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The Power of Meditation
What if there were something you could do daily that didn’t cost anything, wasn’t difficult to learn and required just 15 minutes a day, yet it made you calmer, smarter, healthier and maybe even happier? Meditation can offer all those benefits. And new research is showing that cultivating compassion and kindness through regular meditation actually changes your brain.
Various studies show that meditation that is focused on experiencing compassion may activate areas of the brain that increase a sense of well-being, as well as decrease levels of stress hormones that can lead to depression and other diseases. Over time, compassion meditation may help lead to lower, healthier heart rates and lower inflammatory responses to stress.
A new study from the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health found that college students who took two 8-week 90-minute sessions in mindfulness meditation dramatically lowered their stress and increased feelings of forgiveness.
Here’s how to get started meditating: Find a quiet, calm place where you can spend a few minutes — no more — at the start or end of the day. Make yourself comfortable in a seated position, placing a folded blanket or low pillow under your hips to raise them slightly. Next, tune into your breathing, and as you do, don’t worry if your mind wanders. Just keep drawing your mind back to your breath.
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