If meditation was a pill no-one would believe the advertising
Meditation isn’t magic or miracles. But the evidence of the benefits to be gained from regular meditation practice is nonetheless pretty eye-opening.
There are psychological benefits, such as:
Focus and Concentration: It’s well established that meditation enhances attention. We see changes in activity and structure in the brains of people who meditate in those areas responsible for attention.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3916
Stress: Stress is another area in which there is a lot of research on meditation. It shows mediation changes how stressed people feel and also that there are physical changes in the brains and the bodies of meditators related to the systems that control stress.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smi.1011
Productivity: Studies have shown meditation is effective in boosting productivity in the workplace, with some companies recording very significant increases in productivity after introducing meditation schemes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449168/
Anxiety: A randomised clinical trial has shown meditation can be as effective for anxiety disorders as commonly used SSRI medications.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2798510
Creativity: A study in the Netherlands showed a direct relation between meditation and creativity, with participants showing improvements in insight problem solving.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22483682/
Emotional regulation: Studies show that meditation improves people’s emotional regulation.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016643281830322X?via%3Dihub
Depression: Trials have shown meditation to be a promising treatment for depression, both in terms of reducing symptoms and in preventing relapse.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4383597/
Cognitive function: There has been promising research into the potential of meditation to slow age-related cognitive decline.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903052/
And there are also an array of physical benefits, such as:
Blood pressure: In the 1970s an American cardiologist named Herbert Benson established that regular meditation was effective in lowering blood pressure. This finding has been repeated many times in the decades since.
Cardiovascular system: In a study carried out in the USA, meditation was shown to have reduced the risk of death, heart attacks and strokes over a five year period by 48% (or by 66% in the most regular practitioners) amongst a group of men and women with coronary heart disease.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23149426/
Diabetes: The evidence we have to date shows that meditation could be broadly as effective in controlling type 2 diabetes as the medication metformin.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jicm.2022.0586
Sleep: Studies show meditation significantly improves people’s sleep quality.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30575050/
Systemic inflation: In 2017 a meta-analysis of 45 randomised controlled trials demonstrated that meditation significantly reduced the presence of the biomarkers for systemic inflammation that are associated with conditions like COPD, obesity and cancer.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949834123000351
Cellular Aging: Some studies have indicated that meditation can slow cellular aging. Some common illnesses are strongly associated with cellular aging.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5278216/
Immune system: Many studies have shown that meditation can support the immune system, helping to keep us from getting ill and also helping us to recover more quickly when we do.
https://davidvago.bwh.harvard.edu/why-mindfulness-can-help-the-immune-system/
Pain: In many studies meditation has been demonstrated to significantly reduce pain in experimental and clinical settings.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4941786/
Ask yourself: if someone marketed a pill that had all these benefits, would you take it?