Meditation for Stroke Recovery: The Game-Changing Habit You Need
The scientifically-proven benefits of meditation for stroke recovery are continuously overlooked, so we’re diving deep into this important topic today. You’re about to learn how meditation can grow the grey matter area of your brain and what other stroke survivors are saying about this essential habit.
The Benefits of Meditation for Stroke Recovery
If you’re suffering from post-stroke depression or feel like you’ve hit a plateau, then meditation could be one of the most rewarding habits you develop.
Daily meditation is one of our top recommended habits because it’s proven to help:
- Reduce depression, tiredness, and fatigue
- Improve attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility
- Grow your brain and improve information processing
Sound too good to be true? Indeed, all of those things can be improved with daily meditation. But let’s dig a little deeper.
Science Says Yes to Meditation for Stroke Recovery
In a 2013 study, two groups of stroke survivors participated in conventional therapy. One group also included 20 minutes of meditation a day and the other group didn’t.
After one month of therapy, the meditation group showed significantly more improvement than the non-meditators.
The study actually said “highly significant;” concluding that meditation should be incorporated in post stroke rehabilitation regimens.
This isn’t just a casual natural remedy for stroke recovery. These are words written in a published scientific journal.
And it’s not the first scientific journal to prove the efficacy of meditation for stroke recovery. There are many other studies that show the same results: More meditation leads to more recovery.
And it helps grow your brain.
How Meditation Grows Your Brain
Regular meditation has been shown to grow the gray matter areas of your brain responsible for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility.
This makes your brain more efficient at processing information in these areas, which are essential skills for stroke survivors who are working on healing their brain.
The malleability of your brain is all thanks to neuroplasticity, which is how your brain rewires itself. While neuroplasticity is mostly discussed in regard to recovering from brain injury, it’s also the mechanism responsible for learning new skills.
For example, mathematicians have more gray matter in the areas of their brain responsible for arithmetic and spatial reasoning. Similarly, jugglers have more gray matter in the areas of their brain responsible for hand–eye coordination and multitasking.
Your brain will adapt to whatever you focus on and grow accordingly. So when you practice focusing your mind on the present moment (i.e. meditating), your brain will grow itself accordingly.
This makes meditation an even more attractive practice for stroke survivors who want to improve their attention after stroke.
What Stroke Survivors Are Saying About Meditation
Meditation is something that we hear the stroke community talking about a lot.
Amy from My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery has a whole category on her blog dedicated to meditation. She regards meditation as one of the most important ingredients for a successful recovery from stroke.
Dean from Dean’s Stroke Musings also has a whole section for meditation on his blog, which speaks to the importance of meditation for stroke recovery.
Overall, stroke survivors love meditation because it works. We encourage you to be part of this growing trend.
The benefits of meditation will boost your recovery from stroke.
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