Meditation provides so many great benefits for you, but most people aren’t aware of how many of these benefits are physical in nature. It’s easy to think about meditation and assume that it’s all going on in your head, but meditation produces numerous very real and powerful bodily benefits. Overall, meditation greatly reduces the amount of medical care that you need to receive in your life.
For starters, meditation strengthens your immune system. The strength and efficiency of your immune system is a crucial factor relating to whether or not your come down with illness and require medical attention, and meditation’s ability to strengthen the immune system is well known. A study published in the American Psychosomatic Society by Dr. Richard Davidson and colleagues found that “a short sessions in meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings suggest that meditation may change brain and immune functions in positive ways...”
 Meditation is also known to help you heal and recover faster when you do get sick or face an injury. Meditation provides a space where you can visualize your improving health and focus on your body’s healing processes, while also improving your body’s healing functions directly. Meditation has been shown to increase relaxation, decrease blood pressure, increase oxygen efficiency, and increase the number of defensive cells your body produces. Meditation has been used often to aid cancer patients, both to improve their healing capacity and to improve their quality of life (Dr. Linda E. Carlson and colleagues).
Meditation is one of the best preventative medicines out there. It makes your whole body healthier, it reduces stress and other factors of illness and injury, and it allows you to better deal with the stressors you will naturally encounter throughout your day. Most people understand that illness and injury are only partially determined by physiological factors, and that more often than not we face health problems when we are already attempting to deal with mental and spiritual problems in our lives. By helping you deal with those abstract issues, and by greatly increasing your body’s ability to respond to illness, meditation greatly reduces the chances of needing medical care.
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