Why You Should Meditate Daily 56/84

For fitness goals everyone always focuses on diet and exercise, which is obviously important. But there are other major factors that people fail to even think about that could make or break your progress. One of those is sleep, which is arguably more important than diet or exercise for fat loss. The other is stress which, when too high, can absolutely kill any progress no matter what your fitness goal.  Here I am referring to the bad type of stress, called distress. Distress can make you fat, kill your gains, and totally wreck your hormones. We want to keep distress down as low as possible and in today's fast paced world it's becoming harder and harder. But there is one thing that can work for you better than anything in reducing stress and increasing mental health.

Normally when people think of meditation they tend to either think yoga or something a little more other-worldly. Most people don't think of it as something you should do each day to make your waistline shrink. While daily meditation won't have a direct effect on your body fat, it can have a very powerful indirect effect.  Meditation has been shown to lower cortisol levels and almost instant reduce stress, with the effects lasting for a decent amount of time. And as I said, lower stress means less fat.

Deep breathing exercises can also have a profound effect on posture and even back pain when done correctly. When you practice deep breathing through your diaphragm (not your chest) you start to relax the other muscle that are connected to it. All of our muscles are connected by a layer of tissue called fascia, and when a muscle is tight, it's fascia can pull on other muscles as well. As it turns out, the fascia of the diaphragm is connected to that of the psoas. Your psoas, which is a main hip flexor, is also connected to your spine. When your psoas is tight it pulls on your spine and can cause back pain, which is actually a rather common cause. This means that if you can learn to relax your diaphragm with deep breathing, you can give some relief to you psoas and thus your back pain. This alone, in my opinion, is reason enough to at least give meditation a try.

So here's where to start. Take 5-10 minutes out of your morning each morning and practice deep diaphragmic breathing. Either lay flat on your back (don't fall asleep) or sit up tall in a comfy chair. I have started sitting on the floor to help with posture. Breath in and out through you stomach, letting your belly rise and fall, and try to focus only on your breathing. Guided meditation can be great too. There are some awesome 10 minute or less videos on YouTube that can guide you through the process depending on what your goals are. Try this and let me know what you think, and keep in mind that mental health is just as important as physical health