PRO SERIES
Meditation is the practice of silencing the mind. It’s a way in which we can increase concentration and experience a moment of inner peace in an otherwise hectic outside world. It’s benefits can be felt from only a few minutes practice a day.
Here are just a few reasons to hop on the meditation bandwagon.
Better Memory
Meditation is proven to improve memory, being linked to rapid memory recall. Catherine Kerr’s study found that people who practiced mindful meditation were able to increase their productivity by adjusting the brain wave that screens out distractions faster than those that did not meditate. She also came to the conclusion that the ability to ignore distractions could explain “their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts.”
Better Concentration
Meditation focuses our attention on the breath drifting in and out of the body which in turn spills into our everyday life and helps improve our focus when we’re not meditating!
More Creativity
Researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands studied different types of meditation (focusedattention and open-monitoring mediation) to see if there was any improvement in creativity afterwards. The results showed that the group who practiced open-monitoring meditation, performed better on a task that asked them to come up with new ideas.
Less Stress
The more we meditate, the less stress and anxiety we experience. The medial prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain that processes information relating to ourselves and our experiences. When you experience a scary or upsetting sensation, it can trigger a strong reaction in the medial prefrontal cortex which induces anxiety.
When we meditate, we weaken this neural connection and in turn, we don’t react as strongly to sensations that might have once caused feelings of stress and anxiety and instead see things more rationally.
For more info, we highly recommend that you check out this great TED talk by Andy Puddicombe on ‘4 scientific studies on how meditation can affect your heart, brain and creativity’.