Meditation: Maybe Not Hippie Dippie Junk After All

Last Friday night, I went back up to the school to participate in UT Tyler's first official group meditation. I was hesitant at first, but that was before I understood the mental health benefits.  After outside research, I find that the human mind (your mind, my mind) has the ability to control more than we've been told. The allure of better focus and a clearer mind got me to the first meeting, but after listening to the leaders of the group, many of whom have been practicing meditation in some form for some time, I found many more reasons to continue practicing.

List of My Top 25 Reasons to Meditate (from a list of 100):
1- Greater Orderliness of Brain Functioning
2- Provides peace of mind, happiness
3- Helps keep things in perspective
4- Decreased tendency to worry
5- Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation.
6- Builds self-confidence
7- Increases serotonin level, influences mood and behavior
8- Resolve phobias & fears
9- Helps control own thoughts
10- Helps with focus & concentration
11- Increase creativity
12- Increased brain wave coherence
13- Improved learning ability and memory
14- Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation
15- Increased emotional stability
16- improved relationships
17- Easier to remove bad habits
18- Increased Productivity
19- Improved relations at home & at work
20- Able to see the larger picture in a given situation
21- Helps ignore petty issues
22- Increased ability to solve complex problems
23- The ability to react more quickly and more effectively to a stressful event
24- Reduces need and dependency on drugs, pills & pharmaceuticals
25- Helps cultivate a greater inner-directedness

But if you follow that link above, you can find your own, personal benefits.

 
Tyler Mindful holds meetings every Fridays in the PHE at 5pm.
However, for the week of Spring Break, it will be held Friday, March 16th at Mangos at 809 E. Erwin from 5-6:30.

To the right is a picture of last Friday. The two bodies in the front of the picture are my roommates. Baylee is in the Racquet and Jog shirt on the left, and Cass is in the creme colored shirt on her right. I am across from them in the light pink! We didn't know a whole lot of people when we came, but we knew them all before we left.