Meditation has been spread to every corner of the world. every day many people start practicing meditation to leverage life-changing benefits. However, with gaining popularity, it is also misunderstood and disbelieved intellectually, and many rumors and myths are circulated.
One myth is, meditation makes you emotionless. In this article, we will discuss this question, and I will share some scientific studies and research on how meditation affects our emotions.
Straight to your question, Does meditation make you emotionless? And the short answer to this question could be.
Meditation doesn’t make you emotionless. Instead, Meditation helps to settle down negative emotions and thoughts and enhances emotional health by promoting positive emotions such as kindness, love, and compassion. It aims to provide a deep state of relaxation, calmness, and a feeling of positivity.
In other words, you can also say that meditation helps to decrease stress, anger, depression, envy, and other negative emotions and promote love, kindness, compassion, and other positive emotions.
Meditation is like a washing machine that cleans the dirt of negative impressions and gives positive means to your body and mind.
You may now clear that meditation doesn’t leave you in an emotionless state where you can’t feel anything and become like a zombie. Rather it fills vitality and colors in you so that you can live a deep and meaningful life.
Knowing this doesn’t make any change in your life rather try to practice meditation regularly. You will be proud of accepting meditation when you bear the fruit of well-being.
So read this article till the end, and you will get all such information that you should know about meditation.
But remember, meditation doesn’t bestow these benefits instantly. it takes time and effort. Regular practice of meditation leads to many life-changing benefits.
There are ample researches and studies that show the positive effects of meditation on our body and mind.
Let me elaborate more and show you some scientific evidence on the benefits of meditation.
Meditation Reduces Negative Emotions
Nowadays, people are so busy with their hectic routine that stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and other sleep-related disorders have become very common in their life.
However, there are many studies that suggest that these problems can be treatable through the practice of meditation.
In some cases, meditation was accepted as a substitute treatment over conventional and alternative stress disorder problems.
Here are some scientific studies that suggest the consistent practice of meditation reduces negative emotions.
- Patients who were suffering from generalized anxiety disorder experienced, Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) could provide a beneficial effect on anxiety symptoms in GAD. (Source)
- A long-year observation of 47 chronic pain patients who likely become anxious and depressed due to pain inflammation showed a significant improvement in depression, anxiety, pain, and global impression of change.
- One study found that employees who used the mindfulness meditation app for 8-weeks experienced improved well-being and decreased anxiety and job strain compare to non-practitioners.
Meditation Promotes Emotional Health
Emotional health has the same importance as physical health, but most people don’t take it seriously.
In the race of developing a career and achieving goals, we often find feelings of depression, anxiety, and anger in unfavorable situations in life. By the way, life doesn’t run on our rules we have to manage ourselves according to changes in life.
However, if you are struggling to develop good emotional health, then meditation will definitely help you.
As I said, meditation helps to dominate positive emotions and thoughts over negative feelings and thoughts. The following scientific studies support this statement.
- The analysis of 22 studies showed that kindness-based meditation could increase compassion towards themselves and other people. It also improves social interaction and individuals’ well-being.
- 9-week compassion cultivation training (CCT) program showed that compassion could be cultivated through practicing meditation. The results expressed that participants experienced an improvement in these three domains self-compassion, compassion for others, and compassion from others.
- One interesting experiment wherein two groups meditators and non-meditators were asked to view positive images and negative images subsequently concluded that people who practiced meditation before viewing negative images experienced less negative thoughts than non-meditators. There was no difference while viewing positive images.
Thus, we can conclude that meditation doesn’t make you emotionless rather, it reduces the negative thoughts and emotions, but not reduces the positive emotions and thoughts. However, from the above studies, we have to confess that meditation enhances positivity too.
I think your myth is broken now, and you are ready to adopt meditation for your well-being. So I have listed two meditation techniques, especially for beginners.
Remember, you should practice meditation consistently to get the most out of it. The irregular practice wouldn’t lead you anywhere.
Meditation techniques for beginners
Guided meditation
It’s a simples form of meditation where you have to follow the instructions from the coach or in the form of recorded video or audio.
Any meditation technique can be practiced with guided instructions. These instructions maybe some kind of positive affirmations, visualization guide, mindful activity guide, or mantras.
There are some guided meditation apps and videos available on the internet. Choose any one of them with which you could ally most.
Guided meditation can be performed anywhere at any time. It requires only 5-15 minutes. You can do it in the early morning, in a few minutes of afternoon break, or before going to bed.
Steps to practice guided meditation
- Sit in a cross-legged meditation posture or on the chair with a spine erect and eyes closed
- Slowly take 5-6 deep breaths and rest your attention on your breath
- Now put on the headphone and play guided meditation
- Try to focus on audio and follow each instruction
In the beginning, your mind tends to wander away, but accept this wind nature of mind and bring it back each time without being frustrated.
Mindfulness meditation and mindfulness
When the mind is in the present moment without any judgments or interpretation, it is called “Mindfulness.”
Steps to practice mindfulness meditation
- Go to a silent place or less distracting environment
- Sit in a cross-legged meditation posture or on the chair with a spine erect and eyes closed
- Slowly take 5-6 deep breaths
- Then rest your attention on natural breathing, or you can feel the body sensations
In the beginning, your mind may wander crazily, but keep patience and follow your routine. Slowly you will start gaining control over your mind.
Thus, you can practice mindfulness throughout the day; it’s an exercise to pay attention to your present activity and doing things vigilantly.
For instance, you can be mindful while eating breakfast, waking on the street, driving a car, communicating with peers, doing the workout at the gym, taking a bath, etc.
Thus, being mindful throughout the day, you will notice increased self-awareness and productivity in your work with less negative thoughts and emotions.
Bottom line
Regular practice of meditation will not make you emotionless. Instead, it promotes positive emotions, which will make you a kind, happy, compassionate, and loveable person.
Also, meditation helps to overcome negative emotions and thoughts and gives clarity in life.
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