When it comes to meditation practices, there are loads of variations and styles. Many of these variants have different purposes or are designed for practice at certain times of day or year. Regardless of their primary goals, each style of meditation is meant to result in a more focuses body, mind, and soul.
You may be thinking, “Okay, but what does this all have to do with me?” And the answer is simple. If you’re looking for direction, relief, or calm in your life, meditation has everything to do with you.
By adopting a practice of daily meditation, just 5 minutes each morning, you could see your life transform in a matter of weeks. By committing to morning meditation each day, you could walk into work, conversations, and adventures feeling more like the person you’ve always wanted to be.
Maybe you’re considering taking some time out of each day “to ponder” and to become more mindful, positive, and focused throughout your days. Morning meditation could be just the place to start.
For five major, life-changing ways that morning meditation leads to great days, read on!
1. It Gets You Out of Bed
Did you know that starting your day by checking your phone and hitting snooze is actually a major culprit in most “off” days? By rolling over and checking your phone, you’re placing your life’s stressors right in front of you first thing in the morning. By hitting snooze, you fall back into short, restless naps that actually leave you feeling more groggy!
By setting aside an extra 10 or 15 minutes for meditation each morning, by resolving to pop upright at the sound of the alarm and to ignore those smartphone notifications, you start your day in a natural, calm way.
Make a commitment to morning meditation, and you’ll find yourself getting up and out of bed. You’ll find yourself stepping into a peaceful, mindful morning that’ll stay with you all day long.
2. It Shuts off Auto-Pilot
With our busy lives, many of us tend to hop through our days from one train of thought to the next. But it shouldn’t be that way.
Instead of encouraging half-formed and unproductive thoughts like many of us are used to having throughout the days, morning meditation sets you on a path toward mindfulness. And, although many of us morning-loathers tend to float through the wee hours of the morning on total auto-pilot, morning meditation disallows this, too.
Meditation in the morning improves mindfulness throughout the day. By being mindful of your breaths and your body, you come to notice your mind’s habits. You come into tune with negative thought patterns and after a while, you’re able to control them naturally.
In everything we do, we should be mindful and purposeful. Morning meditation helps start us on the right foot toward this goal.
3. It Staves off Anxiety
Studies have shown that a consistent and intentional dedication to meditation can have a serious impact on lowering stress and anxiety. You wouldn’t skip out on your anxiety medication, so why skip out on morning meditation?
Although the direct relationship between meditation and stress isn’t totally understood, experts believe that meditation impacts the parasympathetic nervous system. The physiological effects of meditation are, often, slowed heart rate, slowed breathing, and better blood flow overall.
Combined with your mindfulness and attention to your body and the calmness around you, these physiological changes brought on by meditation lead to overall less-anxious days. Beginning the morning in good physical and mental health means more stability throughout your days!
4. It Invites Logical Thought
Remember those little notifications on your phone? And those dishes left in the sink? And that thing your co-worker said to you?
Throughout our days, a million little worries and responsibilities drag at our minds. Often, these little nagging thoughts clog up our minds, build anxiety, and prevent productiveness. With daily morning meditation, however, you can come to see the big picture more clearly and you’ll learn to shrug off the small stuff.
The simple act of being still, of asking our minds to calm and quiet, gives the opportunity for clearer perspectives to form. By being still in meditation, we’re able to see past our little daily problems, to be mindful of the things in life that really matter.
Morning meditation can allow for a balanced perspective that leaves us acting and thinking more logically. It can help us process more critically and with a better understanding of the big picture.
5. It Leads to Healthy Choices
Some studies present evidence that daily meditation can actually boost our physical health, in addition to our mental and emotional states. There’s evidence that meditation improves immune system function, and even regulates our metabolism!
Many professionals also agree that stress leads to overeating and consistently-high levels of hunger. As we’ve discussed, however, meditation reduces stress and thus, tends to leave practicers with more-patient bellies.
Beyond these physiological impacts that help us to make healthier choices, most meditators eventually find that the very purposeful mindfulness exercised during meditation itself actually carries through the rest of their days. It causes them to consider, critically, every decision they make: What to eat, what to drink, how to spend that free hour.
For body, mind, and soul alike, a dedication to morning meditation can be a powerful and health-inducing thing.
Want More Info on the Impact of Morning Meditation?
We don’t know about you, but we’re feeling more centered and calm just thinking about our morning meditation practice.
Meditation is an easy, healthy way to start every single day on the right foot and it doesn’t even matter if your days are tight on time. Just 5 or 10 minutes each morning could lead to a world of difference in all your days.
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