It benefits the mind, body, and soul as a whole, however for this papers purpose I will separate the components into the benefits related to psychological, philosophical, and spiritual elements of the human being. These will be based on the literature pertaining to mindfulness meditation specifically and what has been discussed in a variety of research studies.

Physiological Benefits

The literature discusses an immense amount of physiological benefits derived from mindfulness meditation. To list and discuss all of them is beyond the scope of this paper; however I will discuss some of the main physical benefits shown throughout the empirical literature. First, the physiological changes that have been noticed when practicing meditation such as decreased heart rate, breathing and the lowering of blood pressure has been termed the ?relaxation response? by Benson (1975). These changes can of course be extremely beneficial to those individuals needing to escape the daily stress and chaos of society.
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