My morning routine has been the same for years: I wake up at around 6 a.m. in eager anticipation of my first meditation of the day. I start by freshening up in the bathroom, then I go back to my bed and sit with my eyes closed for 20 minutes before getting ready for work. I’ve been following this routine each day for more than a decade.
Ironically, I don’t consider myself to be a particularly disciplined person. Like many people, I don’t look forward to doing things that don’t provide me with some type of immediate gratification. But I stick to my morning meditation routine because it not only leaves me with a tangible feeling of clarity to start my day, but the ripple effects of meditating extend throughout other important areas of my day and life.
Surely you’ve heard about all the scientific benefits of how meditation changes your brain and rests the body. But here are 10 practical, unexpected benefits that occur as a direct result of a consistent morning meditation routine:
1. It’ll be easier for you to switch on “beast mode”
For men, meditation can cause our testosterone levels to increase, which results in bigger, stronger muscles, and more energy while working out. Plus, your workout will seem much more enticing when you’re more rested and less stressed — a by-product of your morning meditation.
2. You will last longer in bed
Men might not talk about it, but we all want to be the greatest lovers on the planet. That means not only having strong muscles but also having a healthy libido. Again, as testosterone increases, our ability to last longer in bed increases. So if morning sex is an option, you may find that in addition to having more stamina, meditating provides you with more patience and sensitivity when it comes to being present with your partner.
3. You don’t need coffee
Meditation activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which triggers a deep state of relaxation during the practice. So even though you may wake up from sleep still tired, after meditating for 20 minutes, you’ll get energy-boosting endorphins that’ll help you spring to life without having to rely solely on caffeine.
4. You turn on your mental “spam” filter
The “busy mind” syndrome occurs because you don’t have your mental spam filter activated. Imagine if your email didn’t have a spam filter, and for every relevant message, you had to sift through hundreds of messages related to money scams, Viagra, and inkjet printer cartridges. Meditating helps filter out the internal and external “noise” and negative self-talk that can sabotage our otherwise sharp, clear perceptual acuity.
5. You can handle whatever the day brings
You’ll find that meditation allows you to more easily drop into a “flow state” in which you become supremely adaptable to change. Unexpected traffic jam? No problem. Someone blows their horn at you in a parking lot? All good.
6. You counteract stress
Meditation is like kryptonite to stress, with the primary side effects being increased happiness, better sleep, and more creativity. If there ever was a perfect solution to dissolving stress, it would be daily meditation.
7. You eat cleaner
Numerous studies have found that when you’re stressed or sleep-deprived, you reach for bad-for-you foods. After building up momentum from your morning meditations, you may discover that cravings for doughnuts, fried foods, or lollipops also dissipate and get replaced by a craving for healthier, cleaner foods that the body will have an easier time digesting and turning into fuel for you to operate at a higher level.
8. You become a better driver
People who have difficulty multitasking tend to be more accident-prone, especially while driving. Meditation has been shown to increase your ability to multitask, and coincidentally it makes you a safer driver.
9. You have fewer headaches
Although meditation is not a substitute for medical treatment, it has been shown to reduce pain associated with headaches, making it an ideal complement to more traditional approaches to health and wellness. I had daily headaches in my early 20s, and they didn’t go away until I changed my diet and began meditating.
10. Your circle of influence grows
Because daily meditation helps to release stress, it can make you more compassionate — and in the process, you become less judgmental and critical of others.
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Author: Light Watkins
Light Watkins is a Santa Monica–based meditation practitioner who has been teaching for the past nine years. For more information, please visit his website.