_MG_1550aLet us count the ways!

First, a simple definition: Mindfulness is awareness of the moment without judgment or criticism. It is simply being, responding to life rather than reacting.

Unfortunately this awareness is not immediate, but takes time to cultivate through mindful meditation. What is so amazing is that the benefits of a daily practice of mindful meditation continue throughout the day, which means that every facet of your life become more mindful.

Although there are many ways that mindful meditation can change your life, Pathway to Mindfulness has picked a dozen of our favorites.

  1.  Pain management. John Kabot-Zinn, founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts in the ’70s to help patients in pain, those that traditional medicine failed. Since then, hundreds of studies have proven that mindful meditation will help people with chronic pain deal with their pain. It will not make the pain go away but people will be able to manage and accept their chronic pain and live their lives with more vitality.
  2. Lowers stress. Again, lots of research to back up that mindful meditation lowers stress. It makes participants not only feel less stressed, it also decrease levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
  3. Confident leaders. London researchers discovered that after 12-week meditation training programs, executives have significantly enhanced overall self-confidence, display a shared vision and demonstrate moral intelligence.
  4. Better grades. A recent study found that exposing school-aged kids to an audio-guided mindfulness program for just 10 minutes a day significantly increased their performance in reading and science. Another study found that college students trained in mindfulness performed better on the verbal reasoning section of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), in addition to improving their working memory.
  5. Reduces addiction relapse. A University of Washington study found that once people successfully complete a substance abuse treatment program, they were better able to understand what drives their cravings – and deal with the discomfort they create – when they practiced mindfulness mediation.
  6. Helps our troops. A recent study of soldiers discovered that mindfulness meditation, practiced before deployment to a combat zone, bolstered their attention. The researchers say these findings have implications for other workers who face daily danger and stress, such as firefighters, police officers and emergency room workers.
  7. Lowers teen depression. Studies link mindfulness meditation to less stress, anxiety and depression in teens.
  8. Weight loss. Mindful weight loss techniques teaches participants how to control their eating without dieting, learning lifetime techniques that keep their weight in check.
  9. Awareness of self. According to a Perspectives on Psychological Science study, the health benefits of mindfulness can be boiled down to four elements: body awareness, self-awareness, regulation of emotion and regulation of attention.
  10. Glorious sleep! Mindfulness helps us control our behaviors and emotions during the day and come night, our body calms, making for higher-quality sleep.
  11. Elderly feel less lonely. Researchers at the University of California found that mindfulness meditation helps decrease feelings of loneliness among the elderly and boosts their health by reducing the expression of genes linked with inflammation.
  12. Shoo colds! People who engage in mindful meditation not only miss fewer days of work because of respiratory infections, but also experience shorter duration and severity of symptoms, according to a University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Health study.