What is Meditation?

Meditation is a practice that many of you may have heard of but only about 5–7% of the population actually practices it. So the question is, what is meditation and does it really have any effects? In short, meditation is when you close your eyes and try to temporarily disconnect all your senses. What we call the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Our senses are how we perceive and interact with the physical world. We use our eyes to see, ears to hear, nose to smell, tongue to taste, and hands to touch. These senses help us live in the physical world, process it, and respond to it.

When you meditate, closing your eyes means reducing the influence of the external physical world. You don’t hear, smell, or touch anything. This creates a favorable state to turn inward. It doesn’t mean your mind will be completely empty. Thoughts can still arise from your environment, such as work, your pets, neighbors, family, or other worries. But by disconnecting the five senses, these thoughts can settle down and stop bothering you. This inward focus is a new state for you.

Meditation is a different state than sleep because during sleep, consciousness is absent and the body is on autopilot, repairing itself physically. Meditation is fully conscious. You intentionally quiet the senses so your thoughts can settle, creating a temporary separation from the physical world. This is why meditation is about becoming familiar with a state where you are not influenced by the external environment but instead turn inward to enter a new inner world. In this inner world, new neural cells are formed.

Over the past 20 years, western science has started studying meditation. Initially, they were skeptical but now they have confirmed tangible results. Studies using experienced monks have shown that meditation creates new neural connections. Old, damaged neural pathways associated with trauma or negative emotions can be restructured. This allows you to reinterpret past events from a broader, multidimensional perspective, healing emotional wounds while changing your thinking patterns.

So when you close your eyes and meditate, changes happen continuously within your body from neural connections to emotional healing. Meditation is not limited by time and can help resolve past pain.

Meditation is a practice that does not belong to any one person, group, religion, or belief system. It is a way for humans to turn inward, temporarily disconnect from the external world, repair and restore their inner self, and return to life as a healthier, more mindful, and balanced person.

In short, does meditation work? Yes, it has powerful effects. Many changes occur, from neural growth to emotional repair. Meditation has the capacity to heal past wounds and transform us, both physically and emotionally.

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