The modern era and its numerous technological advance carry many negative consequences for your body, and certainly your mind. The greatest enemy of man is certainly stress- which can cause numerous psychosomatic ailments. Luckily for us, in the fight against all of our accumulated stress, meditation can help...

Meditation is great technique that can help you learn how to control your mind and be in harmony with yourself. However, this is not its only advantage. Presently, we face a daily variety of stressful situations, and there is an increasing number of people who are seeking their peace of mind through meditation. 

Currently, meditation is almost as popular as the new fad of consuming detoxifying juices. These trends all point to the great discomfort that is deposited in us and that needs to be channeled in some way. Meditation in particular has been a mainstay amongst certain groups for centuries, and for good reason.

In addition to subjective experiences and views of the impact of meditation on the body, there are scientifically verifiable facts about the benefits of this ancient art:

1. Happiness
Meditation causes intense positive thoughts and emotions, and helps to cleanse the body of accumulated stress, depression and anxiety. The more you meditate, the less likely you are to be easily annoyed because meditation suspends certain nerve pathways that pertain to agitation. 

Our bodies react significantly to stressful stimuli that are activated in the medial prefrontal cortex, (a brain area that is involved in decision-making and regulation of emotional states) but in moments of fear and distress, we can more easily collect and react reasonably and coherently. Meditation allows us to find this same moment of clarity without fear or distress!

2. Health
It has been shown that frequent meditation also increases the production of antibodies in the body, improves the immune system and relieves pain, and it also helps to reduce inflammation at the cellular level. Scientist Herbert Benson’s research has shown that the occurrence of headache reduced by 35% amongst those who meditate regularly.

3. Self-control
Meditation teaches us to manage our emotions and this helps the body to deal with the harmful habits and dangerous addictions that arise from a lack of self-control. A recent study by scientists at Yale University came to the conclusion that among the respondents who participated in the project of “teaching techniques of self-control and control of attention”, which lasted four weeks, merely one week of meditation reduced the need to smoke by 90% amongst smokers, and 35% of respondents stopped smoking entirely.

4. Brain
Meditation prevents aging of the brain and improves memory skills due to the increase in the thickness of the cortex in the hippocampus that occurs during meditation. Also, the brain increases the amount of gray matter present within it during meditation, resulting in positive emotions, better concentration and amore stable emotional state.

5. Productivity
The benefits of meditation appear after a few meditation sessions in the form of better concentration. It helps you to develop the ability to perform multiple tasks at once, to stimulate creative skills, and it opens your mind to new forms of thinking. A survey from the magazine Psychological Science found that only two weeks of practicing meditation improves concentration and memory functions and could help eliminate distractions during test-taking.

6. Social

Meditation allows you to feel balanced and stable. You learn empathy, resulting in better relationships and a better social life. Research of the US National Institute of Public Health has shown that meditation increases the release of endorphins and thus increases the level of happiness and self-esteem. A renowned American research doctor who deals with the topic of meditation and its effects on the body, Dr. Madhav Goyal showed that meditation reduces symptoms of depression 10-20%, which roughly corresponds to the effect of antidepressants in a similar population.

By Tijana Milojevic