The Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation

The Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation

• People who are more mindful are less likely to experience psychological distress, including depression and anxiety. They are less neurotic, more extroverted and report greater well-being and life satisfaction.
• People who are more mindful have greater awareness, understanding and acceptance of their emotions, and recover from bad moods more quickly.
• People who are more mindful have less frequent negative thoughts and are more able to let them go when they arise.
• People who are more mindful have higher, more stable self-esteem that is less dependent on external factors.
• People who are more mindful enjoy more satisfying relationships, are better at communicating and are less troubled by relationship conflict, as well as less likely to think negatively of their partners as a result of conflict.
• Mindfulness is correlated with emotional intelligence, which itself has been associated with good social skills, ability to cooperate and ability to see another person’s perspective.
• People who are mindful are also less likely to react defensively or aggressively when they feel threatened. Mindfulness seems to increase self-awareness, and is associated with greater vitality.
• Being more mindful is linked with higher success in reaching academic and personal goals.
• Practicing meditation has repeatedly been shown to improve people’s attention, as well as improve job performance, productivity and satisfaction, and to enable better relationships with colleagues, resulting in a reduction of work-related stress.
• People who are mindful feel more in control of their behavior and are more able to override or change internal thoughts and feelings and resist acting on impulse.
• Meditation practices more generally have been shown to increase blood flow, reduce blood pressure and protect people at risk of developing hypertension; they have also been shown to reduce the risk of developing and dying from cardiovascular disease, and to reduce the severity of cardiovascular disease when it does arise.
• People who meditate have fewer hospital admissions for heart disease, cancer and infectious diseases, and visit their doctor half as often as people who don’t meditate.
• Mindfulness can reduce addictive behavior, and meditation practices generally have been found to help reduce use of illegal drugs, prescribed medication, alcohol and caffeine.