Can meditation make you more mentally balanced? Yes! Life comes at us at breakneck speed. We are overwhelmed with sensory input, and modern lives are chronically busy and hectic.
Finding the mental energy to focus on anything is increasingly difficult. Often, it seems like our lives are
spiralling out of control and it’s easy to sink into depression, or suffer from anxiety, because of that lack of control and balance.
A daily meditation practice helps put things into perspective and balance your life. Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School conducted a study that showed a shift in activity in the brain during meditation.
Meditation decreases activity in the stress-prone right frontal cortex and increases activity in the calm, relaxed left frontal cortex. This shift produces feelings of well-being among meditators.
Meditation also increases the capacity of the brain’s different areas to communicate with each other, meaning faster processing of thoughts and greater access to the brain’s memory banks.
In terms of balancing your mind, meditation has been shown to increase communication between the right and left hemispheres. People report greater calm and an ability to tap into intuition as well as an ability to creatively, rationally solve complex, emotionally-charged problems.
A reduction in stress means less overwhelm and a different perspective - one where a person feels more capable of managing their life.
Mastery of the mind brings great calm and inner peace, and increases self-confidence - just knowing that you are in control, and not at the mercy of your emotions, empowers you to make more rational decisions.
Problems and situations seem less important and overwhelming than they did; this doesn’t mean problems go away, but when you have a greater capacity to solve them, their scope decreases.
Meditation helps us recognize what is truly meaningful in our lives, and what we can let go. It also helps balance our moods when we realize that emotions are controllable - we do not have to automatically react to the person in front of us causing the traffic jam; we can choose different emotions such as compassion (maybe he’s having a hard time with something can can’t concentrate on driving).
Meditation also helps us gain new insights and perspectives on situations, and live a more even-keeled life free from the tumultuous ups and downs of emotional swings.
Balancing the mind means gaining control over your emotions and thoughts, and allowing the mind to be in a relaxed yet alert state where you are calm yet ready for anything life throws at you. It means being ‘present’ in the moment, aware and fully experiencing the moment. In the moment is where you gain perspective on situations, and where you can center yourself, achieve inner peace and relax into the flow of life. Use meditation to achieve this balanced, harmonious state!
