Once you hear about the benefits of meditation, it becomes reasonable to ask, will daily meditation help me? If you’re considering a regular meditation practice, you should know that a recent study showed that use of meditation among U.S. adults increased more than threefold from 4.1% in 2012 to 14.2% in 2017. So you’ll have lots of company once you start meditating!

There are several reasons why meditation has become so popular. One of them is that the practice helps people to manifest their deepest desires, even the ones held in the subconscious mind. Do you have dreams and desires for yourself that you’d like to see become reality?

Ways to manifest your desires

Here are 4 ways in which meditation helps you manifest your desires:

1) Frees you to focus and stay present

With a commitment to the present moment, it’s easier to focus on what’s happening right now. The mind doesn’t vacillate between the past and future so much. Memories of what happened and worries about what might happen don’t distract you from the important activities you take on. During meditation, you let go of all the movement of the mind back and forth, and just settle your thoughts on relaxing and being still.

The more you practice stillness and staying in the present moment, you can begin to feel your attention staying on what you’re doing. If you’re cooking a meal, writing a report, riding a bicycle, driving a car, or whatever it is you need to be totally involved in at any given time, you simply stay focused on that, making those activities more efficient and productive.

Surrendering to what’s happening now frees up more mental space for your dreams, as well. Your mind has more energy for focusing on and obtaining what you really want. You become increasingly open to feelings of lightness, joy and the true nature of your being. Clarity of thinking naturally results when you’re less distracted by irrelevant thoughts about the past and needless worries and speculations about the future.

2) Brings about positive thinking

Looking inside in a peaceful way makes the problems in your life less overwhelming. When the mind becomes less beset by difficulties, it begins to perceive the positive ways to approach the world and its challenges.

Giving rest to your mind is crucial to good health, just like the basic personal habits of sleep, brushing your teeth, bathing, and taking a day off from work every so often. It’s mental hygiene. It refreshes and maintains your ability to resist the thought habits, dirt, decay and disease that would otherwise drag you down.

As Descartes said, “I think. Therefore, I am.” So goes the relationship between your mind and your life. By feeling, thinking and intending to bring abundance, warmth, love and connections to life into your surroundings, you create a ripple effect that radiates into the world and into every aspect of your being.

3) Makes your inner voice louder

Solutions to problems, and guidance on how to proceed can come from inside you. This means you won’t have to rely on the advice of others for every little step you take. The instinctive, intuitive ability to know what is best will become more prominent and you’ll start to feel more confident about all of your decisions, big and small.

For every question you ask yourself, a sensible answer will come. You’ll become your own most reliable and objective advisor. The strength of your inner understanding will inspire trust in yourself and the universe, detachment from and less dependence on others. The relationship you have with yourself will be stronger, richer, and more likely to provide you with the joyful energy necessary to move toward your goals.

4) Gives your gratitude a platform

Have you considered what it took to bring you all the modern conveniences? Fresh water in your home, plentiful electricity, available transportation, and all the seemingly mundane things that we tend to take for granted were not there for most people just decades ago. With regular meditation, you take time to realize how fortunate you are to have so much opportunity and so many physical comforts. You begin to notice, and feel more grateful, and thus you can articulate that gratitude when you communicate in the world.

The more gratitude you express, the more you’ll receive from the world. One law of the universe is that like attracts like. Naturally, the more you feel abundance in your life, the more abundant energy will surround you. This means that increasing your own sense of gratitude, even if for your own body and your own potential, will help you to manifest your desires. It may take some time, but with meditation, you are developing the patience and opening the door to let the law of attraction work.