Surprising Benefits of Honey For Mindfulness and Healing
The ancient practice of meditation focusses on restoring a balance between your mind and body. As a result, it’s easy to see why so many people are turning to meditation to combat the stress that comes from their hectic lives. Mindfulness meditation is a form of meditation that brings together awareness and concentration. The most common way to perform mindfulness meditation is by focusing on your breath. While you explore meditation and its impact on your life, take note of the fact that your diet can enhance your experience. With that in mind, here are some surprising benefits of using honey for mindfulness and healing.
Benefits of honey for mindfulness and healing!
While embarking on your meditation journey, you can avail of the following benefits of honey for mindfulness and healing to make your experience even better!
- Stress reduction!
With the ongoing global pandemic, stress has become an unwelcome guest in everyone’s lives. An uncertain job market, work-from-home norms translating into long hours on the job, and a murky future are all factors that have contributed to the rise in stress. In fact, the lack of socializing and online classrooms have also added to an increase in stress in children.
Stress is quite harmful to the mind and body. When it comes to mind, patterns of stress can be quite addictive. Over time, they foster a pessimistic attitude and deep unhappiness. When it comes to the body, stress can lead to an increase in cortisol, which can further lead to cardiovascular problems, sleep problems, skin problems, and more.
Mindfulness meditation is a great tool for combating stress. However, what makes it even better is when you use honey for mindfulness and healing. Honey naturally helps combat stress levels in the body, thereby not only making it easier for you to focus on the meditation but also benefiting your mind and body greatly.
To use honey for mindfulness and healing, you can:
- Mix a teaspoon of honey in lukewarm water.
- Add a little bit of lemon juice.
- Drink a glassful of this at least 15 minutes before you start meditating
- Combats Depression!
Many people turn to mindfulness meditation to combat depression, and studies have shown this type of meditation to be rather effective. As depression is a largely ignored ailment within the Indian context, people suffering from it can feel alone and misunderstood, leading to a lack of motivation in general. Mindfulness meditation lets you combat depression while also clearing your mind of unhealthy thoughts.
In this context, using honey for mindfulness and healing can be a great idea. This is mainly because honey helps combat depression on a biological level. Confused about how that would work? Let us explain.
Honey improves the health of the digestive system. It fights inflammation within the digestive tract, improves the frequency of bowel movements, and is generally good for gut bacteria. Gut bacteria may sound terrifying, but these microorganisms are responsible for the functioning of your entire body.
The digestive system impacts your mind through what is known as the Gut-Brain Axis. When your gut health is not as it should be, your brain is prone to depression and anxiety. Conversely, when your gut is healthy, your brain is less likely to go through the chemical changes that lead to depression and anxiety.
Thus, using honey for mindfulness and healing can be a good option for those who suffer from depression. Of course, having said this, situation depression (momentary depression caused due to life circumstances) tends to dissipate on its own, while clinical depression requires constant care and monitoring. However, no matter which of the two you suffer from, using honey for mindfulness and healing can help give it a nudge out the door.
Apart from helping you combat depression by improving gut health, raw honey also has anti-depressant properties in general. Thus, it’s certainly a great addition to your diet if you are suffering from depression.
To use honey for mindfulness and healing to combat depression, you can:
- Make a stack of pancakes.
- Top them with freshly cut fruit such as raspberries and blackberries.
- Pour delicious honey over the stack to sweeten it.
This helps you in two ways. You ensure that your stomach is full, giving you the energy needed to meditate (as depression often makes people feel like they lack energy), while also consuming honey, which improves your gut health.
- Boosts Brain Function!
Many people turn to mindfulness meditation in order to improve their brain function and attention span. Did you know that with the advent of social media, the average person has an attention span of 8 seconds? That’s way too less when you consider the level of concentration needed to get through your professional tasks, school work, or even to work on your hobbies or skill-building.
If your main aim is to boost your brain function, then using honey for mindfulness and healing is a great idea. This is because honey contains an antioxidant known as Pinocembrin. This antioxidant is responsible for protecting the brain and its nerve cells from damage, thereby ensuring that your brain works at its best. Additionally, studies have also known that honey has a positive impact on the Hippocampus of the brain. This means that consuming honey should help you improve short-term and long-term memory.
Studies have also shown that honey can improve your ability to process new information. As you progress in your career, this ability becomes increasingly important, as well as quite elusive due to the natural degeneration of the brain with age. Thus, if one of your reasons for pursuing mindfulness meditation was to improve your brain function in terms of both memory and information-processing, then using honey for mindfulness and healing should work in your favor.
To use honey for mindfulness and healing, you can:
- Make yourself a cup of green tea.
- Add a teaspoon of honey to it.
- Start your day on a healthy note!
- Improves sleep!
Another reason why people turn to mindfulness meditation is to improve the quality of their sleep. Lifestyle issues such as stress along with a range of health issues can lead to insomnia. Over time, this can play havoc with your ability to concentrate at work or bond with your loved ones.
In this case, using honey for mindfulness and healing can truly help because honey is one of the best home remedies for fighting insomnia. Honey decreases the stress in the body, along with the inflammation, which makes it easier to fall asleep.
To have honey for mindfulness and healing, and to improve your sleep naturally, you can:
- Have a teaspoon of honey right before you sleep!
- Add a teaspoon of honey in warm milk and consume a glassful before you go to sleep!
What about using honey strictly for healing?
Honey has healing properties, which is why it has been used in a medicinal capacity in Ayurveda for ages. Honey is known to help heal wounds, and as it creates a barrier between the wound and the air, it can help prevent the wound from getting infected too.
Additionally, honey has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. As a result, when you slather it on a wound, it helps kill off the bacteria on it, thereby preventing any health concerns from cropping up.
To use honey for healing, you can:
- Mix half a teaspoon of turmeric or neem powder with a teaspoon of honey.
- The mixture should form a thick paste that you can easily spread with your fingers.
- Apply it to your wound.
Did you know, this same mixture can also be used on pimples to decrease their redness, get rid of the bacterial contamination on the skin, and eventually heal the pimple entirely. It can also help decrease the chances of the pimple leaving behind a stubborn mark. That’s why honey is also a good ingredient when it comes to skincare.
As you can see, using honey for mindfulness and healing can work out in your favor, as honey and mindfulness go hand in hand. We recommend sticking to raw honey as it offers far more benefits than processed honey. Have a look at all the delicious flavors of honey we offer, and offer one today to start your mindfulness journey on the right note!