Benefits of Meditation
People start meditating for many reasons. Some are seeking inner peace and happiness. Other hope to achieve greater levels of compassion and gratitude. And some need help with focusing, motivation or sleeping. The benefits of meditation are manifold. And so are the forms and types of meditation. Benefits such as stress reduction, recovering from addiction and relieving anxiety have been proven by many scientific researches.
Meditation is an individual experience. We all have our crosses to bear. Understanding our individual needs helps to find the right meditation practice we can truly benefit from.
Insight Timer offers the world’s largest meditation library including thousands of practices for a wide range of benefits. Explore this detailed collection and find the right guidances for your needs.
What are the benefits of meditation?
Recovery & Healing
Whenever someone suffers from physical or mental pain, regular meditation can be a source for support, refuge and healing wounds and help to connect again with the mind and body. Meditation practices can free people from addictive patterns. Explore these catalogues of guided meditations, music and talks that employ techniques from mindful awareness to self inquiry:
Stress & Anxiety
Meditation provenly lowers stress hormones and helps to connect with the present moment. Meditative practices provide us with emotional resources in order to mindfully sort out and deal with sometimes overwhelming pressure and demands of daily life. Anxious reaction patterns can be rewired and replaced by more mindful and calm actions. Discover helpful advice and guided practices that help to cross through the “fight-or-flight”-response and to deal with:
Sleep
Better sleep — one of the main benefits of meditation people are drawn to. Because, from time to time, everyone finds it difficult to switch off the brain at night and fall asleep. Poor sleep quality and restlessness, however, can cause low motivation and energy, reduced focused and productivity, poor memory and fatigueness. But sleep comes easier to a relaxed, allayed and non-alert mind. Meditation naturally activates the relaxation response of the body, helps to let go of distracting thoughts, lets us enter lower brainwave frequencies and boosts our melatonin levels. Discover hundreds of free guided sleep meditation practices.
Performance
A benefit of meditation is the improvement of focus and therefore clarity. Meditation is like a training for the “brain muscles” and helps to focus and sustain attention. These skills can positively affect coming up with new, creative ideas as well as working in or leading a team. Boost your performance in different fields with guided meditations for:
Relationships
Daily meditation can deepen our ways of feeling and showing compassion, gratitude and love to ourselves and others. The singular benefits help to build up stronger connections and empathic communication. Discover humane and bonding guided practices for:
Spiritual
People may connect to an inner energy more easily through meditation. A regular practice teaches how to turn inward to the spiritual self for answers and decision-making. Seek and find your Higher Self with guided meditations for:
Kids
Meditation is a peaceful way to teach children about self-acceptance, resilience, empathy and other aspects of mental strength and health. Mindfulness practices help kids to develop more self-control and manage challenging behavior patterns. Introducing children to meditation practices will benefit them not just now but in the long run. Discover our large collections offering appropriate guided practices for Meditation for Kids and, ideal for bedtime, Sleep Meditation for Kids.
Follow these diverse benefits of meditation and explore more than 15,000 free guided practices, music tracks and talks. Get an overview of the origins of meditation as well as the different meditation practices.