Today I am so excited to be sharing a post on Avocado a Day Nutrition! I admire Rachael’s blog and especially her intuitive eating articles. As a fellow dietitian, I have gained great insight from reading her posts! The community of dietitian bloggers is amazing. Everyone is so helpful and supportive of one another.

Rachael wrote a fantastic guest post for my blog last week: 3 Ways You Can Start Intuitively Eating Today. Rachael blogs often about Intuitive Eating—the principle that becoming attuned to your body’s needs is the best way to achieve and sustain a happy, healthy weight that’s right for you. Another way to achieve and sustain a happy, healthy body (and mind) is to practice daily mindfulness and meditation.

I recently read an article in the Washington Post about meditation’s effect on the brain. A Harvard neuroscientist was one of the first to study the claimed benefits of mediation and mindfulness and test them in brain scans.

And guess what? Meditation actually changes your brain. The study showed that regular meditation is associated with decreased stress, depression, anxiety, pain, and insomnia. In long term meditators, the study showed an increased gray matter in the several areas of the brain associated with working memory and executive decision making. A 50-year old meditator had the same amount of gray matter as a 25 year old.

Head over to my friend Rachael’s blog, Avocado A Day Nutrition, to read more and learn how to incorporate mindfulness into your daily life!