Meditation Can Help You Live Longer: Here’s Why
By Ilchibuko Todd
President of Sedona Mago Center for Well-being and Retreat
Meditation definitely has physiological, biological, psychological, emotional, and spiritual benefits that can help you live a longer, more fulfilled life. It can help you circulate your energy so that your body, mind, and spirit are working in perfect harmony with one another. Meditation can help you self-heal, not only emotional or mental ailments, but physical diseases such as chronic pain, headaches, and digestive disorders. It can even slow your body’s progression and be a supportive treatment option for more serious illnesses such as fibromyalgia, hypertension, cancer, and psoriasis.
Particularly, mindfulness meditation, or mindfulness practice, (a practice we teach through the ancient wisdom of the Sun Tao), can greatly support people who suffer from anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders. Therefore, with dedicated practice, you will experience more happiness, brightness, calmness, and fulfillment each and every day.
Creates a perfect energy flow
Through the principles and teachings of the Sun Tao, we practice circulating energy while we meditate so that we reach a “water up, fire down” state. When you meditate with this principle in mind, you essentially are trying to circulate Qi (CHEE) energy, or life force energy, throughout your body in perfect alignment with how energy is supposed to move. With this circulation of energy, you are able to maintain a “cool” head, free of heaviness; an open heart, that allows you to share the love you have for yourself with others; and a warm belly, that helps you feel energized and centered.
When you meditate in this perfect circulation of energy it can relieve your mental, emotional, and even physical stress and pain throughout your entire body. It opens up energy pathways, called meridian channels, to relieve stuck, or stagnant energy that if stored over time, can cause the body physical and mental pain.
By relieving that stuck energy, and circulating new energy down to your abdomen, and “cool” energy up to your brain, you could relieve yourself of headaches, anxiety, and tap into your own self-healing.
Maintains Brain Longevity and Healthiness
Evidence has shown that meditation has a direct correlation to brain longevity. It has been suggested that in some research studies, any activity that reduces or decreases brain activity could extend your lifespan essentially. Meditation ultimately can quiet your mind and bring you into a state of peace, which can help you live a longer and healthier life.
Researchers have said that the less strain your brain has, the stronger it is and the more it can function at its highest capacity.
Improves Heart Health
Meditation can reduce your stress and anxiety, reduce your blood pressure, and reduce your hormone levels, primarily cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine, the stress hormones. Along with a good diet and exercise, it can minimize your chances of getting high blood pressure, hypertension, and dealing with other cardiovascular risks.
Because when you are meditating you are tapping into your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest-and-digest system; your heart is not experiencing added stress. Usually, when we deal with things that make us stressed or anxious, we tend to perceive every challenge in our sympathetic nervous system, i.e. “fight-or-flight”. This can trigger an increased heart rate which may lead to a potential cardiac arrest, a panic attack, or even worse a stroke.
Once you start meditating more regularly, you can start to integrate calm into your daily life, and you will no longer react to things that used to challenge and trigger you the same.
Improves Gut Health
Meditation is accompanied by a breathing exercise or technique, and by regulating the breath, you can also reduce the inflammation in your body. In the “water up, fire down” principle it is always important to have a warm belly. A warm belly can keep your digestive system running smoothly and rid your body of impurities that may cause you to have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), constipation, or even diarrhea. It creates a balance in your digestive system so that it works optimally.
Plus, the stress in your body can exacerbate unhealthy digestion and either speed it up or slow it down, causing you to have digestive disorders. But, meditation activates your parasympathetic nervous system; therefore, allowing your digestive system to settle and be calm, doing what it was made to do.
Ultimately, meditation is great for your overall health, even your spiritual well-being. It is a useful tool to come back home to yourself every day and to remind yourself of the love you have inside. It also deepens your awareness, and therefore consciousness to a state of love, joy, and fulfillment. Throughout your day you can start to feel lighter, able to tap into your most Divine self, which is one that will look at things more objectively, and calmly. And, you will start to take action and set intentions that are for your highest and greatest good.
Join Sedona Mago’s Wellness retreat to learn the ancient principle of “water up, fire down” to detoxify the body of old stories, energy, and pain. Instead, you will learn to heal your relationship with yourself and your loved ones. Learn how to develop a meditation energy practice that can allow you to tap into higher levels of consciousness, detox from old behaviors that no longer serve you, and be a better human to your loved ones and to the world.
