Meditation is one of the oldest forms of exercise that was grown in the lands of India. Practiced by our ancestors, recognized experts of various fields, gurus & yogi as well as celebrities for centuries, has unfortunately failed to create space in our regular routines.
Meditation is imperative in the current times more than ever. Meditation is considered a type of mind-body complementary medicine as it is able to produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. Meditation infuses focus in your attention and eliminates the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process may result in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.
Understanding its magical power catered to every individual, meditation is gaining popularity all over the world. There are major organizations such as Nike & Apple that are making Meditation a part of their processes to enhance the productivity of their employees. Even personalities involved in different professions such as businessmen, athletes and artists have incorporated meditation as a part of their routine to bring focus to their work resulting in a better outcome such as the better ability of thinking, calmness, efficiency, stress reduction and much more.
Interestingly, meditation is an all-rounder that lays positive impacts on every aspect of an individual’s life such as emotional wellbeing, positive thinking, curing illness, boosting creativity, battling depression and many more.
Thus, males, always burdened with responsibilities, personal and professional duties and society & peer pressure have several advantages to gain from the regular practice of meditation. Let us put some light on the benefits of meditation in the lives of men.
Better understanding of emotions
Men are particularly condemned with a stigma of being emotionally unavailable from their parents, spouse, kids, and colleagues. Nonetheless, the regular practice of meditation is proven to boost social behavior and awareness. Highlighted by a 2012 California University, San Francisco study, an 8-week regular meditation practice improved the social behavior and emotional awareness of 82 teachers aged between 25 years and 60 years.
Men that feel constant anger majorly originate from not being able to express themselves and unable to put emotions into words, however, the powerful effect of meditation helps men to uncover as well as delve deeper into several of these ‘stuck’ emotions.
By eventually confronting these emotions, men can establish mindfulness and awareness. Meditation opens up a space between these emotions and their power to control them. With time invested in practicing meditation, men begin to perceive them as they subsequently come up. However, their reaction to them will be somewhat new and different from how they are generally accustomed to. In the end, men can effectively break free from several of your habitual patterns which should not otherwise control them.
Diminishes work-related pressure
Whatever the gender may be, the pressure laid on them is not less whether it is with regards to the work performance, income security, family’s safety or creating a reputable space in the society. Men are suppressed in all of them that leads to stress, eventually making them suffer from various physical & mental health issues such as heart strokes, high BP, insomnia, obesity, tumors, etc.
Meditation is scientifically proven to reduce stress in men by giving them a calmer place in their minds at the time of practice. A deeper place in the meditation evades all tensions, stress and day-to-day pressure finally giving them a sense of relief at the time of practice and setting the mood for the entire day.
Interestingly, meditation accelerates the body’s anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which facilitates decision making and attention allocation. This subsequently alleviates stress levels in men who practice meditation.
Evades social comparison pressure
Like women, men also face an inevitable social comparison thrown from the society via different channels such as social media, get-to-gathers, office meetings, relative’s comparison etc that transforms into depression and lower self-esteem. They tend to be put under pressure by parents, bosses, relatives, spouses and even kids on some or other topics related to finances, outlook, kind of jobs, treatment towards kids and so on & so forth.
Even in the age where social media is a fake face that only depicts the happy and extraordinary life of everyone, puts other men into a deep comparison process of what they lack in their lives. This gives them a constant pressure to earn more than before, build something grand every time, purchase a luxury car or go on an international holiday.
Undoubtedly, practicing meditation can put these emotions at bay by overcoming the evil feeling of comparison. Meditation gives a feeling of content and fullness, helps you live and appreciate the present life and subsequently focuses on the values that matter most to you. In fact, the findings by a Wisconsin-Madison University study indicate that meditation triggers the sections of our brains that are responsible for compassion. This consequently makes the meditation practitioner both more considerate and relatively less susceptible to typical adverse effects associated with social comparisons.