When you’re facing an overwhelming to-do list, you may find it hard to justify doing nothing for 20 minutes. But studies prove that meditation may actually make you more productive by reducing stress, increasing your capacity to focus and decreasing your tendency to pursue distractions.
If you’re under stress, you need meditation, says Ronesh Sinha, M.D., an internal medicine physician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. “I prescribe meditation to most people,” Dr. Sinha says, “but I may not always use the word ‘meditation.’ Depending on the person and his or her background, I may call it rest, an adult time-out, time to disconnect or whatever other word or phrase resonates.”
