meditation

How Meditation Impacts Daily Life

by Nicole's Blog

How Meditation Impacts Daily Life

Stressors fill the world around us. When looking for a way to combat this, meditation is an often-overlooked solution even though its benefits have been studied in the Western World since at least the 1970s. Meditation is extremely beneficial for a person’s daily health. The surprising thing, however, is just how beneficial regular meditation really is. Meditation can be practiced a variety of ways, but however you choose to do it, meditation reduces stress, improves mental clarity, improves mood, aids in sleep, and increases a person’s ability to problem solve. When practiced regularly, it also helps to build focus, eliminate negative thoughts, and change perspectives.

Stress Reduction

Probably the best-known reason for trying meditation is a reduction of stress. While many people know that stress is not good for them, few know the real damage it can cause. High levels of stress can inhibit beneficial sleep patterns. It can lead to anxiety and depression. It can lead to increased blood pressure, as well as mental and physical fatigue. Regular meditation decreases the effects of stress. It also has the effect of lessening the symptoms of stress-related conditions. Improvements to symptoms like irritable bowel syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder can occur through regular meditation.

Help Decrease Anxiety

When reducing stress in life, there is a concurrent reduction in anxiety. This reduction can have numerous psychological benefits. For those that suffer from anxiety-related ailments like phobias and panic attacks, mediation offers substantial benefits. When combined with a physical movement such as yoga, the reduction in anxiety is considerable.

Can Lead to Better Self -Awareness

One of the central principals of all meditation is to listen to one’s self. The theory is that when this is done, people grow into the best version of themselves. A predisposition to harmful or negative thoughts improves with mediation. Meditation can help redirect these thoughts to a more beneficial state. Gaining awareness of chronic negative thoughts leads to better control of these thoughts. Accomplishing this on a regular basis leads to daily positive effects. This change in perception and attitude can positively impact relationships with others as well.

Become More Focused

Weightlifting builds muscle and continual mediation strengthens the mind. Performing meditation regularly increases the strength and focus of the mind. This change can lead to a mind that can focus more entirely on tasks at hand. It can improve mental functions like memory and attention span. Some theories suggest that meditation can even reverse mental patterns like worrying and wandering thoughts.

Combat Memory Loss

As people age, several systems in the body begin to deteriorate slowly. The many functions of the mind is no exception to this decline. A great deal of age-related decline comes from a lack of preventative care. Practicing meditation regularly can combat this decline by focusing the mind. This continual focusing through meditation can stem the tide of memory loss due to age.

The benefits of meditation go far beyond the mental. The mind and body are thoroughly connected. Improving mental function will lead to other physical improvements.

Insomnia

A common problem for many people is insomnia. Insomnia is often a side-effect of a mind filled with runaway thoughts. A calmer mind leads to less of this type of thinking. The added benefit of meditation is that it leads to a more relaxed body. Combining both factors can lead to deeper and better sleep.

Meditation can also help to control pain.

Pain is often a function of the mind’s perception of the physical body. A more controlled mind can control the thought of physical pain. Many palliative care practitioners are beginning to see the benefits of incorporating meditation into their treatment plans. This can be especially beneficial for those with chronic pain. Those that meditate learn to control all the thoughts of their mind. Mediation can mitigate and lessen regular pain over time.

The regular practice of mediation has benefits that can affect every part of the mind and body.The correlation between a more focused mind and physical, mental, and emotional benefits are hard to deny. Meditation leads to a calmer daily life and a more finely tuned mind and body. The best part of all of this is that even for beginners, regular meditation leads to almost immediate results.

 

Written by Charles Davenport for Senior Planning. Senior Planning is an eldercare planning agency, dedicated to helping seniors apply for benefits and find the care they need.

nicole-doherty-life-coaching

6 Coaching Tips to Create Happiness

by Nicole's Blog

I can say from direct experience in my own life and from working with so many life coaching clients, that these are the biggest obstacles to our happiness:

1) Being Overworked
2) Stress/Anxiety
3) Perceived Pressures (abstract & mind created – not enough time, family expectations, societal pressure, etc.)

These experiences become obstacles to our happiness because they create:

1) Fear
2) Life Imbalances
2) Lack of Fulfillment
3) Health Issues – Physical/Fatigue/Insomnia
4) Dysfunctional Relationships

Here are 6 tips that I have found to be helpful in transmuting these obstacles and thus create real change in our lives:

1) Increased Self-Care/12:12 Rule

Ensure you are engaging at least a few times a week in some sort of practice that is just for you that helps you to release pressure, stress, and anxiety. For example: yoga, meditation, running, eating well, and sleeping more and better.  If you can’t figure out how to get to find the time for this enlist an accountability partner – a friend, coach, mentor or trainer.  Someone who does this well.

There is a rule called the 12:12 Rule.  12 Hours of Input = 12 Hours of Output.  If we have 24 hours in a day, allow yourself to be fed and nourished in 12 of them, thus your output is productive and impassioned.  For input, sleep is part of the 12 hours and the other 4 are for self-care/fun/passion. For output, you have 12 hours of energy expenditure to the human experience as service.  If you do your inner work than those 12 hours of output are servicing by doing something you really enjoy (to the effect that it almost seems like 12 more hours of input, catch my drift?) Learn what you are passionate about!

2) Prioritization

Speaking of passion. We have lost our sense of priorities and what is important to us.

What’s important to you these days?  I have clients write their eulogies. What do you want to be known for in your life? At the end of the day what is most important? Are you fulfilling your dreams? Are you wasting time in fear and all the perceived pressures of life and expectations? Are you living your life?

Each week set aside priorities that move you toward fulfilling your goals and your soul’s purpose.

3) Organization & Understanding Time Suckers

With most my life coaching clients, I help them create structure. We create schedules of their week so that they can take back their time and empower themselves to be more in control of their lives vs their distractions like “time suckers”.  Time suckers are things we perceive to be important, but in actuality they may not be like Instagram & Facebook. I’m not saying these aren’t powerful marketing/promotional and social tools, but we all know that one post can lead to several hours of time lost. When we create schedules, we can allot how much time goes into our priorities first and then see where we are losing time or becoming inefficient.

4) Taking Back Control & Time

There are three work scenarios that I hear time and time again from people who overwork.

1) I stay late at work because I feel like I have to (regardless of whether there is work for me).  If I stay longer the perception is I work harder.
2) I have work to do, but I get distracted at work by conversations, food, and time suckers. I don’t get my work done. I must stay late.
3) There is just too much work and not enough man power.

We need to learn to empower ourselves to be productive, work efficiently, speak up and create healthy boundaries so that we are doing the work we get paid for.  This is healthy for you and best for your employer.   The fact is, we need to be more in control of our time and perceived perceptions of pressure and stress.  All of these scenarios are changeable if you are willing to accept responsibility.  And when we take back our power, many things in our lives shift.

5) Understanding Your Value & Self Worth

Many clients that I work with have an inherent self-worth issue. This is an epidemic in our society.  We are caught in the program loop of “lack” and “not enough”.  We have been spoon fed this idea that we don’t have the power to create what we desire in our lives.

Human beings were gifted with the Spark of the Divine (the Creator) thus we have the ability to Create! We need to understand that it is our birth right to summon this energy and use this to create what our Soul desires and to express our passions, gifts and talents.

6) Understanding your Gifts, Passions and Soul’s Desire

Based on the previous, if we can let go of these ideas of lack and not enough, we can jump the hurdle of fears and limited perceptions that keep us small.  We need to do the inner work to understand what are heart and soul is desiring based on what our passions, gifts and talents are.  Without this knowledge we get caught up in the mind’s perceptions that may not reflect the True Self.

Honoring the True Self is the Key to Being Happy!

I hope you find these tips helpful. As a mentor coach, there are so many tools in our tool box that can catalyze real change. We act as your accountability partner to keep you on track and empower you to shift your perceptions and overcome your shadows and blind spots. Ultimately, its about creating the understanding that the power to create anything is within you and you hold the key to your happiness.