Self-inquiry and related styles of meditation can help you to understand yourself better.According to research, some forms of meditation can teach you to recognize thoughts that may be harmful or self-defeating.

Enhancing Self-Awareness

Meditation can increase heart function. Meditation reduces blood pressure during the time you meditate and also over time. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890919">Meditation</a> appears to control blood pressure by relaxing the nerve signals that coordinate heart function.

Decreasing Blood Pressure

Practicing focused-attention meditation may build your attention span.<ul><li>Meditation may reverse patterns in the brain that contribute to mind-wandering, worrying and poor attention.</li><li>Studies found that four days of practicing meditation can increase attention span.</li></ul>

Lengthening Attention Spans

Meditation can reduce your perception of pain. Meditating patients showed increased activity in the areas of the brain that control pain.

Controlling Pain

According to some studies, meditation can help you relax and control your thoughts. It can reduce the time it takes to fall asleep.

Improves Sleep

Improvements in attention and clarity of thinking through meditation may help fight age-related memory loss and dementia.A review of 12 studies found that meditation increased attention, memory and mental quickness in older participants.

Reduce Age-Related Memory Loss

The mental discipline developed through meditation may help break dependencies.Research has shown that meditation may help people learn to redirect their attention and control their emotions and impulses.

Fighting Addictions

Some types of meditation can improve depression and help you maintain these benefits.<ul><li>Two studies of mindfulness meditation found decreased depression in over 4,600 adults.</li><li>One study found that participants experienced a long-term decrease in depression.</li></ul>

Promoting Emotional Health

Many styles of meditation can help reduce stress.<ul><li>In an eight-week study, a meditation style called "mindfulness meditation" reduced the inflammation response caused by stress.</li><li>Researchers have found that meditation may also improve symptoms of stress-related conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and fibromyalgia. </li></ul>

Reducing Stress

<ul><li>Focused-attention meditation: Concentrates attention on a single object, thought, sound or visualization. It emphasizes ridding your mind of attention and distraction. </li><li>Open-monitoring meditation: Encourages broadened awareness of all aspects of your environment, train of thought and sense of self.</li></ul>

Two Major Styles Of Meditation

Studies found that Metta, also known as loving-kindness meditation, increases peoples' compassion toward themselves and others.

Increasing positive feelings

Less stress leads to less anxiety.Regular meditation helps reduce anxiety and anxiety-related mental health issues like social anxiety, phobias and obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

Controlling Anxiety

The popularity of meditation is increasing as more people discover its benefits. Meditation is a habitual process of training your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts. You can use it to increase awareness of yourself and your surroundings. Many people think of it as a way to reduce stress and develop concentration.

Increasing positive feelings

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Loving-kindness meditation

Meditation increases compassion

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