The power of mindfulness meditation

Can I say too much about the benefits of meditation?  Of course.  But it's been quite while so I remind readers that meditation is really good for us. 

The claims are heady and supported by science.  So you can believe me when I say that regular mindfulness meditation improves cognition (so students, you'll get better grades), reduces the effects of stress on the body, helps us handles stress, reduces pain perception, improves focus, and helps us regulate our emotional responses.  Believe it or not, regular meditation practice measurably changes our brain within 8 weeks of daily practice.

Many people are familiar with the term mindfulness meditation but don't know what it is exactly.  We can define it as the act of paying attention with no judgement to one's experience in the moment.  And like a new food, we can't know what it is like until we try it.  And like a nutritious food, it is very good for us.

Getting started with mindfulness meditation takes just a few minutes.  That's the easy part.  Staying with it is difficult.  It's gets difficult because we think we are not doing it well, or not doing it properly.  It's hard.

Yes, it's hard but it's also easy.  It's gets easy when we are able to let go of our judgements about ourselves and how well or how badly we are meditating.  So we aim to simply allow the experience to be as it is.  And even experienced meditators tell you that they struggle with meditation. 

The point of meditation is not to do it well.  The point of meditation is to do it.

Here's a video that details an innovative mindfulness meditation program created for the students at York University in Canada called the Healthy Student Initiative.