8 benefits of meditation – Fuse it with your practice
The practice of meditation is gaining popularity all over the world and is often recommended as a way to help us cope with the chaos of our daily lives.
The benefits of meditation are becoming increasingly apparent and include:
- Improved immune function
- Decreased anxiety
- Stable blood pressure
- Better quality of sleep
- Reduced inflammation in the body
- Improved emotional stability
- Feeling grounded
- Greater mental clarity and connection to intuition
Meditation is a practice that helps us to silence the mind and connect to the stillness within. This practise can take many forms – drawing, writing, playing a musical instrument, following the breath, moving mindfully etc. Yoga offers many ways for us to move into this stillness:
- Physical asana, when practised with awareness, is a meditative practise that calms the nervous system and steadies the body and mind.
- Chanting mantra (japa yoga) involves chanting high vibration sanskrit mantras which brings a healing vibration to the body and mind in addition to offering focus, grounding and clarity.
- Focus on the breath/pranayama. Practices such as Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) calm and balance the nervous system and subtle body in addition to steadying the mind.
I’ll be giving a Moving Meditation workshop Sunday 17th January that will introduce the powerful practice of mantra meditation and integrate it into the physical practice. If you can’t make it, take some time out and try practicing at home: