A 10 Minute meditation done daily can transform your stress and can increase your cognitive and physical performance. Meditation also decreases ADD and ADHD symptoms in most people. Daily meditation can help you maintain high energy, high creativity, allows you more emotional stability, and helps you sleep better. Meditation decreases the length and severity of migraine headaches more often and better than any medication on the market and there are no bad side effects.
Meditation can help with fertility, feelings of grief and overwhelming sadness, helps you be a better business partner or romantic partner, even helps you live longer. Elizabeth Blackburn, a Nobel Prize winning scientist, suggested that by promoting a healthy biochemistry in the body and brain, our cells live longer healthier lives - thereby increasing our lifespan.
Daily meditation helps you get better at meditation and also helps you get a better life.
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How Do You Meditate?
Find a quiet, comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed for 15 to 20 minutes. Somewhere you can feel calm, warm, safe and peaceful. Set your timer for about 10 minutes.As a beginner you don’t want to go too long for the first time as it may stress you out. Take a couple of full, deep breaths and relax your body. Pay attention to your body. Make sure you’re comfortable. Find any areas of tension in your body and breathe them away. Relax more fully into it. Now, focus on your breath. Full, deep breaths, nice and slow. Feel your belly and then your chest expand and contract with each breath. You can count your breaths as you focus on your breathing. Feel each breath as it goes in and out of your nostrils and down your windpipe into your lungs. Notice where your thoughts are going. You mind will wander, thoughts and feelings will come up. Allow them to, notice them, let them go, then go back to focusing on your breathing. Don’t judge yourself or your thoughts, just be aware of them as they come, and as you let them go. You can count each breath if it helps you focus. Continue to relax with each breath you take.
When your timer goes off, open your eyes, take a deep breath, and come back to yourself. Give yourself a few minutes. How does your body feel? Physically and mentally. What are you thinking, feeling, what thoughts came to you while you were meditating? Don’t judge yourself. Everyone experiences their first time differently. If you feel more relaxed and less tense, then you succeeded. As you practice, it gets easier to quiet your mind. Allow the thoughts and images that come to you, acknowledge them, and let them go. Don’t worry about what each thought may mean. If it’s something important it will come back to you later. As you become more adept at meditation your thoughts will distract you less and less. The relaxation will become more and more.
What Is The Goal Of Meditation?
Your “Goal” depends on you. What do you want to get out if it? For many people, the goal is to become less stressed, less anxious, to lower their blood pressure. For some, the goal is to become more mindful, more present in their day to day lives. You may want to improve your focus and concentration, learn to connect with your body and quiet your mind, to feel and hear that still, small voice within.
The reason behind all of it is to find peace, calm, and yourself: the real you that is hiding inside. Peel away all the layers of you that you show to the world and learn who you are at the core of you. You will come to know yourself better than you ever have before. You will become a gentler, kinder, more patient person with greater perception, resilience, creativity and, yes, even smarter.
Is Meditation Good For Anxiety?
Meditation allows you to slow your thoughts, slow the “mind Chatter”, and observe, become aware of what is going on inside your head. For those who live with anxiety, meditation helps us become aware of those worrying thoughts and to slow them down, even stop them from occurring so often. When we get into a habit of meditating, our brain waves change and slow down into the Alpha state. 8 to 10 weeks of meditation actually starts to rewire your brain so you become a better version of you. Meditation brings about a feeling of calm and balance, makes it easier to focus and concentrate. Many scientific studies have proven the benefits of meditation for anxiety, as well as depression. One of the most popular types of meditation for anxiety is Mindfulness Meditation. Mindfulness has been shown to be just as effective as some medication for anxiety and depression. It’s very easy to learn and is a great stepping stone to learning other types of meditation. The above meditation is mindfulness meditation. It focuses on your breath, while being aware of the thoughts that come and go, and back to the breath. Don’t judge yourself for the thoughts you are having, just be aware, and let them go. Be aware of any tightness, or tension in your body associated with the thoughts and breathe it away. Observe any anxious thoughts, acknowledge them, and let them go. Don’t judge yourself. It is what it is. Be aware and let it go. Then focus on your breathing.
Some people have difficulty slowing down enough to “just sit and breathe”. They may feel like it’s a waste of time because they can’t just stop thinking they don’t have time to “sit and do nothing”.In learning meditation you are actively training the mind to increase awareness. Give yourself time. It’s a process and may take a couple weeks of daily practice before you notice any difference. Often, other people around you will notice a difference in you before you do. It does get easier the more you practice. Schedule meditation into your life daily until it becomes a habit, one that you don’t want to miss. Start with 7 to 10 minutes, and build up your time from there. Many people find 20 to 30 minutes is enough for them to feel their best. Others like to schedule the occasional hour or 2 for meditation and take it deeper. Some prefer 10 minutes in the morning upon arising and 10 minutes at night before bed. Finding the “quiet time” for you is important to self care. When you feel like you are too busy to find the time, that is the time to take 10 minutes and meditate.The rest of your day will flow, you’ve been able to centre and balance yourself.
What Kind Of Meditation Should I Do?
There are several different kinds of meditation. Find the one that feels right for you. Start with the easy, simple one like mindfulness. Mindfulness allows you to learn to focus - on you, your body, your breath. Become aware of the thoughts coming and going in your mind and being fully present.
Transcendental meditation is learned from a Transcendental Teacher who will assign you your own mantra, which could be a word, sound or phrase to repeat as you meditate. Focusing on a mantra is supposed to allow you to go inward to a deep state of relaxation and rest allowing you to achieve peace without effort.
Vipassana meditation is a Buddhist form of mindfulness mediation. You practice going within, self observation, being aware of the thoughts, feelings, emotions in your body without judging them good or bad, allowing them to just be. The goal is self transformation through self observation and self awareness. This results in a balance of mind, body and spirit, love and compassion.
Loving kindness meditation is often practiced by Buddhist monks. It involves directing love and well wishes towards yourself and others. Once we experience love and compassion for ourselves then we show the same to others. Love and kindness mediation shows us self compassion, increased focus and attention, a feeling of emotional strength that helps us balance our thoughts and inspires our actions.
Chakra meditation is a form of meditation in which we focus on the energy centres in the body and the spiritual power that can emanate from these centres. There are seven main Chakras in the body from the root chakra at the base of the spine to the crown chakra at the top of the head. Each chakra has a colour associated with it. Chakra meditation focuses on opening each energy centre with the breath and balancing the energy of each chakra.
Breathing meditation is also a very popular meditation technique. There are many ways to do a breathing meditation, some with fast, short breaths, others with slower deep breathing. Some breathing meditations are referred to “Breath work”. You focus on the air going in and out, feeling the air pass your nostrils and following it down your windpipe, imagine it flowing into your bloodstream and into the cells, then breathing off the carbon dioxide.
Progressive relaxation meditation is just that. You focus on becoming more and more relaxed. Starting at the top of your head, contract and relax each muscle group, on your scalp, your face, your eyes, your mouth, then down to your neck, shoulders, upper back then lower back, your chest and abdomen. Continuing to your arms, hands, fingers, then hips, down your legs to your feet. And repeat.
Movement meditation is an active form of meditation where you may be walking, gardening, tai chi, or other gentle forms of movement. This can assist you in becoming more connected with your body. The movement makes it easier for those who have a hard time sitting still for any length of time. Slow deep breaths and focus on the repetitive movements and the sensations in the body with the movement.
Mantra meditation using the sound “OM” is what most people think of when they hear of meditation. Mantra meditation is ancient in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The mantra may be a word or sound that is repeated and focused on to clear the mind. The word or sound can be said out loud or in your mind. Some find it easier to focus on a mantra rather than the breath. The principle is basically the same, leading to deeper levels of awareness of self.
What Are The Health Benefits Of Meditation?
According to thousands of scientific studies that have been done on different kinds of meditation, you can expect to reduce your stress and anxiety, lower your blood pressure, and sleep better. The more and the longer you meditate the bigger the benefits. After a few months of regular meditation you will find your mood is better overall, your patience is abundant, you have increased focus and concentration, any aggression has dissipated, improved emotional health, more compassion and empathy for yourself and others. Meditation actually makes you smarter, and you are a nicer person. Meditation makes you better at life.
