Train your brain to become healthier, happier
Posted by Medavie Blue Cross on November 24, 2021
Meditation isn’t just for cross-legged new age yogis, hippies and yuppies!
It’s an increasingly popular practice among all people types that helps us to take better care of our minds.
Think of meditation as a gym for our brain muscle. It involves training our attention so that we can achieve a mentally clear and calm state on demand. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery and other practices to relax the body and mind.
Just 10 minutes of being mindful each day can train our minds to be more present and uninterrupted by negative thoughts — or erase what is popularly known as that “stinking thinking.” It can help clear the clutter from our brains aka our “monkey minds”, as well as help us breathe and reduce physical symptoms that often accompany anxiety and burnout.
Focusing our attention and being aware of our feelings, also called “being in the moment”, has significant health benefits, for our minds and bodies.
Mindfulness, including meditation, is scientifically proven to help:
- Lower stress levels
- Lower blood pressure
- Improve concentration
- Improve the quality of sleep
- Improve relationships
- Strengthen resilience
- Improve overall mental health
- Increase happiness
It’s little wonder that meditation has gone mainstream.
If you’re new to meditation, or having trouble sticking to a regular routine, we have an app for that! It’s called Petit BamBou, a mindfulness and meditation app that currently has 8 million users worldwide. It’s the newest addition to our Connected Care digital storefront, joining Online Doctors, Digital Therapy, Virtual Physio, Personalized Medicine and Diabetes Care in providing services options, all along the health care continuum. Petit BamBou users are connected to a global network of experts who provide training, counselling and guided meditations.
The app is the creation of FeelVeryBien, a firm based in Luxembourg and founded by Benjamin Blasco and Ludovic Dujardin. These long-time friends and web entrepreneurs discovered the benefits of meditation for themselves and saw a need for easy, secular motivational meditations to “hack happiness for everyone.” Their goal is to bring wellbeing coaching and mental training to people’s daily lives through mobile and web services, starting with the Petit BamBou mindfulness and mediation app.
When you set up a Petit BamBou account with Connected Care, you will receive a three-month free trial of the premium version and your account is accessible to the entire family and can be used on multiple devices at the same time. The service provides access to a wide range of programs on relevant topics, stories, sounds and music for relaxation, plus daily meditations each morning, and are available using all devices: phone, tablet, computer, etc.
We know children and youth have been particularly impacted by the pandemic, so now is a perfect time build their mental resiliency. Petit BamBou includes sessions just for kids.
Are you ready to be Zen? Connect to Connected Care and our new Petit BamBou app below.
Medavie Blue Cross is a premier all-in-one carrier that provides health, dental, travel, life and disability benefits and administers federal and provincial government-sponsored health programs. Together with Medavie Health Services, we are part of Medavie, a health solutions partner committed to improving the wellbeing of Canadians. We are in the...