What's meditation?
Training skilful mental states leads to beneficial outcomes in our lives
​​Meditation is our gym for the mind and a journey of seep personal discovery. Contrary to popular belief, it's not actually all about relaxing and giving our mind some time off, it's about actively training skilful mental states. By using specific techniques we cultivate these skilful mental states. These states are things like concentration, presence, kindness, dis-attachment and forgiveness. When we do this, it automatically leads to beneficial outcomes for us.
Meditation is also a journey of personal discovery. By safely examining our internal environment, and understanding ourselves more deeply, we relieve ourselves from things like stress, anxiety, depression, addiction and sleep problems. Just like going to the gym stimulates muscle growth, meditation cultivates skilful mental states and so conditions our mind to be better equiped to tackle the ins and outs of life.
Meditation is like a silver tortoise, it might not be as fast as a bullet, but if you give it a good shot it really can help you with almost any mental, emotional or physical ailment. It has an amazing way of meeting the practitioner where they require the help because it is a self directed practice. ​
Mental health Benefits
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Reduces stress and anxiety
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Improves focus and attention span
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Improves memory and recall
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Increases impulse control and control of addictive behaviours
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Encourages neuroplasticity
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Delays the onset and reduces the impacts of alsheizmers and dementia
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Enhances creativity and problem-solving
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Reduces rumination and overthinking
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Boosts clarity and productivity
Emotional health Benefits​
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Increases emotional resilience
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Enhances self-awareness and encourages personal growth.
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Boosts emotional intelligence and improves the ability to understand and regulate emotions.
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Promotes positive emotions like happiness and compassion
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Decreases negative thinking, depression and negative self-talk.
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Encourages forgiveness and letting go
Physical health Benefits​
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Lowers blood pressure
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Strengthens the immune system
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Reduces inflammation
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Improves digestion
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Enhances respiratory function
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Reduces chronic pain
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Promotes longevity
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Improves sleep quality and quantity
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Slows brain aging
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Reduce risk of cardiac disease
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Reduces stress hormone release into blood stream
There are hundreds of different “types” of meditation and you may have heard of some of the most common. These include mindfulness meditation, transcendental meditation, yoga nidra, vipassana meditation, guided meditations and visualisations. These meditation techniques vary tremendously in their outcomes and different forms of meditative practices are associated with different skilful mental states. While there are many similarities and while they mostly branch from the same evolutionary tree of meditation as a whole, different meditations will cultivate differing levels of calm, insight, compassion, wisdom and impact on our mental health. Again, think of the gym and how not all exercises are equal.
Perhaps most common of all in our western context are mindfulness meditations. These meditations focus our attention on aspects of reality that are based in the present moment. For example, our breath, bodily sensations, or our experience of awareness itself. The impact of these meditations are to make us more present, less tied up in thoughts that are based in either the future or the past. Thoughts like, “What if this happens?” and, “I shouldn’t have done it like that”. We all get caught in these thought patterns and struggle to come back to the present moment, which is where life is really happening. For a lot of our lives we are actually absent, stuck inside our own nagging little minds. By practicing mindfulness we train ourselves to come back to the present, time and time again. Amazingly, when we do this, the result is always greater understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy.
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Skilful Mental states​
Here are some examples of some skilful mental states, and what cultivation of them can lead to:​
Concentration Relaxation, calmness, stability and inner peace
Kindness Deeper relaxation and reduced anger
Presence Clarity and self-awareness
Compassion Empathy and the desire the relieve suffering
Letting Go Freedom from suffering, joy, liberation
Forgiveness Emotional healing and better relationships
Patience Inner peace and stress reduction
Equanimity​​​​​​ Balance and non-reactivity, impulse/addiction control
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Meditation and health
For decades now (in the west), meditation has been shown to help to benefit many aspects of health and well-being. Numerous scientific studies and peer-reviewed articles have shown that meditation, has significant benefits for us. Here are some examples:
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