How can meditation make you feel more present?

If you’re feeling a little out of sorts, Sophie Elliot has ideas on how meditation can help you re-connect your body and mind

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Happiful

Living more mindfully, by focusing your attention on the present moment without judgement, is a wonderful way to ease stress and anxiety while creating a sense of peace and serenity within. This allows you to pause when agitated, and make more calm and productive choices.

Daily meditation can help you perform better at work. Research has found that meditation helps increase your focus and attention, and improves your ability to multitask. Meditation helps clear our minds to focus on the present moment, which gives us a huge burst of energy for our tasks and goals. When you can easily concentrate on one activity at a time, your self-esteem grows, which solidifies your feeling of control over the present moment. This opens you to feel fully-empowered to stick to the promises and goals you set out to achieve.

Mindfulness meditation allows you to develop a heightened awareness of the present moment, detached from judgement and evaluation. Your worries, and fears for the future, dissolve into the background of the here and now, increasing your concentration and ability to focus on one task at a time.

Meditation can increase the volume of the part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation. This creates an enhanced brain response time, better memory, increased cognitive powers and a more relaxed and energy-efficient brain core. Having a brain with a vastly increased ability to master the daily challenges of life prevents your thoughts from compromising your happiness and enables you to stay in the present moment.

Meditation boosts emotional intelligence. Many of us have trouble understanding our emotions. Mindfulness meditation helps teach us how to be aware of our feelings and emotions – and how to process them better. This leads to a greater degree of self-regulation, making you the master of your emotions rather than being overly-consumed by them. Practicing meditation changes how you think and helps you learn to understand your emotions without having to act upon them, keeping you grounded and in the present.

Among the many positive traits fostered by meditation are greater resilience in the face of adversity, more sympathy for others, and increased compassion for oneself.