Meditation

What do Steve Jobs, the founder of the largest  US company, and Ray Dalio, the founder of the largest US hedge fund, have in common? They both started meditating since 1972.

In today's highly competitive world, more and more people started to find out the benefit of meditation. Steve Jobs and Ray Dalio are not the only famous meditators. From Oprah to Katy Perry to Madonna, Lebron James to Kobe Bryant, many and more hyper-successful individuals have found the benefits of meditation and attribute it to a large part of their success. 

So called “happiest man in the world”, Matthieu Ricard, got his Ph.D. in molecular genetics under French Nobel Laureate François Jacob, but then became a Tibetan Buddhist monk practicing meditations. He was a volunteer subject in a study performed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on happiness, scoring significantly above the average of hundreds of volunteers when he did compassion meditation.

The Benefits of Meditation - Physical and Mental

• Relieve stress and anxiety

• Improve sleep quality

• Reduce chronic pain and heart disease

• Lower blood pressure

• Increase energy and immune system

• Treat depression 

• Improve concentration and memory

• Flexible thinking, resiliency skills

• Compassion, empathy and happiness

• Creativity, insight and wisdom

Scientific Research on Meditation Benefits

Lots of scientific researches have been done. Here's some of the research on the benefits:  

• A 2005 study from Harvard Medical School found that meditation increases the thickness of your prefrontal cortex, a center of your brain associated with attention and self-awareness.

• A 2010 study from Harvard Medical School that meditation increases the density of your gray matter in regions associated with learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.

• A 2010 study from the University of California, Davis, found that meditation increases your attention span.

Meditation is Getting More and More Popular

As this secret to success, happiness and health are discovered by more and more people, meditation is getting more and more popular, as no one wants to be left behind.

​Meditation classes are offered at elite Silicon Valley companies like Apple, Google, Facebook etc, and Wall Street companies like Goldman Sacks, and often with waiting list.

Stress reduction meditation classes are also offered in hospitals like Stanford Hospital and Palo Altos Medical Foundations.