5 Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation for Your Body and Mind

Do you find yourself overthinking? 

Feeling stressed and overwhelmed in your daily life more often than you feel relaxed and at peace? 

Maybe you feel like there is an underlying unease that follows you around, affecting how much you enjoy your daily life. 

I get it, we live in a fast paced world. 

Lots to get done, limited time. I feel this too! 

But you don’t have to feel overwhelmed and stressed all the time. 

Cultivating a mindfulness meditation practice can help you be more present and resilient to challenging situations, stress, and anxiety. 

What is Mindfulness Meditation? 

Mindfulness is a state of being in which we are fully present and engaged with whatever we are doing in the moment. We are not distracted, or judging an experience as good or bad, but simply aware of our thoughts and feelings. 

Mindfulness is not something we create, it is a practice we cultivate, and it is accessible for each and every one of us.

Meditation is how we can train ourselves to be more present and aware, and therefore more mindful. 

So, mindfulness meditation is the practice of gaining more awareness and acceptance into the present moment. When we practice mindfulness meditation regularly, we can find the benefits of this practice reflected in our daily lives. 

The goal is not erasing stress from our lives, (I know, I wish it was possible). 

We will still feel anxiety, anger, sadness, and all other emotions. It’s all part of the human experience. 

The goal is to gain greater awareness of our thoughts and feelings. 

By doing so, we become aware of our reactions and behaviour.

Then we are empowered to make a choice as to how we want to react to a situation - with stress or with inner calm and awareness. 

5 Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation: 

  1. Reduces Stress  

Stress is a normal part of life (I know, I wish it wasn’t!). It’s the body’s way of reacting to any demand or challenge that you experience from your environment, your body, or even from your thoughts. Stress is manageable in small doses, the problem becomes when we feel chronically stressed. 

The Little Book of Mindfulness by Rebecca Howden and Medibank describes the symptoms of stress, which maybe you can relate to:  

  • Constantly feeling anxious and worried;

  • Feeling irritable, agitated and easily annoyed;

  • Argumentative and defensive with friends and family;

  • Restless sleeping;

  • Low levels of energy, waking up feeling tired;

  • Headaches and migraines

  • Restless and frenetic mind

  • Often self-critical and/or critical of others;

  • Feeling flat and uninspired;

  • Having difficulty concentrating;

  • Skin rashes and conditions;

  • Clenching your jaw muscles and grinding your teeth at night

Of course, these are not exhaustive, and there are many other symptoms and ramifications to stress.

We clearly don’t want to experience this on a consistent basis. It’s tiring and exhausting, and can wreak havoc on our mental and physical health. 

Mindfulness meditation can help switch this around and bring more of the good stuff. It has been shown to:

  • Increase well-being

  • Reduce emotional reactivity

  • Improve our ability to regulate our behaviour 

  • Lower anxiety levels

  • Allow us to feel calm and internally still 

  • Help us feel connected 

There are countless studies that have found that mindfulness increases positive emotions while reducing negative emotions and stress. There’s at least one one study that suggests it may be as good as antidepressants in fighting depression and preventing relapse.

Mindfulness meditation works in part, by helping you accept your experience—including painful emotions—rather than react to them with aversion and avoidance.

Sounds amazing right? 

2. Improves Memory and Focus   

In our fast paced world where looking at our phones every five seconds becomes a priority and an addictive habit, our ability to focus can be significantly impacted. 

Mindfulness can help us to increase our (sadly) short term attention span. 

Studies have also shown that mindfulness meditation can help us tune out external noise and distractions, which in turn helps our concentration and memory. 

A study conducted by researchers in Boston found that frequent meditation seemed to activate the cerebral cortex, a region of the brain which deals with mental functions such as learning, concentration and memory.

Also, meditation done on a regular basis increases blood flow to the brain, which leads to stronger blood vessels in the cerebral cortex and helps to increase memory capacity. 

One study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease found meditation to improve blood flow to the brain, therefore it helped to improve memory among 15 participants who had mild to severe memory impairment. 

3. Happier Relationships (manage conflict) 

One of the most beautiful aspects to adapting a meditation practice, is that its ramifications go beyond just benefiting us. Meditation also benefits others and our relationships with them. 

Through mindfulness meditation, we are able to gain greater emotional regulation, which means when confronted with a challenging situation, we are less reactive, and more vigilant of the emotions which arise in us. We can then learn to modulate them, and communicate how we feel in a more effective manner. 

Essentially, we have greater emotional regulation and self control, which are very useful skills to have in relationships. 

Our ability to be mindful, as many studies have found, can help to predict relationships satisfaction - the ability to respond well to relationship stress and the skill of communicating our emotions to a partner. 

Empirical evidence suggests that mindfulness protects against the emotionally stressful effects of relationship conflict (Barnes et al., 2007), is associated with the ability to express oneself in a variety of social situations (Dekeyser el al., 2008) and can also predict relationship satisfaction (Barnes et al., 2007; Wachs & Cordova, 2007).

4. Benefits our Immune Response 

Our body responds to viruses and other disease causing organisms by sending out troops of immune cells into our bloodstream. These cells include pro and anti-inflammatory proteins, neutrophils, T-cells, immunoglobulins, and natural killer cells. These guys work hard to help our bodies fight off infections and disease. 

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to affect these disease-fighting cells. 

Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can increase levels of T-cells, A type of white blood cell that is of key importance to the immune system, or T-cell activity, in patients with HIV or breast cancer.

Other studies have shown that participants of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course were able to have higher levels of the proteins interleukin-8 as well as interleukin-10, which were signs of improved immune function. In these studies, participants took a MBSR course, or did another type of program, such as an exercise or mind-body education program. The results showed that meditation improved certain immune responses much more effectively than the other programs participants were doing. 

Other studies have shown that patients who took a MBSR program also showed faster wound healing, a process regulated by the immune system, as well as lower levels of inflammatory markers, like C-reactive protein. 

5. Improves our physical well-being 

Not only does mindfulness meditation help improve our immune response, it also benefits our overall well-being. Other physical benefits of mindfulness include:

  • Improved Sleep - with a less restless mind, you are able to get great quality sleep, and feel rested and re-energized in the morning 

  • Lower blood pressure - this also has to do reduced stress levels helping our blood pressure levels to stabilize 

  • Improve digestive issues - Bloating, indigestion, constipation, and other digestive woes which are caused or aggravated by stress, will be benefited by mindfulness meditation. 

All of these benefits sound too good to be true, and honestly, mindfulness meditation is not something that you try once and all these benefits will happen. 

This is not a quick fix, it is a sustained and cultivated practice. 

But it is a beautiful journey and the rewards are well worth the effort. 

If you are ready to begin your own practice, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter - I have a free 5 minute meditation which is great to initialize you onto your journey. 

If you would like guidance and support while you begin your practice, I offer an 8 Week Mindfulness Stress Reduction Program. 

The next one is starting on September 23rd! Register soon to join a group of amazing like minded individuals. 


Laura Gutierrez