Guest Author Dr Roshan Pankhania, PhD. Roshan has been teaching meditation, yoga and wellbeing for the last 15 years in over 20 countries to individuals and companies.
Over the years a worrying trend has been developing with our mental health. In fact, it has now reached epidemic proportions.
Stress, anxiety and depression affects as many as one in three people and its onset can often be traced back to our early childhood years. It’s something that many of us have sadly witnessed first-hand within ourselves and among work colleagues, friends and family members.
But it’s even more shocking when you realise it’s happening to someone who by all outward appearances seems to be happy and content, but in reality, has been struggling with it in silence. The truth is it can happen to anyone and it needs an open and compassionate response.
Why is mental health is getting worse?
It’s clear to see why the mental health issue is getting worse. We are living in a world of relentless change, where we are expected to do more work in less time and still be able to find time for ourselves and our families.
Then on top of that, Covid-19 has added to the anxiety, fear, uncertainty, financial worry and isolation. The lack of safety and predictability is definitely having an unprecedented negative impact on mental health. In fact, some medical professionals are already talking about a second pandemic following on from Covid-19, which is the mental health pandemic.
Meditation as a solution
There is one proven solution that can help us to manage our mental health and it can be found in meditation. The practice of meditation starts to elicit the opposite reaction of the “fight or flight” response, which is the body’s automatic physiological reaction to an event that it perceives as being stressful or frightening.
Meditation can disrupt the entire stress cycle. For the mind, it brings it into a more calm, positive and emotionally stable state, better able to deal with relationships and difficult situations. As our perception changes, it allows us to practice self-compassion, kindness, humanity and love, both for ourselves and others. In the body it starts to release tension in the muscles, acts a natural nerve-soother, improves energy levels and improves sleep. In fact, no other habit positively impacts so many areas of our life simultaneously as much as meditation does.
There are of course many other practices like physical yoga, regular exercise, walking etc that will also help, but meditation allows you to manage your mind in a way so that it starts to work for you rather than against you. You’ll be amazed how quickly meditation can transform your life and it doesn’t take long to learn or practice.
In today’s fast changing world, it is becoming vitally important that we all learn how to meditate and manage our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.
Furthermore, managing stress reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, weight gain, memory loss, chronic fatigue, sleep problems, quicker aging and it supports the ability of the body to heal itself. In the end, the quality of your life will be determined by how your mind responds to life circumstances and not directly by the circumstances.
Dr Roshan Pankhania
Dr Roshan Pankhania, PhD, has been teaching meditation, yoga and wellbeing for the last 15 years in over 20 countries to individuals and companies.
BOOK NOW 15 MINS FREE CONSULTATION +447530844481
Contact Roshan at
Roshan@simply-meditation.com
Comments