By Judith Glass

Meditation, which some people associate with yoga or spiritual journeys, has now become a full-blown industry.  While the claims for the benefits of meditation make it a rival for the Fountain of Youth, there may be support for some of these claims. You don’t have to take a course or buy all kinds of equipment and accessories to derive some of the benefits of meditation right in your own home.  We will discuss some of the techniques of meditation (including how to meditate) in another article.  For now, here are some reasons why you, as a caregiver, might want to devote ten to twenty minutes every day to meditating.

Meditation Reduces Stress

You don’t need a definition of stress; you know what it feels like each day as someone who cares for others and has many demands. Stress has a negative effect on your body, your ability to sleep, even your ability to lose weight (or not). Meditating can help you reduce this stress. Meditation enables you to put your entire body into a more relaxed, state by lowering your heart rate, reducing body chemicals associated with stress, increasing chemicals in the brain that lift your mood, decreasing your breathing rate, and increasing the blood flow to your brain, your heart and other parts of your body.

Meditation Helps you Concentrate

Do you have days when you forget where you put something…or what you meant to do when you walk into a room? Caring for someone else keeps you focused on that person and can often leave you with a lack of sleep and a hectic life. No wonder you can’t remember where you left the car keys. It’s not surprising that you may find it difficult to shift your focus and concentrate on yourself and other members of the family who also need your attention. Meditation helps you take that much-needed “you time,” helps you concentrate on your breathing, and consequently, YOU.

Meditation Decreases Pain due to Muscle Tension

Physical pain, for either you or your loved one, may not be eliminated depending on you or your loved one’s medical condition, but some pain may be lessened.  Some pain is caused or exacerbated by tense muscles pressing on nerves – especially in the neck and spine.  As you meditate, you force your muscles to loosen up, and this, in turn, can reduce some pain. Mediation enables you to breathe regularly, focus on your body tension, and visualize images that transport you to a more serene place mentally. By doing this, you may become aware of your muscles softening – in your face, your neck, your spine, your arms, and your legs – right down to your fingers and toes. This is that “state of relaxation” that Yogis speak of, and one of the reasons why devotees of meditation couldn’t imagine not starting each day with meditation.

Meditation Increases Happiness by Decreasing Anxiety

Anxiety and worry contribute to muscle tension, increase in blood pressure, and heart palpitations that make you wonder sometimes whether you, too, will need a caretaker.  You can tell yourself that worrying won’t help but the body doesn’t respond to talking the way it does to meditation. Meditation is a way to clear your mind. And once cleared, you can fill it with more positive, regenerating thoughts.

Meditation Promotes Self-Discovery

For many practitioners of meditation, transcendental meditation, and yoga, the ultimate objective is to discover your inner self.  This idea may make you feel selfish at a time of your life when your life is about anyone but you.  It shouldn’t. If you have allowed yourself to become one-dimensional – a caregiver and nothing more than a caregiver – you have lost parts of yourself that you need now more than ever: creativity, self-esteem, and the confidence to carry out your important mission. 

The path to self-discovery through meditation is more complex than what we are recommending here.  Your first approach to meditation may be to achieve a relaxed, serene state of mind that helps you reduce stress, but you may find, over time, that meditation helps you discover who you are as a person.

There are a number of ways to meditate, but they all have some elements in common. See my next article for suggestions that take into consideration the limitations of your role as a caregiver.