There is a lot of reasons we can feel stressed as humans. If your todo list is piling up along with the pressure you feel to get everything accomplished the last thing you may want to do is sit still. It may seem that nothing is getting accomplished, but is that actually true?
Inner Peace Promotes Better Productivity
Believe it or not, meditation actually is a great treatment for people with ADD and ADHD. This is because meditation strengthens the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for our organization of thought, planning, decision making, and evaluating the impact of actions.
Psychologically the PFC is associated with executive functions. Which includes guiding the thoughts while weighing pros and cons, reading social cues, and filtering impulses
Raise Serotonin Levels
Serotonin is a chemical and neurotransmitter that is most well known for the feel-good and happy effect it has within the brain. Low serotonin levels have been linked to depression. Although Serotonin also works throughout the body to regulate emotions, sexual function, memory, learning, appetite, and sleep.
A study performed in 1976 by Bujatti M, Biederer P., in the Journal of Neural Transmission Serotonin, showed transcendental meditators carried higher levels of serotonin compared to the urine analysis of a matched control group. They also found the meditators had higher levels after meditation in addition. To learn more about how meditation can boost serotonin click here.
Get Out Of The Loop
Humans are creatures of habit. On some level is it ingrained within us due to survival instincts. If something has kept us alive or provided us a very desirable outcome then why change it?
This is how addiction can be formed as well. Another part of an addiction or bad habit is the process of deciding you shouldn’t want something, guilting yourself afterward, and falling into a negative self-view.
When we are simply coasting through life on autopilot or following the emotional tugs of an addiction we are not living fully. Then, of course, how can we expect to be deeply satisfied with life when we are half numbed.
Meditation helps addiction, habitual behavior, impulsiveness, and boredom in multiple ways. One way is through cultivating mindfulness. When we continue to approach life with curiosity and letting go of assumptions life has the opportunity to surprise us again. Explore mindfulness with this guided mindfulness meditation to focus on the breath.
Another tool that meditation provides you with is the cultivation of nonjudgement. This helps take emotional impulses out of addictions and habits so that you can freely make take action in your life. To learn more about how meditation can break cyclical habits click here.
Increase Libido
We can easily link our mental state to our sex drive when we think of how we may not be in that mood when we are very stressed or that it can be hard to climax when our minds are chattering away. Learn more about how meditation can increase your libido.
One of the stress hormones, cortisol is released when the flight or fight mode is activated. At Rutgers University a study found that regular meditation can reduce cortisol levels up to fifty percent!
The hormone cortisol is used to generate energy in the body and is released in higher dosages in the morning upon awakening. Instable cortisol levels and chronic stress can restrict the bodies blood flow and arteries which can cause erectile dysfunction.
Learn More
The benefits of meditation are too numerous to fit in this one article, which is why we have compiled a list where you can dive into the profound health benefits mediation offers.