Fruits of Meditation
You probably meditate more often than you think. Ever just sit or lay down somewhere for a while and think about your life? Well, then you’ve meditated. Meditation is thinking deeply or focusing in your mind for a long period of time, and it allows you to relax and release. Meditating helps you in your mindfulness by allowing you to become more aware of yourself and your surroundings. Here are some fruits of meditation that can refine and liven up your everyday life:
Reduce Stress: Stress is so unhealthy for us mentally, emotionally and physically (it also shaves a few years off our healthy lives). It causes anxiety, sickness, emotional turmoil, breakouts, etc. Nobody likes being stressed out and our bodies would thank us if we were able to regulate our stress. Well, meditating helps you to calmly regulate & process all of the emotions you’re feeling. It helps you to pinpoint why you’re so stressed out and what exactly is the source of your stress.
Increases Joy: Who doesn’t want to live joyfully? Joyful people always make your day better by adding a bit of positivity into it. Meditation helps you to be more joyful in your everyday life. It increases positive emotions & life satisfaction and it can only help to have an increase of that in our lives. Can you relate to being so caught up in trying to get to the next best thing that you forget to look back and be proud of the accomplishments you’ve achieved so far? Most of us do and we’re left feeling unsatisfied and like we haven’t accomplished much.
Improves Concentration: In this day and age with social media and a million apps on our phones, it’s so hard to concentrate on the simple joys in life such as: taking short walks, small talk with kind strangers, having some time to think in that long line for coffee. We may often find ourselves trying to get to the next place that we forget to be still and enjoy the moment. Because meditation is centered around focusing on one thing for a long period of time, it’s no wonder it improves concentration.
Improves your immunity: Your immune system affected by both your negative & positive emotions. Because meditation is known to increase positive emotions (joy, relaxation, etc.) and decrease negative emotions (stress, anxiety, etc.), your immune system will be positively influenced by that. Meditation also increases antibodies in your immune system. It’s a win-win!
Improves your social life: Meditation is proven to decrease social anxiety. It helps you not to be so “me-centered”, but to look at the world around you and realize just how small you are in this huge universe. You can also meditate with your long-time friends or with people in your community and build new friendships.
We may have only scratched the surface of the benefits of meditation, but if we give ourselves permissions to quiet our minds, we will gain fruitful practices and healthy habits. Meditation isn’t just for one group of people, but anyone can partake in it- anytime, anywhere.
As We Dwell hosts group meditations on Tuesdays & Thursdays at 8:30am-9am led by Jackie Virmontez. Come out & join us in DTLA Arts District for a time of productive and mindful meditation!