Boost Your Mental Health Resolution This New Year With Meditation!
Key Takeaways
- Regular practice of meditation can promote your mental wellness this New Year
- Meditation also helps reduce stress and manage anxiety and depression better
- Sharper focus and improved confidence are also benefits of mental meditation
With 2021 coming to an end, it is time for you to ensure that in the new year, mental health is your priority. Among your other new year health resolutions, pledge to boost your mental wellbeing too. With the help of meditation, you can achieve your mental health resolution with ease. Meditation and mental health go hand in hand as the former always boosts the latter.
From improving your focus to enhancing your self-awareness, meditation is a great way to boost your mental health. Anyone can do meditation as it does not require any special qualifications. All you need to do is practice every day to make it a habit. Read on to know about the benefits of meditation and the different techniques you can try at home.
Benefits of Meditation for Mental Health
Reduces Stress
Meditation is known for its ability to reduce stress. When you feel tension, your stress hormones increase. This causes an inflammatory response with the release of chemicals like cytokines. Stress can also disrupt your sleep, increase your blood pressure, and cause other health issues. Practicing mindfulness meditation helps reduce this inflammatory response, as per a study [1].
Additional read: Stress Symptoms: Effects of Stress on Your Body
Controls Anxiety
When your stress levels go down, your anxiety levels decrease too. Transcendental meditation can really help those with high anxiety, as per a study [2]. Another study concluded that mindfulness meditation through an app also helped reduce work anxiety [3]. This research proves that taking some time to meditate everyday can work wonders in making you feel calmer.
Enhances Self-Awareness
Practicing meditation helps you have a stronger understanding of who you are. This helps you make better decisions, become better leaders and increases self-confidence. Meditation also helps you recognize negative thoughts. This way, you can turn them into constructive thoughts and cast out feelings of guilt or inadequacy.
Promotes Mental Wellness
Meditation and mental health go together because meditation helps improve your image of yourself. It also helps you get a positive outlook in life. As per a study, people practicing meditation experienced fewer negative thoughts and had improved mental health [4].
Helps Fight Addiction
Meditation helps discipline your mind by making you aware about your triggers. These triggers are what may be the key to beating addiction. So, meditation helps you improve self-control and break dependency on addictions to feel better. A study proved that those with alcohol use disorder were able to reduce cravings and alcohol abuse via daily transcendental meditation [5].
Improves Your Sleep
According to the worldwide research, nearly 10-50% of people have insomnia. Lack of sleep causes mental health issues like depression. According to a study, mindfulness meditation could be an effective insomnia treatment [6]. With it you can manage anxiety and depression too. Daily practice of meditation can thus help you redirect or control racing thoughts and get the rest you need.
Way to Meditate at Home
There is no right or wrong way to meditate, but it is essential to choose a technique that helps you meet all your goals. Some of the more common meditation techniques for mental wellness are:
Mindfulness Meditation
Originating from Buddhist teachings, this meditation is also known as mental meditation. It focuses on being in the present and aware of your thoughts. Vipassana meditation is one of the more population types of mindfulness meditations in India. It stresses on paying attention to your thoughts and not engaging with them. Just let your thoughts pass through your mind and make note of your patterns. This can be done by yourself and without any guidance. This meditation also help you manage anxiety and depression.
Additional read: 7 Effective Ways to Manage Anxiety and DepressionFocused Meditation
This technique help improve your focus as well as attention and uses any of your five senses. In this technique, you usually focus on something internal like your breath. You may even use external focus like an object or the sound of a gong. It may take some practice for you to hold your focus for longer than few minutes. If you do lose your focus, you can restart and refocus.
Transcendental Meditation
Use this technique to achieve a state of peace and calm by quieting your mind. It can help you feel more energetic, beat stress, and have a healthier heart. It is done with the help of a mantra and is best when taught by a certified professional. Due of the benefits of this meditation for mental health, it has also been subject of many studies.
Now that you know its benefits, take your mental health resolution seriously and start meditating. Other than this, you can eat healthy food for mental health resolution. Seafood, whole grains and berries can all boost your mental wellness. However, if you feel you have any symptoms of mental illness, get help without fail. You can book an appointment with the best therapists on Bajaj Finserv Health and even go for a mental health insurance. This way, you can give your mental health the attention it deserves.
Please note that this article is solely meant for informational purposes and Bajaj Finserv Health Limited (“BFHL”) does not shoulder any responsibility of the views/advice/information expressed/given by the writer/reviewer/originator. This article should not be considered as a substitute for any medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your trusted physician/qualified healthcare professional to evaluate your medical condition. The above article has been reviewed by a qualified doctor and BFHL is not responsible for any damages for any information or services provided by any third party.
