If there was a pill that was scientifically-proven to benefit your brain by increasing focus; reducing stress, anxiety, and depression; and improving memory, emotional awareness, and overall happiness, would you take it?
Well, guess what? That type of medicine does exist—but not exactly in the form of a pill.
This “medicine” I’m talking about is meditation.
Full confession: once upon a time, I meditated consistently. As you probably know all too well, real-life can sometimes interfere with dedicating time for oneself, and for me, eventually, meditation fell by the wayside.
I’m sure many of you have felt the same way. Just thinking about the zillion tasks I had to juggle every day made my head spin: managing a Functional Medicine clinic, seeing patients, writing books, and tending to tons of other work obligations, all while trying to balance these duties with regular exercise, maintaining relationships, eating healthy, and oh yeah, sleeping 8 to 10 hours every night.
No jury in the world would convict me when I say I didn’t have time to meditate, right?
At the same time, I had been “prescribing” meditation to patients and readers for decades, so I began to feel slightly uncomfortable recommending it when I wasn't practicing meditation myself.
It got to be too much.
I began to notice my work ethic, relationship statuses, morale, and overall happiness slowly deteriorating. I felt like there was no way I could add ONE more thing to my schedule. However, I began to see that adding this one specific thing to my plate would have downstream effects and actually release a TON of the burden I had been feeling.
I ended up working with a meditation teacher to incorporate a daily practice again. At first, it was challenging, but I committed to at least 20 minutes a day. Within days I started to experience the benefits. Now, I realize I don’t have time NOT to meditate—it’s become absolutely integral in helping me feel calmer, happier, and in getting more done. I literally added something to my plate (meditation) and it freed up an exponential amount of time (and mind real-estate) as a result.
Think of your brain as a computer, simultaneously keeping many windows and programs going. Meditation helps you close out the unnecessary windows so you can focus on what’s essential. When you re-focus, you enjoy life more and perform at a higher level.
Stress relief (which I think we could all use more of) is the most-studied benefit of meditation, but it has also been found to help reduce drug addiction, relieve anxiety, and boost immunity.
There are a ton of different ways to meditate, and what works for one person might not work for another. You have to find what works for you. There’s breathwork, mantras, guided meditations, walking meditation, and even coloring or painting can be forms of meditation.
Today I want to encourage you to take a moment to pause and meditate not only because of its mental benefits but because of its physical benefits too. Right now, we’re living in a particularly stressful time. If we don’t take time to pause, put away our devices, and tune inward, we’re missing out on whole-body healing.
Here’s a simple practice that you can incorporate a few times a day, and it only takes minutes. I encourage you to do it right now if possible.