Have you considered adding a meditation practice to your healthy lifestyle? If you haven’t, you should. Meditation is becoming more mainstream and research proves that it’s an effective part of a balanced healthy lifestyle.
Image
Reduce stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety are detrimental to a healthy lifestyle. Meditation can reduce the impact of stress and anxiety in our day to day lives, by allowing the mind a quiet moment to break away from anxious thinking. Mayo Clinic also recommends meditation as a means of reducing stress for people that may suffer from illnesses or chronic conditions that may be exacerbated by stress.
Practice mindful eating. How often do you find that you ate too much without even realizing it was happening? For many of us, this happens often when we sit down and eat while distracted by our phones or televisions. Meditation is the practice of being mindful in our day to day activities, and mindfully eating may help ward off unwanted weight gain. Mindful eating is simply the practice of paying attention to what, when, and how much you eat and really focusing on the simple act of enjoying a meal. Researchers have found that being mindful when you eat reduces the urge to overeat and makes you more aware of the body’s cues that you’re full.
More focused workout. If you’ve ever noticed a high-performance athlete standing quietly before a game or an event, you may have wondered what’s going through his or her mind. It’s possibly a meditation practice. Meditating before a workout allows your mind to focus on the task at hand and maintain proper form or speed. A pre-workout meditation helps you to leave behind the stresses of home or work when you approach your workout and allows your mind to listen better to your body’s cues.
Better sleep. Better sleep is a critical component of any healthy lifestyle, but for some it’s difficult to fall asleep with a wandering or anxious mind. A brief meditation before bedtime quiets the mind and allows for faster, more restful sleep.
Maybe the best benefit of meditation is that the benefits continue long after your meditation has ended. Even ten minutes a day of meditation can lead to healthier lifestyle and a calmer, more focused approach to the rest of the day and night.
Curious about whether meditation should be a component of your healthy lifestyle? FitClub has a meditation class to get you started! Whether you’ve been meditating alone or just curious about starting your own meditation practice, check out FitClub’s meditation class and be sure to let us know in the comments what benefits you see!
