"See, when you meditate, you put your guard down, let energy in, and get yourself out of a stressful self-defense mode, says Sonia Choquette, a meditation teacher with more than 35 years of experience. “It’s pressing a pause button and giving yourself room to breathe,” she says. “And when you have room to breathe, you access your greater potential and your greater state of being."

Here are the top 10 reasons you should start a meditation practice today: 

1. Increase Self Awareness

Meditation gives you clarity on your thoughts, your inner desires and increased self-awareness. The thoughts include those you actively engage in and those you are not conscious of but are always there. An average unmeditated mind usually picks up only about a few out of thousands of thought strands that float through the mind in an hour. A meditated mind, on the other hand, picks up considerably more.

The more you meditate, the more self-aware you become. You become more conscious of what you think, the way you think, what you feel and what you want. This clarity is important in your decision making processes and in leading your life. Without such clarity, you become easily swayed by different external factors around you.

2.Brings you back to the Present

Meditation helps you get grounded. When you are grounded, you are more present to your reality. You stop getting caught up on what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. People who are not present are often bogged down by many other things on their mind. They are too busy handling the thoughts in their brain to function in their full capacity in their present moment.

With meditation, you begin to live fully in the present moment. This lets you react better to the situations around you. It includes being more focused, efficient, attentive and receptive. You maximize every moment of your living life by living in the present moment.

3. Cures Insomnia: YAY, no more counting sheep!

One of the key reasons for insomnia is the bombardment of thoughts in your mind which result in anxiety, stress and depression. Meditation clears out the clutter in your mind, which lets you slip easily into sleep. When you sleep, your mind is sorting out your mental clutter. Meditating before you sleep removes the clutter and sets your mind for a more peaceful rest.

If there is a huge barrage of clutter in your mind, it will take a longer period of meditation to cure your insomnia. Just keep up with the regular meditation and you will find an improvement in your situation.

4. Can Reduce pain

Ever heard of the saying "Pain is all in the mind".  Ever get a paper cut that doesn't hurt until you look at it and acknowledge it? 

"A new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found mindfulness meditation reduces emotional pain by 44% and pain intensity by 27%."

A typical meditation involves focusing on different parts of the body and simply observing with the mind’s eye what you find. This allows you to see your mind and body in action, to observe painful sensations as they arise, and to let go of struggling with them. When you do this, something remarkable happens: your suffering begins to melt away of its own accord.

Recently, we’ve also gotten a look at how the brain might be involved. When researchers had people participate in four days of mindfulness-based training, participants reported less pain intensity and unpleasantness. What’s more, MRIs showed reductions in pain-induced cerebral blood flow during meditation sessions.

5. Boost memory

If your desktop is wallpapered with sticky note reminders and you often find your mind jumping from thought to thought, you may want to turn to meditation. It’s been shown to not only improve memory but to help cut back on distracting thoughts .

6. Tone down your temper

Feeling your blood boil on the regular is undoubtedly bad for your health. So don’t get mad, get meditating! Research suggests that the good-for-you-habit cuts back on anger and the tendency to dwell on angry episodes . And Korda agrees. “If you’re aware of your mind, body, and breath, you can calm yourself and step away from the initial reaction and begin to think of different ways to respond to the situation,” he says. “The more inner awareness you have, the less you’re going to be triggered by other people.

7. Rejuvenates You

All of us are essentially made up of energy. We have 7 energy centres, called chakras, where energy flows from. Sometimes, we experience energy blockages due to certain problems in our life, injuries in our body, etc. When you meditate, you clear these energy blockages, clean your chakras and facilitate the flow of energy around you. There are various visualization exercises which enable you to do that. After your meditation, you will find yourself rejuvenated and energized.

A room needs to be cleaned and cleared regularly to be in a conducive state. A computer operating system needs to be defragged regularly to keep it optimal. A table needs to be wiped often to remove the dust and dirt that’s piled on top of it. Likewise, you need to meditate daily to be in your prime condition.

8. Increase Productivity

It’s really needless to say; it has been scientifically proven that meditation provides immense benefits to our minds. Regular practice of meditation will increase your concentration power which leads to an increase in productivity. If you are meditating regularly, you will be able to do more work with in the same amount of time.

9. Beat Depression & Anxiety: Send Worries Packing!

Focusing on all the terrible things that might happen to us—but often don’t!—takes us away from the present, and causes our bodies a lot of stress.

Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, found that meditation could even help those with generalized anxiety disorder, a condition marked by hard-to-control worries, poor sleep, and irritability.

Research suggests that 30 minutes of meditation improves depression symptoms (along with anxiety and pain) . In fact, the practice could possibly prevent depression and pain altogether—scientists discovered that people who meditate may have more control over how their brains process and pay attention to negative sensations (like pain) and negative thoughts (like depression triggers).

10. Smile More: A Happy Pill, with No Side Effects

Meditation helps us gain awareness of our minds, so we can see negative thoughts and say “those thoughts are not me.” Becoming less identified with our emotions and thoughts helps those thoughts lose power.

A Harvard study found that mind-wandering, which often means drifting to these negative thoughts, was linked to unhappiness. And recently, Madhav Goyal, who led a study by Johns Hopkins researchers, said that for depression, “we found a roughly 10 to 20 percent improvement in depressive symptoms compared to the placebo groups. This is similar to the effects of antidepressants in similar populations.”

READY TO GIVE IT A TRY?

If it’s your first time, and you are unable to focus on your breath, don’t worry. Just try it again. It’s not so easy that you just close your eyes and meditate right away. Regular practice is necessary; if you lose your concentration, you must bring your attention back to your inhale and exhale until the meditation is over. In short, meditation is all about focus, concentration and attention.

If you are a newbie and are having trouble concentrating during meditation, I recommend going for guided meditation. Forever Blooming Yogi will be offering guided meditations Sunday Mornings and some weekday evening classes (check the site schedule for more details). Just follow the instruction and focus on your breathing. With regular practice, you will be able to start concentrating on and enjoying your meditation. Small sessions that combine pranayama and meditation can give the best results in terms of health and peace of mind.

NAMASTE!

Forever Blooming Yogi