Is it possible to develop awareness and improve mindfulness through meditation? It is certainly possible and today we’re looking at how it can help.
The first perhaps most obvious benefit of meditation, is that it helps to develop your ability to focus your attention on the present moment. By focusing on your breath during meditation, you train your brain to pay attention to what’s happening in the right here and now. This is a skill that you can carry over to your daily life, helping you to be more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.
Meditation helps you cultivate awareness, allowing you to become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. The more you practice meditation and gain more confidence in it, you will learn to observe these experiences without judgment. This helps you to become more aware of your habitual thought patterns and emotional reactions, allowing you to make more conscious choices about how to respond to different situations.
All that sounds pretty calming already right? Well, there’s more, meditation has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, which can be major obstacles to mindfulness. When you’re feeling stressed or anxious, it’s hard to stay present in the moment. By reducing your stress levels through meditation, you’re better able to stay focused on the present.
Aside from the personal benefits, meditation can help you with your external relationships too, allowing you to regulate your emotions more effectively. When you’re more aware of your emotions, you can respond to them in a more thoughtful and intentional way. This can lead to more positive outcomes in your relationships and other areas of your life.
When it comes to mediation consistency is definitely key, you’re never going to be an expert after one or two tries or notice any big changes. Most experts recommend 10-15 minutes a day, in such an overstimulated world we’re living in, if nothing else just to get your mind to switch off from the hustle and bustle of every day life will make such a difference over time.