Meditation is widely known as the ultimate relaxation technique. It consoles the mind, re-energises the body, and refills the spirit. While these benefits are great, in fact even life-changing, only a few people know that meditation is also a great beauty fix. Learn the amazing ways meditation affects your health and beauty by Freedom Chinese Medicine‘s Registered Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine from , Elaine Hickman.
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Relieves Stress
Stress is the leading cause of lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. When under chronic stress, your body may release stress hormones (e.g., cortisol) that consequently hasten metabolic processes, spike up blood sugar levels, disrupt the system’s salt-water balance, and elevate blood pressure outside the normal range. You end up mentally preoccupied and physically disadvantaged. With meditation, you release all negative thoughts and come out with a more sensible mind, de-stressed and ready to take on new challenges. You can even train your mind to calm down and respond accordingly when a future stressor comes your way.
Clears Up Skin Blemishes
The effects of stress can be far-reaching to include not only a host of diseases but also skin blemishes like acne, wrinkles, and dryness. Stress, suffice it to say, is easily a beauty burglar. Under stress, your blood vessels constrict, affecting your blood circulation and depriving your skin of nutrients and oxygen. Flare-ups (e.g., acne and eczema) thus easily occur. Again, with meditation, your body calms down as your mind does so. Eventually, your circulation improves and treats your skin problems easily, without spending. In fact, one study found that mindfulness expedites the healing of psoriatic lesions.
Freshens Your Look
Having a clear, blemish-free skin is one thing. Aiming for a fresh, dewy, healthy look is another. Not all fair skin is naturally rosy and glowing and one culprit to blame for dryness, inflammation, and the appearance of fine lines is stress. A study found that stress significantly affects water retention and skin cell regeneration.
Meditation helps bring back moisture, more so that it reprograms your mind to live healthily. It actually encourages pro-fitness and skin-enhancing behaviors like drinking water, sleeping more soundly, and even persisting in skincare routines. You achieve that rosy glow with less chemicals in your system.
Prevents Ageing
Most stores nowadays are filled with anti-ageing products, reflecting the market’s growing concern for the undesirable ageing-related changes. In a 2009 study, meditation was found to actually elongate telomeres, known as the protective caps of the body’s chromosomes that signal ageing. In another study, held in 2016, only a few practitioners of Zen meditation were discovered with short telomeres compared to the control group. This tells us that somehow, some way meditation does increase your lifespan.
Being able to manage stress and its concomitant diseases, meditation in a way also promotes longer life by preventing the onset or worsening of some medical conditions, including mental disorders.
Boosts Confidence
When your mind is relaxed, free from all unhealthy, self-damaging thoughts, you naturally feel more confident about yourself. This attitude spills over to your work productivity and social relationships. A research posted in the British Journal of Dermatology confirmed that meditative sessions do facilitate stress and transform negative thoughts. Another study, led by Stanford, the participants lowered their anxiety level and developed more positive attitudes towards their selves after only 2 months of consistent meditation.
Manages Pain
The readiest remedy to pain is pain reliever. While this solves the problem immediately, taking medicines regularly has side effects. Meditation, a natural practice, helps ease muscle tension and related pain in major muscle areas like around the jaw, forehead, lower back, neck, and shoulders. Relatedly, with less knotted muscles in the facial area, your skin is able to breathe and become suppler. It, therefore, not only manages pain but also enhances your facial muscles.
Given these health and beauty benefits, there is more reason for you to engage in meditation right away. Give yourself at least 10 minutes a day to breathe, calm your senses, and simply appreciate the art of being in the present. You’ll be amazed by how a brief period of mindfulness yields life-changing transformations.
