Meditation

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text woodmart_inline=”no” text_larger=”no”]Meditation can be defined as a set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of awareness and focused attention. Meditation is also a consciousness-changing technique that has been shown to have a wide number of benefits on psychological well-being.¹

Some key things to note about meditation:

• Meditation has been practiced in cultures all over the world for thousands of years.
• Nearly every religion, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, has a tradition of using meditative practices.
• While meditation is often used for religious purposes, many people practice it independently of any religious or spiritual beliefs or practices.
• Meditation can also be used as a psychotherapeutic technique.
• There are many different types of meditation.

What is meditation?

Meditation is a technique used for thousands of years to develop awareness of the present moment.

It can involve practices to sharpen focus and attention, connect to the body and breath, develop acceptance of difficult emotions, and even alter consciousness. It’s been shown to offer a number of physical and psychological benefits. While many spiritual traditions include meditation as a part of their teachings and practices, the technique itself doesn’t belong to any particular religion or faith. Though ancient in dfdg, it’s still practiced today in cultures all over the world to create a sense of peace, calm, and inner harmony.

Meditation may offer a solution to the growing need to reduce stress in the midst of busy schedules and demanding lives. Although there isn’t a right or wrong way to meditate, it’s important to find a practice that meets your needs.

Types

Spiritual meditation

Spiritual meditation is used in nearly all religions and spiritual traditions.

The types of spiritual meditation are as diverse as the world’s spiritual traditions themselves. Many of the meditation techniques listed in this article could be considered spiritual meditation.

According to a spiritual meditation focuses on developing a deeper understanding of spiritual/religious meaning and connection with a higher power. Examples include:

• Christian contemplative prayer
• Sufi dhikr (remembrance of God)
• Jewish Kabbalistic practices

Spiritual meditation can be practiced at home or in a place of worship. This practice is beneficial for those who seek spiritual growth and a deeper connection to a higher power or spiritual force.

Focused meditation

Focused meditation involves concentration using any of the five senses.

For example, you can focus on something internal, like your breath, or you can bring in external influences to help focus your attention.

Examples include:

• counting mala beads
• listening to a gong
• staring at a candle flame
• counting your breaths
• moon gazing

This practice may be simple in theory, but it can be difficult for beginners to hold their focus for longer than a few minutes at first. If your mind does wander, simply come back to the practice and refocus. As the name suggests, this practice is ideal for anyone who wants to sharpen their focus and attention.

Mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness meditation dfdgates from Buddhist teachings and is the most popular and researched form of meditation in the West.

In mindfulness meditation, you pay attention to your thoughts as they pass through your mind. You don’t judge the thoughts or become involved with them. You simply observe and take note of any patterns.

This practice combines concentration with awareness. You may find it helpful to focus on an object or your breath while you observe any bodily sensations, thoughts, or feelings.

This type of meditation is good for people who don’t have a teacher to guide them, as it can be easily practiced alone.

Movement meditation

Although most people think of yoga when they hear movement meditation, this practice may include:

• walking
• gardening
• qi gong
• tai chi
• other gentle forms of movement

This is an active form of meditation where the movement guides you into a deeper connection with your body and the present moment. Movement meditation is good for people who find peace in action and want to develop body awareness.

Transcendental Meditation

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a type of meditation that’s been the subject of numerous studies in the scientific community. TM was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and refers to a specific practice designed to quiet the mind and induce a state of calm and peace. It involves the use of mantra and is best taught by a certified TM practitioner. This practice is for those who want an accessible approach to the depth that meditation offers.

Progressive relaxation

Also known as body scan meditation, progressive relaxation is a practice aimed at reducing tension in the body and promoting relaxation. Oftentimes, this form of meditation involves slowly tightening and relaxing one muscle group at a time throughout the body.

In some cases, it may also encourage you to imagine a gentle wave flowing through your body to help release any tension. This form of meditation is often used to relieve stress and unwind before bedtime.

Mantra meditation

Mantra meditation is prominent in many teachings, including Hindu and Buddhist traditions. This type of meditation uses a repetitive sound to clear the mind. It can be a word, phrase, or sound, one of the most common being “om.”

Your mantra can be spoken loudly or quietly. After chanting the mantra for some time, you’ll be more alert and in tune with your environment. This allows you to experience deeper levels of awareness. Some people enjoy mantra meditation because they find it easier to focus on a word than on their breath. Others enjoy feeling the vibration of the sound in their body. This is also a good practice for people who don’t like silence and enjoy repetition.

Loving-kindness meditation

Loving-kindness meditation is used to strengthen feelings of compassion, kindness, and acceptance toward oneself and others. It typically involves opening the mind to receive love from others and then sending well wishes to loved ones, friends, acquaintances, and all living beings.

Because this type of meditation is intended to promote compassion and kindness, it may be ideal for those holding feelings of anger or resentment.

Visualization meditation

Visualization meditation is a technique focused on enhancing feelings of relaxation, peace, and calmness by visualizing positive scenes, images, or figures. This practice involves imagining a scene vividly and using all five senses to add as much detail as possible. It can also involve holding a beloved or honored figure in mind with the intention of embodying their qualities.

Another form of visualization meditation involves imagining yourself succeeding at specific goals, which is intended to increase focus and motivation. Many people use visualization meditation to boost their mood, reduce stress levels, and promote inner peace.

How to start meditation

Many people use visualization meditation to boost their mood, reduce stress levels, and promote inner peace.

 Meditation is simpler (and harder) than most people think. Read these steps, make sure you’re somewhere where you can relax into this process, set a timer, and give it a shot:

1) Take a seat
Find place to sit that feels calm and quiet to you.

2) Set a time limit
If you’re just beginning, it can help to choose a short time, such as five or 10 minutes.

3) Notice your body
You can sit in a chair with your feet on the floor, you can sit loosely cross-legged, you can kneel all are fine. Just make sure you are stable and in a position you can stay in for a while.

4) Feel your breath
Follow the sensation of your breath as it goes in and as it goes out.

5) Notice when your mind has wandered
Inevitably, your attention will leave the breath and wander to other places. When you get around to noticing that your mind has wandered in a few seconds, a minute, five minutes simply return your attention to the breath.

6) Be kind to your wandering mind
Don’t judge yourself or obsess over the content of the thoughts you find yourself lost in. Just come back.

7) Close with kindness
When you’re ready, gently lift your gaze (if your eyes are closed, open them). Take a moment and notice any sounds in the environment. Notice how your body feels right now. Notice your thoughts and emotions.

That’s it! That’s the practice. You go away, you come back, and you try to do it as kindly as possible.

Meditation is no more complicated than what we’ve described above. It is that simple and that challenging. It’s also powerful and worth it. The key is to commit to sit every day, even if it’s for five minutes. Meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg says: “One of my meditation teachers said that the most important moment in your meditation practice is the moment you sit down to do it. Because right then you’re saying to yourself that you believe in change, you believe in caring for yourself, and you’re making it real. You’re not just holding some value like mindfulness or compassion in the abstract, but really making it real.”

Meditation tips

We’ve gone over the basic breath meditation so far, but there are other mindfulness techniques that use different focal points than the breath to anchor our attention external objects like a sound in the room, or something broader, such as noticing spontaneous things that come into your awareness during an aimless wandering practice. But all of these practices have one thing in common: We notice that our minds ARE running the show a lot of the time. It’s true. We think thoughts, typically, and then we act. But here are some helpful strategies to change that up:

It’s estimated that 95%of our behavior runs on autopilot. That’s because neural networks underlie all of our habits, reducing our millions of sensory inputs per second into manageable shortcuts so we can function in this crazy world. These default brain signals are so efficient that they often cause us to relapse into old behaviors before we remember what we meant to do instead.

Mindfulness is the exact opposite of these default processes. It’s executive control rather than autopilot, and enables intentional actions, willpower, and decisions. But that takes practice. The more we activate the intentional brain, the stronger it gets. Every time we do something deliberate and new, we stimulate neuroplasticity, activating our grey matter, which is full of newly sprouted neurons that have not yet been groomed for “autopilot” brain.

But here’s the problem. While our intentional brain knows what is best for us, our autopilot brain causes us to shortcut our way through life. So how can we trigger ourselves to be mindful when we need it most? This is where the notion of “behavior design” comes in. It’s a way to put your intentional brain in the driver’s seat. There are two ways to do that—first, slowing down the autopilot brain by putting obstacles in its way, and second, removing obstacles in the path of the intentional brain, so it can gain control.

Shifting the balance to give your intentional brain more power takes some work, though. Here are some ways to get started.

• Put meditation reminders around you. If you intend to do some yoga or to meditate, put your yoga mat or your meditation cushion in the middle of your floor so you can’t miss it as you walk by.
• Refresh your reminders regularly. Say you decide to use sticky notes to remind yourself of a new intention. That might work for about a week, but then your autopilot brain and old habits take over again. Try writing new notes to yourself; add variety or make them funny. That way they’ll stick with you longer.
• Create new patterns. You could try a series of “If this, then that” messages to create easy reminders to shift into the intentional brain. For instance, you might come up with, “If office door, then deep breath,” as a way to shift into mindfulness as you are about to start your workday. Or, “If phone rings, take a breath before answering.” Each intentional action to shift into mindfulness will strengthen your intentional brain.

Benefits of meditation

Controls anxiety

Meditation can reduce stress levels, which translates to less anxiety. A meta-analysis including nearly 1,300 adults found that meditation may decrease anxiety. Notably, this effect was strongest in those with the highest levels of anxiety. Also, one study found that 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation helped reduce anxiety symptoms in people with generalized anxiety disorder, along with increasing positive self-statements and improving stress reactivity and coping. Another study in 47 people with chronic pain found that completing an 8-week meditation program led to noticeable improvements in depression, anxiety, and pain over 1 year

What’s more, some research suggests that a variety of mindfulness and meditation exercises may reduce anxiety levels. For example, yoga has been shown to help people reduce anxiety. This is likely due to benefits from both meditative practice and physical activity

Meditation may also help control job-related anxiety. One study found that employees who used a mindfulness meditation app for 8 weeks experienced improved feelings of well-being and decreased distress and job strain, compared with those in a control group

Quality sleep

Nearly half of the population will struggle with insomnia at some point. One study compared mindfulness-based meditation programs and found that people who meditated stayed asleep longer and had improved insomnia severity, compared with those who had an unmedicated control condition

Becoming skilled in meditation may help you control or redirect the racing or runaway thoughts that often lead to insomnia. Additionally, it can help relax your body, releasing tension and placing you in a peaceful state in which you’re more likely to fall asleep.

Enhance emotional health

Some forms of meditation can lead to improved self-image and a more positive outlook on life. For example, one review of treatments given to more than 3,500 adults found that mindfulness meditation improved symptoms of depression. Similarly, a review of 18 studies showed that people receiving meditation therapies experienced reduced symptoms of depression, compared with those in a control group

Another study found that people who completed a meditation exercise experienced fewer negative thoughts in response to viewing negative images, compared with those in a control group

Furthermore, inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which are released in response to stress, can affect mood, leading to depression. A review of several studies suggests meditation may also reduce depression by decreasing levels of these inflammatory chemicals.

Reduces stress

Stress reduction is one of the most common reasons people try meditation. One review concluded that meditation lives up to its reputation for stress reduction. Normally, mental and physical stress cause increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This produces many of the harmful effects of stress, such as the release of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.

These effects can disrupt sleep, promote depression and anxiety, increase blood pressure, and contribute to fatigue and cloudy thinking. In an 8-week study, a meditation style called “mindfulness meditation” reduced the inflammation response caused by stress. Furthermore, research has shown that meditation may also improve symptoms of stress-related conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, and fibromyalgia

Boost self-awareness

Some forms of meditation may help you develop a stronger understanding of yourself, helping you grow into your best self. For example, self-inquiry meditation explicitly aims to help you develop a greater understanding of yourself and how you relate to those around you. Other forms teach you to recognize thoughts that may be harmful or self-defeating. The idea is that as you gain greater awareness of your thought habits, you can steer them toward more constructive patterns

One review of 27 studies showed that practicing tai chi may be associated with improved self-efficacy, which is a term used to describe a person’s belief in their own capacity or ability to overcome challenges. In another study, 153 adults who used a mindfulness meditation app for 2 weeks experienced reduced feelings of loneliness and increased social contact compared with those in a control group

Additionally, experience in meditation may cultivate more creative problem-solving skills

Improve attention span

Focused-attention meditation is like weight lifting for your attention span. It helps increase the strength and endurance of your attention.

For example, one study found that people who listened to a meditation tape experienced improved attention and accuracy while completing a task, compared with those in a control group. A similar study showed that people who regularly practiced meditation performed better on a visual task and had a greater attention span than those without any meditation experience. Moreover, one review concluded that meditation may even reverse patterns in the brain that contribute to mind-wandering, worrying, and poor attention

Even meditating for a short period each day may benefit you. One study found that meditating for just 13 minutes daily enhanced attention and memory after 8 weeks

Reduce age-related memory loss

Improvements in attention and clarity of thinking may help keep your mind young. Kirtan Kriya is a method of meditation that combines a mantra or chant with repetitive motion of the fingers to focus your thoughts. Studies in people with age-related memory loss have shown it improves performance on neuropsychological tests. Furthermore, a review found preliminary evidence that multiple meditation styles can increase attention, memory, and mental quickness in older volunteers

In addition to fighting normal age-related memory loss, meditation can at least partially improve memory in patients with dementia. It can likewise help control stress and improve coping in those caring for family members with dementia

Can generate kindness

Some types of meditation may particularly increase positive feelings and actions toward yourself and others. Metta, a type of meditation also known as loving-kindness meditation, begins with developing kind thoughts and feelings toward yourself.

Through practice, people learn to extend this kindness and forgiveness externally, first to friends, then acquaintances, and ultimately enemies. A meta-analysis of 22 studies on this form of meditation demonstrated its ability to increase peoples’ compassion toward themselves and others

One study in 100 adults randomly assigned to a program that included loving-kindness meditation found that these benefits were dose-dependent. In other words, the more time people spent in weekly metta meditation practice, the more positive feelings they experienced .Another study in 50 college students showed that practicing metta meditation 3 times per week improved positive emotions, interpersonal interactions, and understanding of others after 4 weeks. These benefits also appear to accumulate over time with the practice of loving-kindness meditation[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]