5 Unexpected Health Benefits of Meditation

There are countless types of meditation – transcendental meditation, spiritual meditation, mindfulness meditation, movement meditation, and hundreds more. One thing they have in common is that they all have multiple health benefits, especially when practiced on a daily basis. 

Meditation is not just something people do for fun. Among many things, meditation has relaxation purposes that translate into tangible physical and mental health benefits. If you practice meditation every day, you will soon be able to reap the benefits of this seemingly small, sometimes effortless additional slot in your schedule and daily routine. Keep reading to learn about five of the hundreds of physical, emotional, and mental health benefits of daily meditation — all backed by science.  

Meditation’s Health Benefits:

1. Improved Immune Functioning

You would think that meditating every day would only have mental health benefits, but that is far from the case. Chronic stress, anxiety, and depression, bad circulation, and high blood pressure, high cortisol levels, heart rate, and respiratory rate are all detrimental to your health. Interestingly enough, daily or long-term meditation lowers each of these things with time and continued practice. 

A 2016 study that reviewed over 20 randomized controlled trials that included 1602 participants discovered that daily mindfulness meditation has the capacity to improve immune functioning; immune system activity shifts that have the potential to affect biological aging and disease were observed. In this way, meditation can build your immunity, helping your body fight off common colds or even more serious diseases. Additionally, stress causes lots of problems for the immune system; you might sometimes find yourself falling sick or experiencing digestive issues when you’re overwhelmed. When you remember that one important outcome of meditation is stress mitigation, it becomes clear how your immune system may improve as you meditate on a daily basis.

2. Better Management of and Decreased Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Meditation can essentially alter your brain chemistry in positive ways. One important example of this is decreased stress, anxiety, and depression – all of which are linked – in people who meditate daily. The number one reason for beginning meditation is stress relief, and meditation is proven to significantly lower cortisol, the stress hormone. This makes people happier due to being better equipped to deal with worrisome feelings in the long run.

Depression, for instance, is notoriously hard to treat, even with medication. It has been said that meditation might rival anti-depressants and that it would be quite beneficial to meditate alongside treatments or therapies being received. More studies need to be conducted, but researchers have found that meditation seems to alter the brain and the amygdala, which controls emotions, in a positive manner. However, meditation does, in fact, help you regulate your emotions. The daily stress relief acquired from routine meditation, in turn, lowers blood pressure, and thus better heart functioning occurs. All of this makes you a happier person overall, with significantly reduced negative emotions and much better control over them. 

3. Reduced Inflammation and/or Bloating

Daily meditation significantly reduces inflammation and bloating, ultimately helping with digestive issues like IBS and IBD. It can even help those with chronic, acute, or post-surgical pain. There have been numerous studies on how meditating daily has the pleasant effect of improving stress-related symptoms in general, of which IBS is a part. In fact, a 2017 study on the relationship between meditation and IBS pain management found that meditation has often been reported to improve patient satisfaction from IBS-induced pain.

Similarly, more studies on meditation and pain management need to be conducted, but a recent study from 2020 discovered that many meditation variations were associated with moderate pain improvements in the 6,404 participants studied. If daily meditation decreases inflammation and bloating, it is very likely to distract from and/or minimize physical and mental pain as well. Meditation can’t entirely alleviate pain, inflammation, and bloating, but a minimal amount is enough to improve your state of mind and overall wellbeing. 

4. Better Sleep

Meditating every day for long periods of time will eventually improve your sleep, which is not something that comes easily to many people. The stress relief induced by meditation diminishes tension, relaxing your body, and fights off anxious, existential thoughts that frequently cause insomnia. In fact, a 2014 study found that participants who meditated slept better, longer, and showed reduced insomnia severity, as opposed to the control group that didn’t meditate. 

In the long run, getting enough sleep has a myriad of positive effects on your health. It improves immune functioning, strengthens your heart against heart disease, improves your mood and mental health, prevents weight gain, sharpens the brain’s senses and reflexes, increases lifespans, and staves off cognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. If you have trouble sleeping and would like to reap the benefits of a good night’s rest, consider meditating daily. 

5. Enhanced Cognitive Performance

All of the benefits of meditation combine to improve your overall cognitive performance. Daily meditation increases mindfulness, attention span, mental alertness, and memory, significantly affecting cognitive functioning. Decreased stress, depression, and anxiety caused by daily meditation also improves cognitive functioning significantly – when your mind is clear, you perform better in all aspects of life, like during a test. 

There are thousands of studies on how meditation improves each of the aspects mentioned above. Increased attention span and improved memory preserve brain aging and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Short meditation breaks have even been proven to help school-aged kids – tons of studies have shown how short meditation and mindfulness sessions can spike creativity, empathy, self-control, concentration, positive self-expression, and significantly reduce stress. Being more present and introspective is good for the brain in the long run; you will find yourself a happier person overall and a better performer at work, at school, and in life. 

It’s clear that consistent meditation has plenty of long-term benefits. If the benefits listed above have piqued your interest or if you’ve been thinking of creating a daily practice, I’d love for you to join my meditation membership for free. Get started with 7 days of unlimited meditation and habit change techniques to help make this a habit that sticks. I can’t wait to see you inside!