Health is one of the basic needs of life. We may have a fantastic career and great relationships, but without health, we cannot enjoy these aspects of our lives. Having a healthy and strong body is a great blessing, and it is in our hands to build such health. Our daily lifestyle plays a vital role in shaping our health.
In the olden days, people lived healthy and robust without any special efforts till their 50’s and 60’s on average because they ate foods with fewer pesticides than now, their lifestyle had a lot of physical movement, and pollution was lesser than what it is today. Their lives are less hectic and more peaceful. But now, a modern man has many challenges like pesticide and chemicals loaded food everywhere, sedentary lifestyle, high levels of stress, etc. Because of these challenges in the current day, unless we consciously work for our health, there are high chances of getting lifestyle diseases even before we touch the 40’s.
So, its time for us to work for our health every day. We need to make conscious choices in food, exercise, and lifestyle. Many modern-day diseases have their origin in stress. As per research, 75% to 90% of visits to the doctor’s office is because of stress. So, we should consciously work to de-stress ourselves and build our ability to handle stress if staying healthy for a long time is our goal.
When we meditate regularly, our stress levels come down, and this brings several health benefits.
9 health benefits of meditation:
1. Delay or prevention of lifestyle diseases: – Many of the lifestyle diseases like diabetes, high BP, etc. can only be managed with modern medicine but cannot be cured. With time, they tend to cause many other complications like eye ailments, kidney ailments, etc., and make life challenging. So, it is better to prevent them or delay them for a happy and better life. Meditation helps greatly in achieving this.
2. Better sleep at night: Many people in the modern-day are suffering from insomnia due to high levels of stress. Not giving our body a good quality sleep during night-time will lead to many physical, emotional, and mental ailments. Meditation helps us de-stress regularly, and this leads to better sleep during night-time. A good night sleep gives us several benefits like delayed aging, repair and rejuvenation of body and mind, peace, strong body and mind etc.
3. Strong immunity – Coronavirus pandemic has taught us the importance of having a strong immunity. Having a strong immunity protects from infections and contagious diseases like flu, coronavirus etc. One major reason for low levels of immunity is stress. When we reduce our stress and lead a life with peace and joy, our immunity levels become higher.
4. High levels of energy: If we want to enjoy different phases of life, like parenting or achieving our goals or travelling, we should have high levels of energy and a strong body. Meditation, when supplemented with healthy and nutritious food, gives us high levels of energy and a healthy body, which helps us in living our life fully and passionately.
5. Better control over food cravings: Many of us make poor food choices like eating junk or unhealthy stuff even when we know it is unhealthy. We make these choices because we crave for them and are unable to resist them. When we are under stress, we tend to resort to emotional eating of junk foods. These poor food choices lead to digestion issues, obesity, lethargy, etc. When we regularly meditate, our cravings reduce. Our emotional eating also comes down, and we become conscious eaters. We automatically choose better and healthy foods without the inner struggle.
6. Youthfulness: Stress causes premature aging of our body. Meditation reduces the rate of aging in our body. It keeps our body and mind healthy and young.
7. Happy body: Our body is a complex machine performing many functions in a day like digestion, respiration, excretion, reproduction, etc. When we are under stress, all these functions are adversely impacted. When we meditate regularly, our stress levels come down, and due to this, all these functions of the body are well regulated. They are performed with ease and help us have a happy body which is light and joyful.
8. Healthy Lifestyle: Many of us want to lead a healthy lifestyle because this makes us healthy and happy. We want to exercise, eat healthy foods, sleep on time and wake up early, etc. What stops us from making this lifestyle a reality is our own lack of will power. When we meditate regularly, our will power becomes stronger, and this inner strength helps us lead a healthy lifestyle in spite of various temptations around us.
9. Improved fitness: Because of the numerous health benefits of meditation like stress relief, better control over food choices, inner strength to lead a healthy lifestyle, our fitness also improves in this journey. We are indirectly protected from obesity and the many issues due to obesity when we start meditating regularly.
These are the nine health benefits of meditation for health.
Health is wealth, and many of us realize the value of health only after it is lost. When we are healthy, we assume our body will stay like this forever, no matter how we lead our life. But this is not the reality. Stress and modern-day challenges deteriorate our health and cause many issues when we are not consciously working for our health. No amount of wealth can give back our health when it is badly lost.
We try following a healthy lifestyle when we fall sick, but during sickness, it is not possible to exercise or meditate. We cannot do much during sickness other than getting treated by doctors. Our health no more stays in our hands. So, we should take care of our health right when we are healthy. Prevention is better than cure. Let’s prevent lifestyle diseases by using meditation and healthy choices. Let’s stay happy, healthy, and strong.
Meditate and stay healthy!
