One of the most common advice you are likely to get when feeling tense is “take a deep breath and relax.” And sure enough, doing so helps melt the tension in your muscles with all the worry vanishing. Whether you are feeling stressed, tense or worried, meditation can help you calm down and find your inner peace.

The good news is that meditation is simple and inexpensive since it requires no special equipment, making it affordable to anyone. Additionally, there is no specific place where you should do it – it can be at the comfort of your home, while waiting in a queue, sitting in your office desk or while riding the bus. That’s not all, meditation has tons of benefits to offer when done in the right way.

It helps Improve Emotional Wellbeing

When meditating, you eliminate all your jumbled thoughts that cause worry and stress and focus your attention. Doing this helps clear information overload that happens on a daily basis resulting in stress. Once your mind is clear, you are able to;

• Increase your patience and permissiveness on stressful situations
• Become more aware of yourself
• Look stressful situations in a different perspective
• Fight negative thoughts and emotions
• Focus more on the present
• Broaden your creativity and imagination

It helps Fight Stress Caused Illnesses

Since meditation is all about calming your thoughts, it is very useful in easing medical conditions worsened by stress. Some scientific researches have shown that meditation can be used to fight;

• Heart conditions
• Insomnia
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Chronic pain
• Asthma
• High blood pressure
• Chronic headaches

However, it is always good to talk to your doctor before using meditation to cure the above conditions. There are some cases where meditating can worsen the condition instead of helping and your physician should advise accordingly.

It Increases Immunity

Studies have revealed that progressive muscle relaxation can boost immunity to cancer patients. One research, in particular, showed that meditating daily reduces the risk of recurrence breast cancer. Additionally, one month of muscle relaxation helps improves the natural killer cells in elderly people hence increase their resistance to tumors and viruses.

Increases Fertility

Stress is known to cause low sperm count and motility. Since meditation is all about fighting stress, it plays a great part in improving the male fertility. There are also studies that have shown that women are more likely to conceive when relaxed than when they are stressed.

It helps in Relieving Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Practicing meditation at least twice per day can help you reduce irritable bowel symptoms including bloating, constipation, and diarrhea.

There are several types of meditation that you can perform but all have the same goals. These include;

• Mantra meditation– in this type you prevent any distracting thoughts by silently repeating a calming thought, word or phrase.
• Guided meditation– this requires you form mental images of places or situations that help you relax. The method allows using more than one sense including smell, texture, sounds, and sights. Guided meditation is done under the guidance of a teacher.
• Qigong– this is part of traditional Chinese medicine and involves combining mediation with physical exercise, breathing, and relaxation.
• Yoga– this combines a series of postures with controlled breathing with the aim of calming the mind and promoting your body’s flexibility.
• Mindfulness meditation– this focuses on having an increased awareness of the current situation.

When done in the right way, meditation can help calm you from the daily stresses of life.