In my July blog, I wrote about meditation as a great way of managing stress. This ancient practice has many other health benefits listed below. I hope these benefits help convince you to at least give meditation a try.

You don’t need to become a Buddhist monk or move to India to start meditating. You can start with as little as 5 minutes a few times a week and gradually increase your time. There are also guided meditations to make your introduction an easy one since they only require that relax and listen. Try our 3 minute guided meditation to see how simple it can be http://watershedtraining.ca/Meditations.asp
Benefits:
* Meditation boosts the immune system (Stein, J. (2003) The Science of Meditation, TIME Magazine)

* Meditation controls high blood pressure at levels comparable to widely used prescription drugs and without the side effects of drugs (Hypertension, AMA Medical Journal)

* Meditators were able to reduce chronic pain by more than 50% even 4 years after completing an 8-week training course (Jon Kabat-Zinn, M.D. Stress Reduction Clinic,University of Massachusetts)

* Meditation may slow aging. A study found that people who had been meditating for more than five years were biologically 12 – 15 years younger than non-meditators (International Journal of Neuroscience, 1992)

* Meditation reduces the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (State University of New York, 2001)

* Meditation offsets the sluggishness of sleep deprivation better than a nap (University of Kentucky)

* Meditation increases in empathy (University of Wisconsin, 2008)
If you’d like to give your employees or teams a proven tool to manage stress, contact us at info@watershedtraining.ca about our Meditation Made Easy program. We’d also be happy to tell you how our Stress Management Series can make a positive contribution to your bottom-line.

Author's Bio: 

Wendy Woods is a certified laughter yoga leader and has developed unique programs to bring laughter into the workplace to reduce stress, improve relationships and boost productivity. For more information, please contact her at wwoods@watershedtraining.ca, follow WatershedFlow on Twitter, or visit http://www.watershedtraining.ca for more information.