Meditation is a great way to relieve stress, relax, and get much needed “me time” in our busy lives. But did you know that meditation can also help improve your overall health? Over the past few decades, studies have shown that meditation benefits your heart in many ways. These include helping lower your blood pressure, decrease anxiety, improve depression, reduce inflammation, and even help you notice where your mind wanders so you can make healthier choices! So, if you’re looking for something new to try out this week at home to boost your mental well-being and physical health: consider adding meditation to your self-care routine.
Meditation is a tool for self-care and is a practice that helps you create space between you and your thoughts. It’s an opportunity to become more aware of yourself, both physically and emotionally. When you create this space, you allow your mind to receive new ideas and possibilities that may be ignored. We often get so caught up in our daily routines that we forget how important it is to take care of ourselves.
What is Meditation
Meditation is a personal experience, and there are countless ways to practice it. Don’t stress if you need to do it exactly right. You don’t need to follow a specific guide or teacher—figure out what works for you. The key is committing to the practice, which will take time as you get better at it. The goal is to clear your mind to be more mindful of what’s happening around you.
Make sure that whatever type of meditation you choose fits your lifestyle without disrupting it too much. Meditating might be difficult if your job requires a lot of mental focus because it requires clearing your mind and focusing on one thing.
Types of Meditation
There are many different types of meditation; some focus on breathing and relaxation, while others involve repeatedly repeating a word or phrase to clear the mind. Some people even practice mindfulness meditation by focusing their attention on their senses (such as hearing birds chirping outside). Throughout all these meditation methods, one thing remains constant: for them to work effectively, they require intense focus from the person practicing meditation so that they may be successful at clearing their minds from outside distractions.
When choosing the correct form of meditation for your needs, consider the following:
· Do you want to meditate alone or with others? Some prefer meditating alone because it’s less distracting than in a group setting. Others prefer meditating with others because it helps them focus on breathing and clears their minds more easily.
· How much time do you have to spend each day or week? If you are short on time and need something quick and easy to incorporate into your daily routine, try a guided meditation or mindfulness app.
Meditation vs Mindfulness
Meditation involves physical and mental stillness. The practice encourages quieting the mind so you can focus solely on your breath or a mantra (a word or phrase). It can also be used to clear your mind of thoughts that are unrelated to the present moment.
Mindfulness is a state of being in which you focus on the present moment without judgment or preconceived notions about what’s happening around you. It doesn’t require complete silence but rather allows for any sort of sounds—whether they’re pleasant or unpleasant—to come into your awareness without making them more important than they are at that moment in time.
How to Meditate
Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine recommends practicing the relaxation response twice a day, for 10 to 20 minutes, like other meditation experts recommend.
Here’s how to do it:
- Sit in a quiet place with your eyes closed.
- Relax your muscles and silently repeat a word, phrase, sound, or short prayer of your choosing over and over.
- When stray thoughts interfere (as they will), let them come and go and return to your word, phrase, or sound.
Benefits of Meditation
In addition to helping you relax, meditation has been linked with many other health benefits. Your heart is a vital organ, and meditation can help keep it healthy. There have been many studies on the benefits of meditation for your heart and cardiovascular system. Here are a few ways that meditation can improve your health:
Meditation can lower blood pressure. Several well-designed studies show that meditation can modestly lower blood pressure, according to an American Heart Association scientific statement published in the journal Hypertension.
Stress is one of the most common causes of high blood pressure. Still, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that practicing mindfulness has been shown to decrease stress and improve overall health in patients with chronic pain conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Stress also exacerbates asthma and autoimmune disorders and affects fertility.
Adults with elevated blood pressure who participated in a mindfulness behavior program for eight weeks had significantly lower blood pressure levels and greatly reduced sedentary time when evaluated at six months follow-up.
Meditation may improve depression symptoms. Meditation effectively alleviates symptoms among people who struggle with depression or anxiety because it allows them to focus inwardly instead of worrying about their physical surroundings or other outside stressors. This practice will enable you to sit with your thoughts and process them.
Researchers have discovered a connection between meditation and lower levels of stress hormones like cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone released by your body when you’re stressed. It helps you deal with emergencies but can also contribute to weight gain and high blood pressure if it stays in your system for too long.
People who meditate increase their rate of survival following a heart attack by 48 percent compared to those who don’t meditate after experiencing a heart attack. According to a study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, meditation improves blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and body mass index (BMI).
A new study on anxiety in JAMA Psychiatry shows a mindfulness program works as well as the popular anti-anxiety medication Lexapro. Mediation helps to calm anxiety, but studies are now showing that it can effectively manage stress.
The Link Between Mental Health and Heart Health
Chronic stress, depression, and anxiety are all connected to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. Mental health, and heart health are closely related. When stressed, our heart rate increases, our blood pressure rises, and our blood vessels constrict. These changes can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular problems. Mental health and heart disease share common risk factors, including depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders. People with mental health problems are more likely to have heart disease, and people with heart disease are more likely to have mental health problems. Anxiety can contribute to poor diet and exercise choices that raise blood pressure and cholesterol levels; it may also lead people to smoke or abuse drugs which further increase the risk of stroke or heart attack.
There is a link between improving your mental health and reducing your risk for heart disease. When you address feelings of sadness or hopelessness through effective treatment for depression or anxiety (whether it’s therapy, medication, or meditation), it can help improve your overall well-being by lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol levels in addition to making it easier for you to stick with healthy habits such as eating right and getting enough sleep each night.
Meditation can help people with heart disease reduce both their anxiety and depression.
A study published in the American Journal of Cardiology found that patients with heart disease who participated in an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program experienced a significant reduction in anxiety symptoms compared to those who didn’t.
Another study published in Psychosomatic Medicine found that participants who completed an eight-week course on mindfulness training displayed increased parasympathetic nervous system activity compared to those who didn’t receive the training.
Other Tips
Heart health is an essential part of overall wellness, so it’s important to take care of your heart. Many factors contribute to your risk for heart disease and stroke; some are under your control, and others you can’t do anything about. However, there are steps you can take to improve your heart health. Meditation and mental health are two fundamental practices, but there are others.
Exercise is a great way to improve your heart health, and it can help you avoid or delay cardiovascular disease and reduce the risk of other conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
Maintaining a healthy weight also helps to lower cardiovascular risk. To lower your blood pressure, keep your weight in check. This can be achieved by making healthy food choices and exercising regularly. While it may be difficult to change the habits of a lifetime, it’s essential for heart health that you do so.
Sleep is an essential part of our health because it allows our bodies to repair or restore themselves. It helps keep our moods balanced, improves memory and learning abilities, keeps our immune system strong, and helps control heart rate and blood pressure.
You can manage stress in healthy ways. Some people find that meditating helps them relax, while others prefer to exercise or socializing with friends. If you have trouble managing your stress, try one of these strategies and see if it works. It’s important to note that these tips aren’t just for people with heart disease. Managing your mental health is vital for everyone, especially those with a chronic condition like heart disease.
These health behaviors can lead to severe consequences: anxiety and depression often lead to unhealthy habits like smoking, drinking heavily, or overeating. Stress and anxiety can also trigger a heart attack in someone who has had one before or increases their risk of developing a stroke.
Conclusion
Improving heart health is possible when we take care of ourselves. We can all work towards having better hearts by eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, getting enough sleep, making time for relaxation and stress reduction, and more.
