Being Mindful with Meditation

Being Mindful with Meditation

Lisa Kozakowski, Wellness & Patient Care Coordinator

What is your New Year’s resolution this year?  Is it to lose weight?  Become more physically fit and stay committed to a workout regime?  Be more fiscally responsible?  Be more attentive to the needs of your family, friends and loved ones?  Did you know that you can do all of this and jumpstart your life by starting meditation?  Kick off the New Year off with less stress, anxiety, pain and more focus on the important things by learning to focus your attention.  Meditation is a time-honored activity that has been effective in improving concentration, maintaining balance in your life, reducing stress, anxiety and pain and even aiding weight loss goals!

Improve your work performance by taking up daily meditation.  Meditation is beneficial for increasing concentration and cognitive ability.  Studies have shown that four days of meditating twenty minutes a day may increase your cognitive skills and your ability to recall information.  Meditation allows you to exercise your brain just as you might exercise your muscles.  Even by simply focusing on breathing, you may boost your concentration skills by learning how to let simple distractions go and maintain focus on tasks at hand, in this case: breathing.  You can use this skill in your everyday life to provide attentive focus on whatever task is at hand, whether it is operating a jackhammer, analyzing market trends or keeping up with your children’s busy schedules.

Studies have shown that meditation can also help to reduce pain.  Compared to patients who did not participate in meditation practices, meditators were able to reduce the symptoms of their pain, increase their physical activity, have a more positive attitude and self-image and reduce psychological symptoms including anxiety and depression!  If something so simple can help improve our health so drastically why aren’t we all clamoring for meditation?

The most common protest we hear against meditation is that it takes too much time.  Well, of course it takes time!  You cannot hope to reap the benefits of anything without making a time commitment, even if it is only a small one.  Making the time to meditate can be as simple as waking up thirty minutes earlier, giving up one television program a day or simply taking twenty minutes of your lunch break to go sit quietly. 

Give yourself this opportunity to jump start the New Year and your life by adding just twenty minutes of meditation a day.   If you are interested in reducing stress in your life, please consider visiting Performance Spine and Sports Medicine of Newtown for a free Monday Meditation session.  These sessions will be held weekly on Mondays, at 12noon-drop ins are welcome!   If Mondays are not convenient for you, you also have the option to schedule a free Wellness Consultation to find out about the services that we have to offer to help you reach your goals this year!  LKozakowski@njspineandsports.net