We hear about the benefits of meditation at least once a day, every day.  People have been meditating for hundreds / thousands of years so there must be something to it, right?

But just what is it and why should we spend the time to learn how to do it and then fit it into our already busy daily schedules.

To answer that question, in the easiest way possible, lets start by looking at how meditation works in your brain.

The three main things that I see that are beneficial are that meditation a) gets you out of fight / flight syndrome that is happening within your body and its systems, that you may not even have known about  b) it activates the DMPFC (the dorso medial prefrontal cortex) and c) it strengthens the connection between the insula, which is the empathy part of your brain and the DMPFC.

Ok now we need to know what the DMPFC actually is, to know why this is at all helpful to us. The main things to know about the DMPFC is that it is the part of your brain that processes information about how we perceive people – safe /unsafe, separate from us etc.,

Thought meditation, calming the fight & flight mode, strengthening compassion & empathy muscles for ourselves and others, it allows us to in turn, more correctly see & perceive ourselves, people and situations around us, so we feel more safe, more grounded and connected.   This in turn, also allows us to connection to ourselves internally to hear our own intuition which most likely has been turned off or at least dimmed.

Another great benefit of meditation is the more we practice, the less tolerance we have for actions & activities that are hurtful to ourselves and others. So perhaps meditation is a way you can help learn to treat yourself better?  Find more balance and harmony in your life – personally & professionally?

Obviously there is a tremendous amount of information on meditation, but in my mind, these few small pieces were enough to make me want to develop a strong, daily mediation practice.  And oh, by the way – 60 seconds is enough, you don’t have to meditate for hours…  Aren’t you at all curious now?