions, we can experience improved sleep patterns as the mind tends towards more calmer states of being. You can even try meditating yourself to sleep!

 

If our overall practices and meditation is encouraging improved ethical behaviour in our lives, this can also have a positive effect on sleep patterns. It is well known that a kinder, more compassionate mind, and one with a clearer conscience sleeps better and more soundly.

 

Living a more ethical life means we can also want to make amends for our past discretions and harmful behavior. The positivity and release that comes from this activity cannot be understated and can't help bring improved sleep.

 

Purification of the mind

 

As mentioned in the ‘Kindness and Compassion’ benefit, meditation practice cultivates mental purity which allows for more insightfulness of mind. We entertain less delusional and baseless beliefs, we experience less bias, accept life more for what it is instead of being constantly pushed and pulled by our likes and dislikes. A clear mind is a free mind so we are far more peaceful, unconflicted and outgoing and not limited by beliefs and fears that keep us small.