Personal Healing, Reflection & Growth
Meditation
Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can help both your emotional well-being and your overall health. You can also use it to relax and cope with stress by refocusing your attention on something calming. Meditation can help you learn to stay centered and keep your inner peace throughout the day.
The emotional and physical benefits of meditation can include:
- Gaining a new point of view on stressful situations
- Building skills to manage your stress
- Increasing self-awareness
- Focusing on the present
- Reducing negative emotions
- Increasing imagination and creativity
- Increasing patience
- Lowering resting heart rate
- Lowering resting blood pressure
- Improving the quality of your sleep
Building your meditation skills
Don’t judge your meditation skills, which may only increase your stress. Meditation takes practice. Keep in mind, for instance, that it’s common for your mind to wander during meditation, no matter how long you’ve been practicing meditation. If you’re meditating to calm your mind and your attention wanders, slowly return to the object.
Elements of meditation
Different types of meditation may include different features to help you meditate. These may vary depending on whose guidance you follow. There are many guided meditations available online that you can access for free. Some of the most common features in meditation include:
Focused attention – Focusing your attention is generally one of the most important elements of meditation. Focusing your attention is what helps free your mind from the many distractions and thoughts that cause stress and worry. You can focus your attention on such things as a specific object, an image, or your breathing.
Relaxed breathing – This technique involves deep, even-paced breathing using the stomach muscle to expand your lungs. The purpose is to slow your breathing, take in more oxygen, and reduce the use of shoulder, neck and upper chest muscles while breathing so that you breathe more effectively.
A quiet setting – If you’re a beginner, practicing meditation may be easier if you’re in a quiet spot with few distractions, including no television, radios or cellphones.
As you get more skilled at meditation, you may be able to do it anywhere, especially in high-stress situations where you benefit the most from meditation, such as a traffic jam, a stressful work meeting or a long line at the grocery store.
A comfortable position – You can practice meditation whether you’re sitting, lying down, walking, or in other positions or activities. Just try to be comfortable so that you can get the most out of your meditation. Aim to keep good posture during meditation.
Open attitude – Let thoughts pass through your mind without judgment.
