Just one week of brief daily meditation has been found to produce significant improvements in attention, energy, and stress.
Simple Habit is aimed at helping people make mindfulness a part of their daily routine by offering a variety of 5-minute meditations personalized for all kinds of life situations. Here are six ways meditation can improve your personal and professional life that you may have not realized:
1. Decrease Stress
Stress has been linked to a wide range of medical problems, including hypertension, heart disease, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and gastrointestinal disorders. Luckily, studies have shown that those who practice mindfulness meditation display greater reductions in stress related symptoms, and report increases in their sense of control in their lives. For instance, mindfulness meditation can produce a 30% reduction in symptoms of stress among those with a serious illness. This is one of the most popular meditation topics on Simple Habit. Try Simple Habit’s 5 minute meditations called Reduce Stress.
2. Sleep Better
Insomnia is one of the most common sleep problems among adults. Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can help decrease how long it takes you to fall asleep and increase the amount of time you stay asleep. Getting adequate sleep is essential to your health, energy, and ability to tackle daily tasks. Simple Habit has an entire collection on meditations for sleeping better. Try Simple Habit’s 5 minute meditations called Sleep Better.
3. Focus Your Attention
Practicing mindfulness and meditation has repeatedly been shown to improve our ability to sustain attention. Meditation affects the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain involved in monitoring our focus and self-control. Even in high stress work environments, research shows that people who are trained in meditation are able to stay focused on a task longer. Try Simple Habit’s 5 minute meditations called Sharpen Focus.
4. Release Your Creativity
Mindfulness meditation practice does more than simply help you regulate your emotions and attention – it also can impact your thinking. Research has found a link between mindfulness and creativity, and can lead to improvements in problem-solving creative solutions as well as promote divergent thinking. The more a person continues to practice mindfulness meditation regularly, the less rigid their thinking becomes. Try Simple Habit’s 5 minute meditations called Before Work.
5. Improve Your Mood
Consistent practice of mindfulness meditation can also have a notable beneficial impact on our overall mood, including depression and anxiety. In fact, mindfulness and meditation-based programs have been found to lead to significant reductions in clinical levels of anxiety and depression across a range of conditions. Try Simple Habit’s 5 minute meditations called Find Happiness and Feeling Tired.
6. Strengthen Your Relationships
Learning to be more mindful doesn’t only have a positive impact on you – it can have a positive impact on your relationships too. Research has shown that increased mindfulness leads to significant improvements in marital quality, as well as work relationships and friendships, due to improvements in the identification, communication, and expression of emotions. In fact, people who meditate tend to display more empathy and non-judgmental acceptance toward each other. Try Simple Habit’s 5 minute meditations called Mindful Relationships and Relationships at Work.
*Bonus*
Make sure to check out Simple Habit to take your meditation to another level!
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