mindfulness save money

Meditation for Money? How Mindfulness Can Help You Save

Studies have shown that moderate amounts of daily meditation can lead to slower brain-aging and heightened alertness–and that it can even work to combat things like high blood pressure even more effectively than many medications!

Wouldn’t it be nice if something as low-stakes and calming as meditation could fix all your other problems, too? If it could do your taxes? If it could answer all those phone calls from your mother-in-law? If it could help you save money?

The thing is, meditation actually can help with that last one!

Ever heard of meditation for money? Well, if you’ve been in search of new ways to manage your financial stress and get your spending under control, meditation may be just the key you need.

Here are a few of our favorite ways mindfulness and meditation can help your brain and your bank account!

1. Reduces Stress

One of the biggest draws of meditation for the average person is really quite simple: it helps reduce stress.

In the same way several other relaxation techniques and activities do, meditation can help to reduce stress through its calming, re-centering aspects.

For most people, the subject of money can be one that’s consistently fueled by stress. When your body and mind experience stress, you experience negative hormonal spikes, increased heart rate, and heightened blood pressure.

These side effects of stress aren’t always short-term, either–even once you’ve decided just how to purpose your refund check and you’ve managed to take your mind off the stress of your financial burdens, the negative side effects of money-related stress can often linger.

Meditation in the face of financial stress is a great way to directly combat these physical tolls. It’s also a great way to lower your mental stress rates and put you in a better position physically, mentally, and emotionally to handle your money.

Being mindful of the ways in which you manage stress, especially as it relates to your bank account, can set your health at ease, allowing you to enter the state of mind necessary to efficiently and responsibly handle your money. Meditation is the perfect way to take your mind off financial stressors and help you take everything one stride at a time.

2. Helps Focus

Lots of guided meditations are centered around the idea of focus. It makes sense, right? If you can manage to focus on one word, place, or idea, the rest will fall away, and you can regain concentration on a single subject, instead of all of life’s craziness.

When it comes to saving money, the focus meditation can provide might be just the thing you’re missing.

Many thoughtless purchases and impulse-buys happen when you shop without concentrating on the what or why of your spending. Without taking the time to focus and understand your own rationale for buying something, it’s easy to toss an item in your cart, swipe your card, and forget about your spending until it shows up on your bank statement the next day.

Practicing meditation can be the perfect way to combat impulsive purchases that just don’t make sense when you’re trying to save. Taking the time to be mindful and to recenter your thoughts from the often-overwhelming stress of money and finances can help you better itemize and rationalize your needs.

When it comes down to it, a lot of the blunders we make in saving money are really due to thoughtless purchasing and unfocused planning. In general, meditation can help you learn to slow down and reconsider–increasing your overall focus and peace of mind when it comes to finances.

3. Increases Self-Awareness

Perhaps the most important way meditation can help increase your saving abilities is simply through helping you fine-tune your own self awareness.

Life would be easier if finances weren’t so often tightly wound up in our everyday life. Things would be less stressful and overwhelming if it were possible and easy to completely leave behind thoughts of money. As you know, this isn’t always possible–but meditation can, in many cases, provide the next best thing.

Lots of meditation practices prompt you to take a moment to become hyper-aware of yourself and your body. They ask you to consider your needs and feelings down to their very core.

When it comes to saving money, meditation can amp up your tendencies by helping you become more self-aware, and as a result, more understanding of why you’re spending money when you do.

Even beyond this sense of concentration on internal needs, too, a better sense of self-awareness gained through meditation can lead to higher levels of productivity and satisfaction with work life. These side effects, of course, can lead directly to productivity-based raises and promotions–directly benefiting your wallet!

Being self-aware and conscious of all you do and all the money you spend can be a super-important key to your own saving potential.

So…Where to Start?

The great thing about meditation (aside from all its potential money-mindfulness benefits, of course!) is that it doesn’t cost anything to get started. There’s no need to invest in a membership or even a yoga mat or new leggings–all you need is a quiet place to sit and think.

Start simply. Set aside a few moments each day, especially if you start to feel overwhelmed by thoughts of finances.

You can choose to use a guided meditation track, or simply to sit in silence. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. If your thoughts wander, refocus yourself. For an awesome guided meditation experience, try the Avatar Course, which you can view here.

Remember that meditation is all about finding internal sources of happiness, focus, and self-awareness and that taking the time to get in-tune with these parts of yourself is what’s really going to help you improve your financial stresses, and as a result, help you to save money!

Super into Meditation for Money?

Improving your financial health through meditation is easy and relaxing. We totally understand if you’re head-over-heels for the idea!

Still want more info on meditation for money?

Check out the rest of our awesome content for more ways to save and help you live better, even on a budget!