Meditation is an amazing, effective and accessible form of self-care. I’m not sure why everyone isn’t doing it. Seriously. It’s simple, easy-to-do and has an enormous impact on your body. It’s a powerful tool that can really improve your health. If you don’t believe me….try it! Stress is one of the biggest causes of illness, it affects all our systems and essentially makes the body start to ‘shut down’. Chronic stress actually causes part of the brain to ‘shrink’ over time and this affects our short-term memory and thought processing. Have you ever noticed that during moments of high stress you tend to forget names, words and dates? This is normal and happens to most of us. It is just one of the many ways that stress affects the body. The physical effects of stress show up fairly quickly in the form of frequent colds, flu, headache, fatigue, muscle tension, insomnia, and high blood pressure. Unfortunately this is when many people resort to pain-killers and sleeping pills…but they don’t think of meditation. Meditation truly is one of the best health remedies around. It has strong effects on the body physically and mentally. It’s like taking a multi-vitamin for the body and soul. Physically it helps: Lower blood pressure Reduce pain Improve sleep Increase energy Strengthen the immune system Mentally it helps: Improve memory and concentration Reduce anxiety and depression Improve mood Reduce stress Increase creativity There are so many benefits from such a simple practice and it’s accessible to everyone; it doesn’t require fancy athletic gear, going to the gym or taking expensive supplements. It’s so simple yet one...
