In the type of world we live in, it's hard to slow down.
There's always something to do, assignments that need to be turned in, emails you need to answer, people you need to help. And if you're not spending that free hour after your team meeting and before dinner at the gym, you must be lazy and have bad time management.
With the whirlwind of responsibilities, it's easy to get overwhelmed and forget about yourself. One of the best things you can do is practice mindfulness, specifically meditating. It sounds silly at first, but the benefits outweigh that.
1. It will help you fall asleep faster
I began meditating at night. There were no distractions and everything was quiet and dark so that felt like the right time to try. After meditating, I would notice that when I laid down to go to sleep I was pretty much already halfway there. For someone who thinks best at night and has to spend half an hour playing out scenes in my head before I can actually sleep, this was a blessing.
2. You learn control
With anxiety, I've found I have a very independent mind, one that will think about what it wants to think about, whether that's some things I'm trying to avoid to try and be happier or every possible outcome of every situation in my life. Meditating is pretty much practicing clearing your mind and that skill translates into everyday life. I focus better and don't have to waste time thinking about things I don't want to think about.
3. It promotes happiness
There are actually physical side effects that come from meditating. It's been found that activity in the left side of the prefrontal cortex, where positive emotions come from, increases and on the right where the negative are, activity decreases.
4. It gives you a better outlook on life
If you use guided meditations, especially to get started, you'll notice they have a pattern of the types of ideas they perpetuate. It's a lot of affirmations of worth and helping find strength in letting weight go and countless other things to make the person you live with forever, yourself, be more positive and ready to move forward. These ideas inevitably trickle into your mind every day without you realizing it.
5. Your memory will be improved
By training your mind when to turn off and on and to work on focus, you begin to not only control what it's doing but also better the behind the scenes work. You will start absorbing information better and remembering it better, something important as our attention spans are getting smaller as a whole.
I'll admit, it's not the easiest thing to do to set aside time to meditate. I have things to do and most of the time, I just want to curl up in bed with Netflix instead of spending the extra minutes on clearing my mind first. However, when I've needed to improve my happiness or regain control of myself, it's always come to the rescue. It's never too late to take care of yourself, no matter how much time you have to put towards it. Every little bit counts.
