It’s a simple yet effective route to feeling better, happier and healthier. Here’s why…

There’s much more to meditation than closing your eyes and trying to empty your mind. Thousands of studies have shown that it has real, concrete benefits. Here are seven reasons why you should fit meditation into your life.

1. It helps you to sleep better. After eight weeks of meditation training for people suffering with insomnia, many participants in a study reported they were more relaxed before going to be and their sleep problems had improved. Six months on, their sleep remained improved, too.
2. It can reduce pain. MRI brain scans have shown a reduction in cerebral blood-flow related to pain during meditation sessions.
3. It can make you feel less stressed – by up to 40%, according to one study. While meditating, you can override the part of the brain responsible for the production of the fear hormone, cortisol.
4. It can make you more compassionate. One study found that while 15% of participants were likely to help a person in pain, this figure rose to 50% among those who had been practising meditation for eight weeks.
5. It decreases depression. A 2014 study found that 30 minutes of meditation per day improved depression symptoms.
6. It can help keep colds away. According to a study which compared people who exercised, people who meditated and people who did neither, it found it could also make the duration of the cold shorter.
7. It can help you maintain healthy relationships and become better at resolving issues with your partner, according to a study of 82 female school teachers. It found that those who meditated gave fewer hostile looks as they tried to resolve problems with their partner.

Jillian Lavender said: ‘To get the most from meditation, it’s best to learn in person. However there are simple techniques which can be effective. For example, try Body Feeling – close your eyes, and notice a sensation in your body. There will be one somewhere. By placing your attention on it, you can help unwind the underlying stress and tension. This works particularly well if you are having trouble falling asleep. Stress is carried in the body not the mind, and so by noticing the stress sensations in the body we begin to dissolve them.’