Meditation is well known for reducing stress and guiding one to their inner peace. Meditation also does this by creating a positive mindset within you. There are many ways that meditation helps you do this. Below we will dive into them!

How Meditation Changes Your Way of Thinking

If you have meditated before then the first time you sat down and expected to fully empty your mind it may have turned out to be harder than that. Meditation is a practice.

Emotions arise, thoughts swirl, and distractions come and go. Still, throughout the meditation practice, the goal is to watch objectively and allow these thoughts to be there without needing to attach or label them.

It is similar to martial arts where you use the opponents force against them rather than spending your energy trying to fight them. When we take the judgment out of strong thoughts and emotions we build up the muscle to ignore impulses that do not serve our larger purpose.

We also build the mental muscle of not allowing ourselves to be lost in our emotions which can help treat anxiety and depression. Learn more about how meditation can cure anxiety here!

Through consistent meditation practice, you begin to gain control over your thoughts rather than them having control over you. In addition, negative thoughts and draining perspectives are not able to stick around in the mind as much through consistent meditation practice.

Benefits of Positive Thinking

The benefits of positive thinking are quite extensive, but this powerful and simple act can sometimes still remain overlooked. First off, being able to resolve conflict and handle challenges requires a clear mind.

Think about hitting an edgy conflict with a coworker that you will continue to see at work. If you act out of impulsive emotions or even lead yourself down a mental rabbit hole of negative thoughts, you are less likely to act in a way that will improve your time around this person.

Now where meditation comes in is that it can actually help you solve problems at work in many ways, but especially by reducing anger. When your mind is not busy with heightened negative emotions it is easier to stay within integrity to what is best for you.

Another way that positive thinking is extremely beneficial is by understanding how your thoughts affect and create your reality. This is not only because repetitive thoughts form beliefs, but because of the way the law of attraction works.

Learn more about the law of attraction here!

Meditation and The Brain

At UCLA a study was conducted between 22 experienced meditators that had been meditating an average of 24 years and a control group of 22. Images were taken with a high-resolution three-dimensional form of MRI.

The study found much larger measurements of the cerebral, hippocampus, and increased grey matter within the right orbito-frontal cortex, the left inferior temporal lobe, and the right thamalus.

What is most fascinating is in the comparison of the controls to the experienced meditators there were no regions where the controls had a significantly larger volume or more gray matter than meditators.

This goes to show that meditation can actually rewire the brain to be larger and increase it’s functional capabilities.