by Conscious Reminder
Do we feel the need that we should start getting much better sleep? In fact, we are living in the technological and modern age, which has, in some ways, made our living more convenient but still filled with more food, entertainment, devices, and information.
There is simply more. That’s why we constantly find ourselves in our beds, with our eyes open and with difficulties to fall asleep.
Although many of our obligations and activities may be healthy and good, they could cause us more than several sleepless nights. Regardless of the causes, insomnia and sleeplessness may affect a lot of aspects of our everyday lives.
Yoga and meditation are the two practices which were shown to improve sleep successfully, not just the amount, but also the quality of sleep. They can really help us sleep. Also, we can perform these two practices in our own homes.
How yoga and meditation can make an enormous difference in our sleep?
Yoga and meditation were utilized to calm our bodies and minds for a long time, which naturally comes to improving the quality of our sleep. Consistency is definitely the key. In order to develop and change, the body-mind connection needs time.
However, regular efforts may bring us some excellent benefits, such as these five:
Stress management.
In fact, stress keeps a lot of people awake during the night. The so-called mindfulness meditation will encourage thought consciousness, which will help us learn how to accept, or even examine our negative thought, without dwelling on them.
It would be like being conscious of a significant meeting we have tomorrow, but our bodies and minds are entirely in the distressful moment. Yoga will incorporate our physical body in stress management.
Also, it will give us the chance to actually concentrate on stretching muscles and body movements while utilizing meditative breathing. Stress will usually manifest itself in body aches or tense muscles. Yoga will target those areas, at the same time bringing the stress levels down.
Improved pain tolerance.
Sometimes, our minds are strange and complex organs. One part of our pain perception actually lies in the anticipation of pain. In fact, meditation, focused on our present, will eliminate pain anticipation.
As a consequence of that, less anticipation will mean improved pain tolerance. In fact, that is great news, particularly for those people that suffer from some chronic conditions such as back pain or arthritis.
Less fatigue
Regular sessions of yoga may help in reducing fatigue too. The study, which was set up by the scientists from the Ohio State Universe, explored the impacts that yoga had on survivors of cancer.
When the fatigue levels between the groups which did some yoga, and the ones that did not were compared, it has been discovered that yoga importantly improved the levels of energy.
Taking into consideration that the cancer treatments often leave a lot of people feeling quite exhausted, it is impressive that this practice made such a huge difference. The participants even showed significant improvement when they spent long periods of practicing yoga every day.
Mood control and emotional stability.
Prolonged meditative practices may change our brain’s structure for much better. Those who meditate for a long time had a decreased amount of gray matter in the amygdala, which is our brain’s emotional center.
Those same practitioners also had a thickening of their prefrontal cortex, which is the brain’s area, which has the responsibility for executive functions and reasoning. As a consequence, meditation also gives reasoning and logic more control over our emotions.
For sleep and stress, this means that the emotions and events which are normally going to keep us awake during the night have a smaller effect on us, and we get much better sleep.
Less inflammation.
The study which we mentioned before even recorded a significant reduction in the inflammatory proteins. In fact, inflammation may cause pains, aches, and swelling, which may appear as a result of illness, stress, age, or injury.
We are going to feel better if we release inflammation, and we will have a better sleep for sure. Mindfulness meditation cut down the number of inflammatory proteins in our blood.
We can even double up the benefits if we use yoga techniques which are going to incorporate meditative breathing techniques.
Now, you can follow Conscious Reminder on INSTAGRAM!
∼If you like our article, give Conscious Reminder a thumbs up, and help us spread LOVE & LIGHT!∼
