What is Meditation?
Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or for the mind to simply acknowledge its content without becoming identified with that content, or as an end in itself.
The meditative traditions may be broadly divided into two main camps: concentrative meditation and mindfulness meditation. The first group involves focusing one’s awareness on a single relatively stable object such as the breath or a mantra.
The second group involves non-judgmental acknowledgment of sensations and thoughts without naming or engaging with them.
However, almost all styles of meditation share two common elements that are important for health and for understanding the process: a quiet space to sit or lie down in, free from distraction; and an anchor for the attention while meditating, such as focusing on one’s breathing.
The practice of mindfulness, which is an important aspect of Buddhist meditation and other meditative traditions, involves bringing one’s attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental way and then acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations rather than reacting to them. Although it may be done in a formal way it also is incorporated into everyday activities.
In addition, people who practice mindfulness appear more able to manage stress which is associated with chronic depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure and other afflictions.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a program based on Buddhist meditation and other forms of mindfulness training, has been found to be effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression as well as improving patients’ quality of life.
A number of small studies have shown that even brief mindfulness training appears to be helpful in coping with the range of stresses that people experience. In one study, for example, scientists asked students to recall an anger-provoking event, and then taught them mindfulness skills; after the training, the students reported that they felt less angry.
How to Meditate
Relaxation is the most important step in learning meditation. When we are calm and peaceful, it will be easier to focus on a particular thing like our breathing pattern. You can try to meditate as soon as you wake up early in the morning or just before you go to sleep at night
It doesn’t matter when you choose, as long as it is a time when you are guaranteed to have quiet and peace.
How to Start Meditating For Beginners
- Find a quiet, peaceful area and place yourself in a comfortable position. Possibly an office chair, feet on the floor, hands and inner forearms on your legs. Set an alarm for 5 minutes on your cell phone.
- Begin taking in air through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Continue this for 1 minute. After one minute, close your eyes, breathe normally and focus on your breathing. Focus on how your chest moves with each inhalation or exhalation and follow your breaths
- Do get frustrated if your brain wanders. It’s normal and natural for beginners to lose focus during meditation, but it is important to acknowledge thoughts or wandering of the brain and refocus on your breath.
The key to feeling relaxed is not forcing it — time and consistent mediation will make you feel it.
What are the Benefits of Meditation?
The benefits of meditation are incredible, but difficult to explain.
One way is to start with the basic benefit of simple relaxation. When you close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, what do you feel? As you let go of all thoughts for an extended period of time, does your breathing slow down?
How about the tension in your shoulders? Can you feel it melt away? Tension is a natural part of life, and there are plenty of techniques we can employ to help reduce tension in the moment.
However, when you sit down to meditate for just five minutes each day, your body gets an amazing opportunity to rest and restore itself. Relaxing is one of the most useful benefits of meditation.
It helps you tap into your inner self and realize the infinite possibilities that lie just beyond our reach in every moment. It is difficult to explain the meditative state, but many people who have experienced it will tell you that they feel as if they are a part of something much larger.
It is pure bliss, and even though it sounds like an experience reserved for only the most enlightened individuals out there, the truth is that everyone has access to this state of mind. Meditation lets you reach your true potential and gain insight into your higher self, the part of you that connects to a greater whole.
The benefits of meditation are already quite astounding. But the reason why people call it the miracle worker may be in the stress reduction component. Stress does not make you productive or creative, so it is better to alleviate stress than to ignore or avoid it.
And what better way to do that than with meditation? When you meditate, your body enters a relaxed state while at the same time increasing focus and concentration. It is like the ultimate form of rest and relaxation, all rolled into one amazing experience.
How to Live in the Moment and Benefit From the Present
Why should you learn how to live in the moment? You may come up with a few reasons, like having more fun and being able to focus on whatever task is at hand. But you are really only scratching the surface when you do that. The real question here is what exactly living in the moment means and why it should matter to you.
Living in the moment means staying focused on what is happening right now and not thinking too far ahead or about the past. As it turns out, this is a much more difficult skill than one might imagine.
When we talk about how hard it is to focus on just the present, we are not only referring to the fact that our minds are somehow naturally programmed to think about things that happened in the past and what may happen in the future. It is also because we have so many distractions around us all of the time.
If you consider all the devices, apps, and technologies that occupy our attention these days, you probably already know how hard it can be to live in the moment and focus on just one thing at a time. And it doesn’t really help that we have social media networks, constant communication through texting, voice calls, and emails etc.
The good news is that you can learn to live in the moment by observing your own thoughts and understanding how your mind works. By doing this, you can stop yourself from constantly living in the past and worrying about the future, and instead focus on whatever task you are working on right now.
Meditation can help with that. When you sit down and meditate, for example, your mind can be clear enough to see what is really important in the present moment. Imagine being able to focus on just one task at a time without worrying about anything else—how much more productive would you become?
Not only that, but living in the moment also helps you remind yourself of what is really important in life, and why you should not waste time on things that do not matter.
Meditation helps to Slow Down Your Breathing for Better Health
When you learn how to breathe properly, it can help you relax your body so that it is ready to sleep or simply relieve stress. It can also improve your overall health, and there are even some people who live healthier lives because of meditation.
When You Meditate, Your Brain Functions Better studies have shown that meditation can actually change your brain in a positive way. Dr. Sara Lazar, for instance, did a study on the effects of meditation on an MRI machine to see what was going on inside people’s brains when they were meditating.
What she found was that the frontal part of her subjects’ brains became thicker after meditation, and this could actually mean that their focus, memory, and other cognitive abilities were improved.
Conclusion:
Meditation has a lot of benefits, and with all the studies we have today there is plenty of evidence to show that it works. If you are interested in trying out meditation, start meditating for short periods of time (five to 10 minutes) at first.
Do it consistently until it becomes a habit before trying longer sessions. Once you get the hang of it, you can meditate for longer periods of time about once or twice a day, and you will certainly feel the benefits for yourself soon enough.
Watch this awesome video below to learn more about “What is Meditation….”
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