8 Ways Meditation will Transform You

These past few weeks, I have had an injury on my wrist. I had to take some time off from blogging as well as work. Which left me with a lot of time to do the thing I enjoy the most: Reading! (You are probably rolling your eyes, but yes, I can connect any damn topic to reading!) One of the books that I am currently reading is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a book by Yuval Noah Harari.

While I was checking out Harari on Wikipedia (Yes, only reading books is not enough for me, I have to check out and read about the authors as well!), I came across this very interesting bit about him, ‘Harari says Vipassana meditation, which he began whilst in Oxford in 2000 has “transformed my life”. He practises for two hours every day (one hour at the start and end of his work day), every year undertakes a meditation retreat of 30 days or longer, in silence and with no books or social media and is an assistant meditation teacher. He also regards meditation as a way to research’.

And that got me thinking about meditation! I realised that it’s not just Harari who keeps talking about the merits of meditation. I am sure you guys keep reading about all these amazingly successful people, who have made it in life, talk about meditation at length. This one time, I once saw this interview of Lady Gaga (Have immense respect for her btw!) where she said the three things she does every day without fail is exercise, meditate and sing. The famous Youtuber Lilly Singh swears by meditation as a means to reconnect with herself. Arianna Huffington, the Greek-American author and businesswoman swears by meditation as one of the 12 tips for better sleep in her book, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time. Even the legend Steve Jobs had this to say about meditation in his biography ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson:

“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things- that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before.”

Steve Jobs, as told to Walter Isaacson

I am sure you must be reading this and wondering, ‘All of that is fine! I see all of these great people follow this practise of meditation, but I am just a regular person! How will this practise help me? And why exactly should I do this?’. Well, I am glad you ask.

I talked to you guys about how meditation is one of the Kickass Habits you should inculcate for leading a kickass life and building up your super awesome Life Résumé. My own tryst with meditation has not been that long, but practising it even for 15 mins on most days (Yes, I’m still struggling to do it every day), brings about a kind of clarity to my thoughts that nothing else has till today.

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1. Meditation Improves Grey Matter in Your Brain

A study at Harvard University conducted by Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and her team found that ‘long-term meditators have an increased amount of grey matter in the insula and sensory regions, the auditory and sensory cortex’. In the paper titled ‘Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness’, it is stated that “Our data indicate that regular practice of meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of cortical regions related to somatosensory, auditory, visual and interoceptive processing”. And it is the grey matter that can in turn influence your IQ levels. So why not make this wonderful practise a habit and get yourselves a smarter brain?

2. Meditation Makes Your Brain Younger

Another very interesting effect that meditation has on your mind is it makes your brain younger. Talking about the same study, Sara Lazar said here, “while most people see their cortexes shrink as they age, 50-year-old meditators in the study had the same amount of gray matter as those half their age.” So, in addition to improving your IQ, meditating regularly can combat the effects that ageing has on your brain. Some studies also suggest that meditating regularly can actually slow Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. So, go ahead and meditate! In addition to all those anti-ageing treatments you take for your skin, give some much-needed anti-ageing dose to your brain as well.

3. Meditation Reduces Stress, Anxiety and Improves Self-Esteem

If you’re someone who has read even a little about meditation, you would know that this is true. Time and again meditation has been cited as one of the most effective ways to reduce stress, deal with anxiety and improve self-esteem. Andy Puddicombe, the co-founder of Headspace, sums this up very tactfully here:

“Imagine experiencing a thought which says “I’m no good,” and believing it, taking it as something real and substantial and spending a good bit of time and effort in thinking and feeling rotten about it. Now imagine experiencing that same thought, knowing it is simply a passing thought, in no way identifying with it or using it to reinforce a storyline in the mind, and instead, letting it go. This is the potential of meditation.”

Andy Puddicombe

4. Meditation Helps You Tackle Goals Better

Imagine being able to approach your goals and missions with a very clear mind, crisp thought process and a sharp focus. Wouldn’t you be able to work on your goals better? Be it work-related, personal development or physical fitness, having an awareness and clarity of what you want to achieve and being able to pull your mind away from distractions are two very crucial aspects of achieving goals. And meditating regularly can help you sharpen your axe on both of these fronts.

5. Meditation Helps You Control Your Addiction

A number of studies have shown that meditation can improve a person’s ability for self-control. As a result, it can be an excellent tool for controlling your addiction. For all of you who are struggling with any kind of addiction, be it drinking, smoking, compulsive eating, I urge you to watch this TED talk by Judson Brewer on how mindfulness can help you break a bad habit.

6. Meditation Helps You Sleep Better

We have already talked about how meditation can teach you to let go of thoughts. With our hectic lives and our busy schedules, more and more people today suffer from sleep disorders. According to a report published by the American Sleep Association in 2018, about 30% adults suffer from short term insomnia and 10% from chronic insomnia. And this is just one sleep disorder. With a regular practise of meditation, you can fall and stay asleep, improve your sleep quality and your sleep time. So even if you do not have any trouble falling asleep, you could definitely improve your sleep quality and duration.

7. Meditation Helps You Deal with People Better

When, as a person, you are calm, composed, and in touch with yourself, you are easier to deal with. Meditating regularly endows you with the ability to walk away from situations and avoid unnecessary conflicts. It also helps you choose what battles are worth fighting. Meditation bring in perspective all of those things that are important for you as a person and helps you identify things that are not so important.  

8. Meditation Helps You Deal with Grief

Be it losing a loved one to death, suffering from a chronic illness or even undergoing a break-up, grief is an inseparable part of life. Even if the people around you can empathise with the way you feel, no one can actually help you shoulder the burden of your grief and pain. Through meditation, you can become more aware of your experience and look towards your grief with a different perspective. The practise of meditation gives a certain level of stillness to your mind that can help you tackle your grief better.

And this is why you should all give meditation a shot. It does not matter if you have only 3 minutes or 40. It does not matter whether you just want to sit on your couch, close your eyes and pay attention to your breath or you want to enrol in a guided meditation program. What matters, is you take that small amount of time for yourself everyday and you give yourself that much-needed tender loving care. I promise you, this one practise will change your life and make you more aware and capable of working on your Life Résumé!

Let me know in your comments if you are a meditation practitioner and what sort of benefits have you experienced in your journey. Until then, keep learning, keep growing!

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Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash; Photo by Markus Siemens on Unsplash ;