Our happiness and emotional stability are dependent on our ability to love ourselves. This self-love is called self-esteem. Self-esteem works on us in subtle ways, dictating our choices, shaping our worldview. It lies at the heart of many of our problems in life, but because we may not be fully aware of our implicit self-evaluations, we may not realize that the root cause of a problem is how we feel about ourselves at the deepest level.

Unfortunately, self-esteem is often presented as some nebulous, magical quality that some people simply have and others don’t, or as a quality that we can improve by losing weight or buying a new wardrobe. But self-esteem is more complicated than that.

The more interesting and relevant fact is that meditation can help improve Self-esteem.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 68% of Americans are overweight, and more than a third are obese. That is a lot of people who are potentially looking for solutions to lose weight and get fitter.

But, more recently and importantly, with the world being upended with Covid-19, the CDC states the following:

• Having obesity increases the risk of severe illness from COVID-19. People who are overweight may also be at increased risk.
• Having obesity may triple the risk of hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection

While the myriad of solutions and options for this are mind-boggling, a successful weight loss program is a combination of multiple facets that need to be followed with discipline – optimal diet, cardiovascular and strength training and staying active.  In addition, the invisible factors in the success of such programs are subtle – they deal with motivation, accountability, and perseverance, amongst many others.

Meditation scores heavily in subtler areas along with scientifically backed research supporting its role in the primary weight loss facets or levers. It can be the central guiding force that makes a weight loss program successful.

Let’s see how.

Last week, we talked about how social distancing has a silver lining and could be used to change your life positively in many ways.

But for those of us who are struggling with many problems in life, including financial, health, or family-related brought about by the pandemic of the century, meditation can be a massive help in getting through this period.

We examine some specific meditation-related methods for overcoming the stress and loneliness that forced social distancing can bring in our lives.

One of the most used phrases in 2020 was “social distancing”. Not only did it become popular, but it brought upon the world’s population quite a bit of misery.

With newer mutations of the virus and many months to go before any significant part of the population can be vaccinated, social distancing continues to be part of our lives in varying degrees. We yearn to go back to our pre-pandemic lives, where we never had to think about getting together with people or attending an event of any size. 

Also, pandemic fatigue is setting in. Most people are getting to a point where it doesn’t seem worthwhile to make such a big sacrifice to their lives’ quality just to prevent getting infected by the virus.

But can there be a silver lining to the forced distancing and significantly less active social life? Are there ways in which we can convert this problem into an opportunity for ourselves? What if our lives could be made richer during this time?

Let’s see how.