What are the Benefits of Meditation?

Serene Swan

Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a tool for stress relief in today’s fast paced, stress filled, and information overloaded world.  The positive effects of meditation include physical and mental health, as well as emotional and spiritual well-being.  These benefits will be discussed in more detail in a later post “Meditation Benefits Body, Mind, and Spirit“,  but I wanted to elaborate on my personal number one reason for meditating: It reduces the number of negative thoughts in your brain! You have probably not heard this reason for meditating before and you may be thinking  “So what?” and “How is this useful?”

Most of us have a constant stream of unconscious negative thoughts inside our brain.  If you begin to pay attention, you will notice all the “I can’t’s”, “I’m not good enough’s”, and  “Why me’s” that dominate our thinking.  Dr. Cheri-Carter Scott, mother of the transformational life coaching movement has even coined a term for this state: Negaholism.  She describes it as a state in which people “…unconsciously limit their own innate abilities, convince themselves that they can’t have what they want, and sabotage their wishes, desires, and dreams”.

Our body, mind, and spirit are interconnected, and negative beliefs and thoughts have a negative effect on our entire system.  I recently came across a video clip that beautifully describes this phenomenon:

Our bodies are composed of sixty percent water.   If negative thoughts and words (both spoken and written) can have such a negative effect on water, consider what they can do to us!  Similarly, positive words and thoughts have a beneficial, healing effect on the mind-body system.

In his book, Living Enlightenment, Paramahamsa Nithyananda describes a small study he conducted on the benefits of meditation and spirituality in our lives.   A group of meditators and non-meditators were asked to record their thoughts without editing for just twenty minutes.  The results from the non-meditators showed that out of one hundred thoughts, only twenty percent were positive, and eighty percent were negative and directing them towards depression.  In contrast, the results from the meditators showed that sixty percent of their thoughts were positive and healing, and only forty percent negative.  Don’t you think it would be worthwhile to try to meditate and reduce the number of negative thoughts inside your brain?

We are all unlimited beings with inherent potential beyond our wildest dreams, and negative thought patterns constrict and limit our lives.  Meditation is a simple tool that anyone can learn.  It helps reduce the number of negative thoughts in our brain, and over time produces a more positive mental setup that positively impacts all areas of our lives.  Now that is a good reason to meditate!

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