Can Meditation Help Me Lose Weight and Live a Healthier Life
- Griff
Healthier Choices For A Healthier You
It can’t be denied that the majority of meditation is usually a stationary activity. So how can sitting on the floor with our eyes closed help us lose weight?
Meditation can be an effective weight-loss strategy because of its effect on our decision making, and its the decisions we make that lead us to a healthy life.
The most common cause for weight gain can usually be boiled down to either eating too much or not exercising enough. Although these factors may be contradictory, they connected by one thing – the decision to make positive changes to our lives.
Exercising Power Over Our Unwanted Habits
The decision to say no that slice of Pizza, or the ability to motivate ourselves to go for a run when it’s raining all depends on the discipline we can exert over our thoughts.
If we were able to identify our desires for what they are, just a passing thought, then we are twice as likely to be able to prevent them to turning into unwanted behaviour.
Studies have shown [1] that mindfulness practice can aid us in identifying our automatic habits and cravings by helping us recognise how impermanent their hold on our attention actually are.
Self Esteem On Call, 24/7
We all want a bit more self-esteem, but at times it can seem like a vicious circle; We need self-esteem to motivate ourselves, but we also need the motivation to help us create self-esteem.
Research has shown that meditation can increase feelings of self-worth, [2] which can in turn start building the confidence we need to get the momentum going.
A huge perk to meditation is that it’s always available to us, twenty for seven. A bottomless well of self-esteem
Exercising More Than Just The Body
The term healthy normally conjures up the image of somebody sweating away in a gym. Without doubt, gyms are the perfect place to cultivate fitness and physical wellbeing, but sustaining a healthy lifestyle goes beyond just the running machine.
We all know that meditation is seen as a great way to improve our wellbeing, but studies have shown that it’s more than just contributing factor.
Not only can you expect to find tangible physical benefits like the reduction of blood pressure and stress, [3] mindfulness is being regarded as a positive impact on the very underpinning of a healthy lifestyle.
Let's Look Into That A Little Deeper
Our overall healthiness usually is associated with a few general qualities. Long-term bodily health, physical fitness, emotional stability and mental wellbeing.
Any drive to increase health is always worthy of admiration; however, focusing too much on one of these factors at the expense of another may cause our health to become imbalanced and incomplete.
The internal working of our mind is key in creating an environment of ubiquitous positivity around all aspects of health.
Beating addiction, reducing craving, preventing burnout; all these tasks are underpinned by one thing – keeping up motivation.
Motivation And Mindfulness
Meditation has been proven multiple times [4][5] to be able to develop will power and re-enforce the mindset to make repetitive everyday decisions that amount to a lifestyle change.
Being able to combat the desire of instant gratification, like sugar and procrastination for the sake of future advantages is the core principle when it comes to a healthy lifestyle.
Mindfulness practice teaches us how to do this by illustrating how temporary the thoughts that tempt us away from who we would like to be are. Conquering how we react to harmful desires, is the best step we can make to living a health positive focussed lifestyle.
And here’s for the science, take a look in full;
[1]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ [2]www.sciencedirect.com/ [3]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ [4]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ [5]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
