Have you ever wondered what it’s like to sit completely still and set your worries free? Well, that’s what practicing guided meditation is there for. Whether you want to practice it yourself or you are in the process of encouraging someone you know to try it out, there are several different benefits to share about guided meditation.
Here are 10 awesome benefits to guided meditation:
- Reduces stress
- Increases self-awareness
- Calms negative emotions
- Widens imagination
- Strengthens patience
- Helps to control anxiety
- Lengthens attention span
- Can help insomnia
- Improves physical health
- Assists in focusing more on the present
Guided meditation has grown in mainstream popularity in recent years because many people find it enhances and improves their lives. Read on to learn about guided meditation and its benefits.
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10 Awesome Benefits of Guided Meditation
The purpose of guided meditation is to allow yourself to achieve mental, emotional, and physical clarity, healing, and stress relief simply by having a narrator walk you through the positively changing neural pathways of your mind.
Provided below are the 10 awesome benefits of guided meditation. Each of the benefits is thoroughly explained for anyone who is wanting to practice.
Reduces Stress by Calming the Body
Due to our bodies’ natural stress response, having a moment of stress and worry come out of nowhere can lead to a prolonged state of agitation. With the practice of meditation, you may no longer have to deal with this feeling.
Meditation, whether before, during, or after a stressful moment, will set in motion the body’s relaxation response.
By restoring the body to a calm state, meditation assists the body in repairing itself by preventing new damage from the physical effects of stress.
Meditation quiets stress-inducing thoughts. This calms your body and mind and keeps your body’s stress response from triggering.
While meditation may not permanently stop this feeling of stress from ever resurfacing, it does help if done in the present moment and can reduce the amount of stress in future situations.
Increases Self-awareness
Some people may confuse self-consciousness and self-awareness or may not understand either of those at all; but, they actually go hand in hand.
Self-consciousness is the act of being aware of one’s body and one’s environment, while self-awareness is the recognition of that consciousness. Confusing, right?
Scientific American helps clarify it like this: “to be conscious is to think; to be aware is to realize that you ARE a thinking being.”
So, with the practice of guided meditation, you start to become more self-aware.
Participating in mindfulness and meditation techniques allows you to develop self-awareness and become present in your inner and outer experience.
Calms Negative Emotions
While meditation can’t stop all negative emotions from rising, it sure as heck helps; those who are mindful and practice meditation on a daily basis are less likely to deal with the intensity of negative emotions.
Meditation training may increase cognitive flexibility and produce positive effects on emotion-cognition interactions, according to Frontiers in Neuroscience.
Unfortunately, there hasn’t been enough research conducted to be able to give an exact answer on whether or not meditation can improve emotional responses. However, there ARE specific guided meditations out there that are meant to help handle difficult emotions.
Meditation does help with stress, depression, and anxiety, so it should aid with calming negative emotions, too.
No matter the circumstance, the time and patience put towards practicing meditation will still reward you with a more positive outlook on life. It’s up to you to make the change.
Widens Imagination and Creativity
Guided meditation can assist a lot whenever it comes to imagination and creativity.
The main reasoning behind closing your eyes and listening to a narrated meditation is to walk you through lively scenarios or imagine that positive beams of light are making their way through your body.
Guided meditation allows you to embrace all the words spoken and all the deep breaths inhaled and exhaled. You really do have to use your imagination when listening to guided meditations, or else you’re just listening to random words without putting the pieces together and feeling what they’re trying to say and show.
Again, there are guided meditations created specifically for those who are looking to widen their imagination and creativity skills.
Strengthens Patience
Guided meditations are a fantastic way to practice strengthening patience, as patience is needed in order to meditate.
If one practices meditation on a daily basis, they will naturally become more patient – or less impatient – because of it.
It’s not because they’re listening only to meditations for improving patience (which could/will help as well), but it’s because they’re taking the time to sit down with themselves and look deeper into their minds and souls.
According to Headspace, a popular app meant for practicing meditation, the most important aspect to remember throughout is that patience is not something we need to develop—instead, we need to learn how to let go of impatience.
When one feels that they need to try and “create” patience, it will lead to them feeling more stressed about the process and end up creating more impatience in their mind than there was before.
Helps to Control Anxiety
Anxiety is something that millions of people deal with on a daily basis, so if you’re reading this and wondering what anxiety even is, then you are an incredibly lucky person. (If you believe there is no such thing as luck, that article might just change your mind!) Anxiety is the persistent worry and fear about everyday situations, and it affects around 6.8 million adults in America.
Whether it be smoking, drug-taking, or alcohol, people are always trying to find ways to calm their anxieties. Unfortunately, these methods usually end up becoming unhealthy habits.
Guided meditation is a healthy way to overcome daily anxieties as it helps you learn to detach from anxious thoughts and take back control over your mind.
To achieve this, you must practice awareness, identify where the tension lies in your body, understand your thinking patterns, and learn to be comfortable dealing with difficult emotions.
Lengthens Attention Span
One of the biggest problems that people deal with nowadays is their attention span. Our attention spans have grown so short due to technology and social media. Where this may not be such a bad thing in some cases, it can be horrible in other cases, such as staying seated in a classroom or sitting through a conference meeting.
Practicing guided meditations on a daily basis can help sustain your attention for a much longer duration of time, as it teaches you to bounce back from distractions.
While practicing meditation, you have to close your eyes and pay close attention to the words that are being said. Sometimes, your mind will wander off and start thinking about something else, but you have to learn how to bring it back to meditation.
The same rule applies to the real world. When you’re working on something, and you get distracted by the ring of a phone, you have to learn how to bring the focus back to your work; otherwise, all the concentration you previously had will be lost. Guided meditation can benefit you this way.
Guided Meditation Can Help With Insomnia
Sleep is one of the most important things in life. Thousands of people deal with insomnia. Insomnia makes it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep and can dramatically decrease the quality of sleep people are getting.
Meditation can help bring about a reaction called the relaxation response, or the opposite of the stress response.
Meditation naturally increases melatonin levels in your brain to help with getting more restful sleep.
There are several guided meditations that you can listen to before bed to help you doze off without having to deal with the stressful thoughts that keep you awake.
Improves Physical Health
Not only does meditation do wonders for your mind, but it can also do wonders for your body!
Practicing meditation on a daily basis can actually improve blood circulation, lower heart rate, and help maintain a healthy heart.
Many studies have also indicated that practicing meditation may even lower blood pressure.
So, if you want to practice a healthier lifestyle overall, guided meditation is a really great way to go.
Helps You Focus More on the Present
Guided meditations are a great way to focus on the present moment. We’ve already learned that meditation can help reduce stress, meaning it helps reduce the worry and fear of future situations. Meditation can also help depression, which typically involves thoughts from the past.
Practicing meditation will help you focus more on the present just by being there and staying aware of your thoughts and actions in that moment. It helps you be aware of the present moment as long as you let go of the past and the future.
To practice only focusing on the moment, you have to take control of your mind. Focus more on the present, go ahead and turn your attention to these four things only:
- Sounds. Allow sounds, whether loud or subtle, to wash over you. Let go of the sounds that have already passed and be present to the sounds that arise in the present.
- Bodily sensations. Feel your arms, legs, fingers, feet, and shoulders as they rest. Let go of any tension you can feel. Feel your clothes against your skin. Pay close attention to how the sensations shift and change, letting go of them and being present to the ones that continue to rise.
- Thoughts. Allow your thoughts to come and go without getting caught up in certain ones or feeling that you have to act on them. Observe some thoughts, label them of how they make/made you feel, then let them go.
- Breathing. Your breaths may have started off fast and shallow, but notice how your breaths naturally become deeper and more regular as you relax.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Long Does it Take for Meditation to Work?
Meditation works whenever you allow it to. If you allow your mind to manifest the power of meditation, then it will work within minutes.
Realistically, with a daily practice of 10 to 20 minutes, positive results should begin to show in a matter of a few weeks to a couple of months.
Practicing meditation long-term will help bring about the changes in life that you desire. Keep in mind that frequent practice and perseverance are what really help your consciousness and awareness grow.
How Does Guided Meditation Help?
Meditation is the practice of bringing attention to the inner and outside world, attaining awareness of oneself to achieve a mind that is emotionally calm and remains in a stable state.
Guided meditation, one of the many forms of meditation, is when you are guided by a narrator to help relax the tension in your body and mind before being led through a voyage to a deep meditative state of being.
Your brain does not distinguish between a real event and an imagined event. Given that information, it is said that the experience you have with guided meditation is similar to that of having a real experience.
It has been proven through scientific research that meditation helps with creativity by increasing divergent thinking and enhancing problem-solving abilities.
Guided Meditation: Why You Should Give it a Try
I believe meditation of all sorts is something that all people should try. It really does have so many health benefits, both mental and physical, and even emotionally.
It allows you to connect with yourself on a deeper level. You can use the techniques you learn during meditation to connect with others on a deeper level as well.
You don’t need to have a special room meant for meditation. All you need is a conscious mind that isn’t afraid to dig deeper.
(Once you have mastered the art of guided meditation, you might be interested in all the benefits of yoga and meditation. Check out that article to understand why the two together are so beneficial to you!)
