Christian Meditation; Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation
Studies over the past couple of decades have demonstrated that meditation does indeed impact almost every facet of your wellbeing. Mindfulness meditation.
Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation
Let’s talk about how to start meditation practice. First, you’re going to want to find a place where you feel at ease, and you’re relatively free of distraction.
This could be your bedroom. This can be a comfortable chair in your house. It can be out in your backyard or on a trail in a local park.
Once you find that place, you’re going to want to find something to focus your mind, and it could be one of three things.
Breath
First, that could be your breath. You can focus on the rise and fall of your abdomen as you breathe the temperature of the air as it enters and leaves your nose.
Mantra
You could also focus on a mantra, a word or phrase that you repeat throughout your meditation.
Sound
Finally, you can focus on a natural area around you that offers those sounds; there’s plenty of YouTube videos.
You can listen to and plug your headphones in, or you can look at the many meditations that have those sorts of things available.
Once you have your mind fixed on whatever that focal point is, you want to try to keep it there as long as you can start with just a couple minutes, even just two minutes to begin, extend to five or 10 minutes, and maybe as much as a half-hour.
If you feel comfortable as you sit there focusing on your breath or the mantra or the sounds around you, you’re going to find that your mind wanders.
The mind does all the time. When it does that, just gently redirect your brain back to your focal point.
That mantra of the sounds is your breath. Every time you redirect your Focus without judgment, don’t beat yourself up over it.
It’s going to happen. Every time you redirect your Focus back, your mind gets more robust and better at focusing.
I know your brain is not a muscle, but it acts like one in this way. The longer you practice meditation, the better you’re able to do it, the better you’re able to focus on what you’re asked to focus on.
Actual physical changes that happened in your brain as a result of meditation practice. After only eight weeks of meditating for about 30 minutes a day, participants in one study showed significant changes in the size of four regions of their brains.
Changes in brain
Three parts of the brain grew in size, becoming larger and thicker.
Prefrontal Cortex
First is the prefrontal cortex, which is located about where you’d expect in the front of your brain.
It’s responsible for planning for the future, making rational decisions, and making sure the rest of the brain works smoothly.
Hippocampus
The second part of the brain that grows in size, it’s the hippocampus. This part is responsible for forming new memories.
Finally, there’s a temporal, parietal junction located towards the back of the brain, and it’s responsible for taking in and dealing with all the sensory info that comes our way during the day.
It helps us make sense of where we are with our physical environment, and it helps us shift her attention between all the different things going on around us.
Magdala
One part of the brain actually shrunk a bit in size in the study. This part is the amygdala, and it’s responsible for the fear and worry responses to the fight and flight reaction to danger.
It’s great to have to work in Magdala, especially if there’s a physical threat; however, today’s modern world fight and the flight response may not be effective when dealing with working through an exam managing the responsibilities of a stressful job.
In those times, it’s better to have that prefrontal cortex running the show rather than the amygdala, hijacking things and getting in the way of clear, rational thought.
Having a slightly smaller Magdala in a world with more mental stressors and physical dangers is highly advantageous.
Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation
With all these changes in the brain’s physical structure come pretty radical changes as well in how the brain functions.
Increased Focus and concentration
Suppose you’re sitting there meditating for 30 minutes a day, focusing, concentrating on your breath, or the sounds around you or a mantra. In that case, you’re probably going to be better concentrating during other times of your day.
And that’s precisely what the studies show. Meditators have an easier time focusing on what’s going on in front of them than non-meditators.
Better Decision
Besides, the meditators also tend to have a faster reaction time, making decisions more quickly. This comes in handy while driving and at school or in the office as well as in athletics.
Efficient Mind
If you start meditating, you might find that your mind works more efficiently, that is, You can accomplish the same task throughout your day, but more quickly and using less mental energy.
That means if you spend 30 minutes in the morning meditating, the same task that you would usually have could be done more quickly and more efficiently.
And at the end of the day, when you come home, you have more energy for your hobbies, your family, and your friends.
Improves Memory
The final brain boost is from the hippocampus; the hippocampus is responsible for the memories. And as you might expect, meditators do have better memories than non-meditators.
Meditation Alleviates Depression
The brain is also responsible for controlling our emotions. Your thoughts and studies show that meditation is as effective as medication in depression and anxiety and alleviating those symptoms.
Reduces Fight/Flight Response
Another benefit of meditation is that smaller and Magdala meditators have a reduced fight and flight response and the stress and social anxiety that might come from that heightened fight and flight response.
Helps in Managing stress
Finally, meditators do better when it comes to managing stress. Stress is a benefit to us when it’s in small doses.
When life happens in stressful situations come our way, they can strengthen us, and they can help us to push ourselves forward and to grow.
However, when we have too much stress in our life, as you well know, from your own experience, it could be detrimental, and it can freeze us in our tracks.
Meditation helps us to manage your stress, helps us to know what bothers us, and helps us to be able to become our best Selves under any situation.
Being grateful
And with all that negative out of the way, we have room for more positive in our lives. When we meditate, we might notice and be grateful. Live in the present moment.
More and more meditators tend to appreciate the relationships in their lives and the people who impact them. They also have more compassion for themselves and others.
Loving Kindness Meditation/Spiritual Meditation
In loving-kindness, meditation the meditator wishes themselves health and peace and love and all sorts of positive things and then extend those wishes to family and friends to those whom they’re not at peace with into the world at large.
This practice has significant benefits in creating compassion for self and compassion for the world at large.
Both mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness, meditation helps the meditator to be more focused on the present moment and to let go of stress, which are both things that can keep us from being the hands and feet of Christ in our world.
And although there’s no research done on this particular aspect of the spiritual benefits of meditation, I firmly believe that we are more chain with the Holy Spirit inside of us through meditation, and we’re able to do the father’s will daily.
If you meditate, you might also get a crack at a longer and healthier life. The telomeres, which are the ends of our chromosomes, where we age but in meditators, that wearing processes, stabilized slow down.
Besides, long term meditators have the same density in their brains as younger non-meditators, so the usual reduction in brain density eyes interfered with meditation can give you a younger, healthier pain.
Meditation has many scientifically-backed benefits. However, there are some situations you should be aware of, depending on your current life circumstances.
When you begin to meditate, you may find that your mind is just completely overwhelmed by very painful memories that have surfaced.
Often, we distract ourselves from these painful memories of the past, and when we give ourselves a chance to sit and be with them, they come up to the surface, which could be a difficult experience.
On the other side of meditation is freedom from those painful memories that we’ve been holding onto that have been in the back of our minds and wearing on our hearts without us even realizing it.
Besides, it’s essential to keep in mind that we are all created differently and uniquely. And while meditation may work beautifully for one person, yoga or walks in nature or different meditation types might work better for another. It is important to be in tune with yourself, know yourself, and embrace whatever way God has designed you.
Meditation has numerous benefits from improved concentration and reaction time to a more efficient mind, healthier emotions, and slower aging; the most important benefit, at least to me, is the ability to have more compassion for myself and others, helping me to be a better follower of Christ.
Mindfulness Quotes for Work
- More happiness than wisdom, more peace than either.
- Success is a journey with no single path leading to completion.
- Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.
- We don’t know the point unless we reach it first and realize how far short we fell from it when we got there.
- Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
- Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the risk?
- The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
- We all have a plan until we get punched in the face.
- The road to success is always under construction
- If you want to be successful, find something you love to do and then make it profitable!
- Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.
- We don’t know the point unless we reach it first and realize how far short, we fell from it when we got there.
- Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.
- Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the risk?
- The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
Mindfulness Quotes for Work Stress
- We all have a plan until we get punched in the face.
- The road to success is always under construction.
- If you want to be successful, find something you love to do and then make it profitable!
- No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
- Art is never finished, only abandoned.
- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Everyone wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die!
- The thing that is impossible without effort, becomes possible with effort.
- Your job is to find out the hard way that you are capable of doing what it takes.
- Everyone has a price, no one has an “free” price!
- To be successful, you must have a plan and put in the effort to make it happen!
- Even if you have no idea what you are doing, chances are you are doing something right!
- People often say that the opinions of others are nothing but poisonous advice.
- The trick is in having a plan!
- It is always better to give than to receive!
- Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the risk?
- I am a student of life…never giving up!
- Success is a journey with no single path leading to completion.
- What we mostly learn in our school years is the second-hand knowledge that we had first handed down from our teachers.
- Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
- The road to success is always under construction!
- Be prepared and know what you are doing, then you can work hard and never take no for an answer!
- To be successful, you must believe that you are already successful!
Mindfulness Meditation Quotes
- “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
- “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” – Vince Lombardi
- “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
- “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Anonymous
- “The word ‘happiness’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” – Carl Jung
- “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” — Viktor Frankl
- “What we have to do is learn how to live together as brothers, or we will perish as fools.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Perhaps love can be defined as empathy or the desire to understand and share the sufferings of another person.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
- “A person with a vision can see a goal, even if there are steps missing.” – Nelson Mandela
- “I am convinced that our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. – Nelson Mandela
- “We are not human, we are spiritual beings having human experience – Sri Aurobindo
- “Think of all the things you love about yourself, and then think of all the people you love and who love you.” – Dalai Lama XIV
- “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Anonymous
Mindfulness Quotes for Anxiety
- “In our search for happiness we have denied ourselves many things, and in return have gained many things.” – Viktor Frankl
- “Life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous in order to win.” – Franz Kafka
- “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu
- “The mind is everything. What you think you become.” — Buddha
- “It is always useful to remember that the most important thing about any man is his thought.” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” – Woody Allen
- “Personal growth is not a matter of circumstance but of choice. It is up to you and not the environment.” – Deepak Chopra
- “We have to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell
- “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
- “When you set your goals, make them possible, not impossible.” – Robert H. Schuller
- “Happiness is not just the absence of pain but it is the ability to feel joy and satisfaction in life even in the face of suffering and change.” – Shantideva
- “I have learned that we are here to help one another as much as we can within the constraints of our own self-interests. This sounds a little selfish, but it is not. It is the only possible basis for a just society.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “We become what we repeatedly do.” – Dr. Anthony D’Angelo (from “The Secret”)
- “Be still and know that I am God.”– David
Mindfulness Quotes Rumi
- “When you say nothing, people think you are nothing.” — Rumi
- “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” — Oscar Wilde
- “We are all dancing on the surface of a vast ocean, but not one of us knows how deep the ocean goes.” – Lao Tzu
- “The road to success has been paved with failures.” – Anonymous
- “The most important thing is not what we have in our power, but what we do with what we have in our power.” — Viktor Frankl
- “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
Mindfulness Motivation Quotes
- “You cannot lead people to an unknown future. People must make their own future, and you can assist them with their creativity.” — Abraham Maslow
- “Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” — Rumi
- “If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you are stuck in the same spot and your life will stagnate.” — Brian Tracy
- “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Anything within the power to be done is worth doing.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “We don’t have to stand in other people’s way to prove we don’t like them. We don’t have to give them a hard time to prove we hate them. We don’t have to impress them in order to prove we’re unique. We don’t have to kill ourselves trying to be somebody in order to prove that we don’t need anybody.” – William Duval
Mindfulness and Creativity Quotes
- “You are not a role model. You are an inspiration.” — Rabbi Hillel
- “We always want to be doing something, we never want to be doing nothing.” — David Reed
- “When you finally know something, you really know it.” — Stephen Hawking
- “It is not enough to have a good mind and an open body; the soul must also have wings to fly away from itself, otherwise wisdom is just inane chatter.” – Albert Einstein
- “Don’t let the fear of striking out stop you from playing the game.” — Mark Twain
- “Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.” — Orson Scott Card
- “The question isn’t ‘can I do it?’ The question is ‘what’s stopping me?'” — Terry Ray
- “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin
- “There are two ways to do everything: the right way and the wrong way.” – Lao Tzu
- “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” – Brian Tracy
