Taking some time for yourself to practice self-care activities like clearing your mind and exercising can help improve your physical and mental stabilities.
We see stress as a feeling because it impacts how we perceive things around us and how we respond to them. These effects are manifested in the following: heart rates, speed of breathing, emotional response, and many more. But while we are under the direct influence of stress, there are a whole lot of things occurring at the same time within our organ systems. This includes the glands in our body. The adrenal glands produce lots and lots of hormone cortisol and being exposed to such will result in negative effects like depression and anxiety as well as heart-related problems and body pains. When we get stressed severely, this might lead to our eventual death.
In this very age of digital innovations and rapid growth, it’s hard keeping ourselves in check. We find it difficult to commit to maintaining a healthy lifestyle due to several factors and would even consider it a luxury since not everyone has a similar time frame when it comes to handling their respective priorities. Have we eaten the right amount of food? Have we gotten enough sleep? Have we visited the gym regularly? Have we practiced meditation religiously? These questions are oftentimes answered with little to no clarity since we are not sure ourselves whether we have undergone those mentioned or not.
However, stress is impossible to eliminate as a whole but we can lessen the effects it brings to our bodies. The common method to alleviate these effects is through meditation. It has been proven for the longest time that it truly can minimize anxiety, depression, body pains and encourage people to shift from their negative outlook in life to a positive one.
Studies conducted all over the world mentioned that the lasting effects brought by meditation are found mainly in the nervous system. These are manifested through the balancing of heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure levels. In addition, it also has its effects on the spiritual awakening of the individual as it will help you seek the relationship between your normal self and your inner being.
Different forms of meditation
Meditation is not limited to one type and indicated below are examples of other types of meditation:
- Concentration meditation primarily trains you how to effectively direct your mind to focus on something and is considered as the building block of other meditation techniques and styles
- Heart-centered meditation deals with the calming of the mind and considers the heart as the center of energy that is being released by an individual. Developing sensibility to the heart helps the person to become aware of their environment and feel empathetic towards others
- Mindfulness meditation motivates the person to outline all their negative thoughts which have been bothering their mind for a long time and treat these thoughts as instruments for achieving peace of mind
- Tai chi and qigong are meditation types that involve movements that are synchronized with concentration and breathing
- Transcendental meditation utilizes phrases that are formed into chants or mantras which are then repeated several times until you reach calmness of your thoughts and awareness
- Walking meditation uses walking not only as a mere form of exercise but also as a form of meditation that syncs your breathing, body, and mind with your footsteps.
Meditation instructors encourage you to try each type of meditation so that you will have knowledge of which styles are effective. Although meditation could be done alone, it could also be an activity carried out alongside people. You can feel the collective impact of meditation when you do it together with people and motivate yourself to achieve that inner sense of peace with them.
Beginning your starter meditation session
The essence of meditation is that the exercise itself is versatile and flexible. You can just do it anywhere in your house. Bedroom, living room, or any area that is fit for such an activity. Furthermore, you have the option to do it alone or with a group of people, and above all, it is an affordable type of calming therapy especially when you are in dire need of relaxation both physically and mentally.
If you find it difficult to make a schedule for your meditation session, incorporate meditation into your morning routine. You have the option to either do the chanting of a phrase or simply take the time to channel your concentration to your mind or empty it as storage for new or helpful thoughts.
The particular details included in your meditation practice will highly depend on the style of meditation you’ve picked. Here are some suggestions when doing your chose meditation technique:
- Assign a place that will be utilized for practicing meditation. The purpose is that setting the mood would not be a difficult task once you get into the session. You can increase such feeling when you decorate or design the area with elements connected to meditation such as scented candles, flowers, and plants, fragrances, or images that help you produce necessary thoughts
- Lay down a mat for you to use during the session. If the meditation practice requires you to sit, prepare a chair. If it requires playing music, have a medium that is responsible for playing music ready in the area.
- Learn to close your eyes for a long period and train yourself to concentrate only on the thoughts that are instructed of you to generate
- Proper breathing includes breathing slow, deep, and with care
- Keep your mind focused inward or on the object. If it wanders, gently steer it back to the center.
- Let your mind fixate on what is required of the meditation style to think about
- Breathe quietly and freely as well as imagine your thoughts as if they are your guides to reaching calmness of your mind and soul
Conclusion
The benefits of meditation do not only concern the mind but also in many aspects like how we treat others, how we perceive the world and the quality of our well-being. To discover the right type of meditation technique, work out in trying every meditation style and assess each after executing the entire meditation process.