You’ve probably heard about meditation before or seen monks and hippies practice it in movies or TV shows. Maybe you even tried it yourself at one point in your life. Meditation is not a foreign concept to most people. However, what may surprise you is its benefits on the body, not just the mind.
Meditation is a practice that exercises your focus and awareness and brings practitioners a sense of heightened peace and calmness. So how can mental piece help your skin look more youthful and healthier? The connection might not be obvious now, but it will be after you read this text.
It can slow down the aging process
Between 20 and 30 minutes of meditation every day fills your body with energy (known as prana in the meditation world) which allows you to feel calm and relaxed. As you meditate, this prana energy takes its time to repair the damage throughout your body, including your skin, giving it freshness and glow. Meditation also usually includes deep breathing, which fills the body with fresh oxygen. And oxygen is the key to cellular health, which rejuvenates the skin, balances various values in the body and transforms your tissues. Thanks to a higher concentration of oxygen, your skin can enjoy a healthier complexion, iron out some of those wrinkles and slow down the aging process. Through meditation, you can relieve many pains, worries and ailments, all of which can make you look older than you really are. It might not stop time, but meditation definitely helps keep you looking younger or at least prevents you from looking older.
It removes negative feelings
Even though meditation is an ancient practice, the past three decades have brought us a lot of research on meditation and mindfulness. According to science, it’s evident that meditation brings various health benefits, mostly mental, reducing stress, anxiety, fear and worry. These negative feelings can often be the root of your skin issues. As a matter of fact, conditions like psoriasis, acne, vitiligo and eczema all get better when accompanied by meditation, relaxation and behavioral therapy.
Whether chronic or not, it’s clear that stress worsens skin conditions, so its reduction is the key to a clear complexion. Techniques like transcendental meditation evoke deep rest, expand your imagination and reduce stress. With just 20 minutes in the morning and afternoon, you can make quick and seamless shifts among daily tasks and feel rejuvenated and stress-free all day long. When you start and end the day on the right note, there’s no space for negative feelings in your life.
It motivates you to make healthier choices
Meditation pushes you to be more grounded and aware of your position in the environment. As you get the time to pause and be present, you’ll figure out how to become a better human being. These improvements range from better relationships with your loved ones to improved diet. Through meditation, you can become more focused on what you eat and how much you eat, how much you exercise and what kind of products you buy—all of which directly affect your skin. Healthy habits translate to healthy skin but also a much better overall physical and emotional state.
Meditation provides you with patience
Patience and skin health might be seemingly unrelated, but there’s a deep connection between them. You probably know that most skin treatments take a bit of time to show results, especially when it comes to anti-aging products and treatments. People who lack patience are very quick to give up on the clinic or switch doctors after they don’t see immediate results. They are also more prone to giving up on the treatment altogether! And most importantly, they don’t give time for their skin to heal and recover. If you constantly take off the bandages, peek under the covers and touch your skin, you will do nothing but make your treatments harder to heal.
It provides you with stress relief as well
What do you do when you’re stressed? Do you crack your knuckles and bite your nails? Or do you scratch your skin and pick on pimples and bumps? Many people have a habit of picking on their skin when they are stressed and anxious—it’s a normal response, but it can have harmful effects on your skin. When you constantly touch scars and acne, you’re just getting more germs on the tissue and preventing its healing. With meditation, people deal with their anxieties in a healthier and more beneficial way. And with a calm mind comes a calm exterior that won’t succumb to temptations to harm the skin and create even bigger problems.
Meditation will bring many great benefits to your life, as well as improve the way your skin looks. With healthy habits, plenty of oxygen and minimal stress, you can expect your skin to look and feel rejuvenated, healthy and youthful, so start meditating today!
Diana Smith is a full time mom of two beautiful girls interested in health and beauty related topics and alternative medicine. In her free time she enjoys long walks in the woods, hard exercising and preparing healthy meals for her family.
