Meditation and Mindfulness: What You Need To Know
Meditation and mindfulness practices are typically regarded as low-risk activities. It is not possible to make definitive statements about the safety of these practices.
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What are meditation and mindfulness?
Meditation dates back thousands of years, and a number of meditative techniques originated in Eastern traditions. The term "meditation" refers to a variety of practices that emphasize the integration of mind and body and are used to soothe the mind and improve overall health. Some forms of meditation involve concentrating on a specific stimulus, such as breathing, a sound, a visual image, or a mantra, which is a repeated word or phrase. Mindfulness involves maintaining attention or awareness on the present moment without judgment.
Meditation and mindfulness programs may incorporate the practices with other activities. Mindfulness-based stress reduction, for instance, is a program that teaches mindful meditation, but also includes discussion sessions and other strategies to help individuals implement what they have learned to stressful situations. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy combines aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy with mindfulness practices.
Are meditation and mindfulness practices safe?
Meditation and mindfulness practices are typically regarded as low-risk activities. As a result, it is not possible to make definitive statements about the safety of these practices.
How popular are meditation and mindfulness?
Between 2012 and 2017, the percentage of U.S. adults who practiced mantra-based meditation, mindfulness meditation, or spiritual meditation tripled, from 4.1 percent to 14.4 percent, according to a survey conducted in 2017. The percentage increased from 0.6% in 2012 to 5.4% in 2017 among minors aged 4 to 17 years old.
Mindfulness programs in schools are becoming increasingly popular. These programs provide mindfulness training to assist students and teachers in managing tension and anxiety, resolving conflicts, controlling impulses, and enhancing resilience, memory, and focus. These programs employ a broad variety of mindfulness practices and training methodologies. Studies on the efficacy of school-based mindfulness programs have employed tiny sample sizes and varied in methodological quality.
Why do people practice mindfulness meditation?
In a survey conducted in the United States in 2012, 1,9% of 34,525 adults reported having practiced mindfulness meditation within the previous year. 73% of respondents who exclusively practiced mindfulness meditation reported that they did so for their general health and disease prevention, while the majority (approximately 92%) reported that they did so to unwind or reduce tension. More than half of the responses cited a desire for improved sleep as a motivation for practicing mindfulness meditation.
Also read: Benefits of Meditation
What are the health benefits of meditation and mindfulness?
Meditation and mindfulness practices may have a variety of health benefits and assist individuals in enhancing their quality of life. Recent research has examined whether meditation or mindfulness helps individuals manage anxiety, tension, melancholy, pain, or withdrawal symptoms from nicotine, alcohol, or opioids.
Other research has examined the effects of meditation and mindfulness on weight management and sleep quality.
The majority of the research on these topics, however, has been preliminary or lacks scientific rigor. The results of the studies have been difficult to analyze and may have been overly optimistically interpreted due to the numerous varieties of meditation and mindfulness practices examined in the studies and the difficulty of measuring their effects.
