Meditation for Beginners:
In the last post, I had shared about How to Start Meditation at Home? Meditation is making your mind more aware and getting it to focus on a single point. In nutshell, it is an awareness to bring your wandering mind to the focused object. It might sound technical to beginners, but as you start practicing, it makes your thoughts clean and mind clear. In this post, I’ll be sharing a few techniques of Meditation (which worked for me) and its benefits.
There are quite a few Meditation Techniques, like Concentration Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, Kundalini Yoga, Meditation for Compassion, Moving (Walking) Meditation and more! But as a beginner, the real challenge lies in focussing the mind and thoughts, hence the easiest Meditation for Beginners is Concentration Meditation clubbed with Mindfulness meditation.
Meditation for Beginners: Concentration Meditation:
In this meditation technique, you need to focus on a single object. It can be as simple as, following your deep breath (inhale, pause, exhale), staring a picture of God/Guru of your faith, energizing Sun, Candle Flame, listening to mantra or reciting mantra/OM(AUM) with every bead on the mala.
The major aim of Concentration Meditation is to bring back your mind on the object of focus, as soon as you find it drifting away in the thoughts. There is no evaluation of your thoughts, but it is the process of “letting the thoughts go” and observe the utmost feeling of “blankness”. This is what I started my meditation with.
Simple Process of Meditation for Beginners:
During our Meditation class, initially, after setting a fixed time (5minutes), we used to count the number of thoughts, while practicing Meditation. The next aim was to make a mental note of how many thoughts come and go. Gradually, over time, the no. of thoughts must reduce consciously (e.g. from 5 to 1). This was followed by concentrating on deep-breath. You need to follow the passage of your breath, right from nose, chest, rib cage, stomach, while inhaling and exhaling.
- Sit down with the right posture (back straight, neck relaxed, chin slightly tucked in) on a bed, cushion, chair, wherever you feel comfortable.
- Close your eyes, if that comes as a challenge, you can also use eye masks. Though I prefer sitting outdoors, where morning sun rays touch my face, you can also choose to sit indoors. Outdoor settings energize me in a much better way.
- Start breathing naturally, don’t try to control it immediately. Just follow the patterns of Inhalation and exhalation (the way I shared above). If your mind wanders, bring it back to your breath. Continue doing so for around 3-4minutes.
- You can gradually move to stare an object for longer periods.
Don’t get disheartened, as this is something that will not work in a day or week. But you can compare the way your thoughts come in and go, as you progress with meditation.
Mindfulness Meditation :
In Mindfulness Meditation, the process remains more or less the same, as you take a note of thoughts drifting your mind. But here, over time, you see a pattern in your thoughts, feelings, emotions. You tend to become more aware of these feelings and emotions to develop an inner balance.
Benefits of Meditation (Concentration Meditation and Mindfulness Meditation):
Well, if you think that Meditation will magically take you towards all the pleasures of life, then you need to evaluate your goals once again. Life will bring its challenges, struggles and lots of uncertainties with itself. Meditation works by changing your outlook towards those challenges. It triggers an optimistic aura around you, which energizes you to look at your problems in an altogether different approach (and you need to feel that).
The negativity will slowly turn towards positivity, your mind will be more aware and you’ll be in a much better state of decision making, with a sense of complacency. Thoughts will still come and go, as that’s what our mind is programmed for. But every step that you take, will be towards a healthy and happy life, with the real feelings of compassion, gratitude and full of optimistic energy.
And this is what I experienced in my life, after meditating for more than 20 years. Life is challenging, but I have that energy to take over things in a calculated manner.
Benefits of Meditation: Meditation for Beginners
1. Destress:
Continuous practice of meditation helps you relieve anxiety and stress. The reason is you witness contented feeling with a sense of better awareness. Meditation stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system, which stops releasing the stress hormones.
2. Emotional Balance and Positivity:
Meditation can increase your gray matter, which regulates emotional state and even problem-solving. It rewires your brain towards positive thoughts. Believe me, if you continue, you will experience this. Let this experience touch you, it will change your perspective towards life in a much humbler way.
3. Concentration:
Since continuous meditation also enhances the cortical thickness, memory, aptitude, and concentration. Hence, it is very important to introduce concentration meditation to children to reap the benefits in any activity they do.
4. Blood Pressure:
Any kind of stress usually triggers the release of stress hormones, like epinephrine and cortisol. An increase in these hormones can result in increased blood pressure, heart strokes, low energy levels, sleep problems and more. As shared before, meditation stops the release of these hormones, and hence it brings back the blood pressure to normal levels.
Conclusion: Is Meditation beneficial?
The crux is once your mind is calm and well-controlled, once you are in the sphere of positive energy, a lot of your problems can ease out. You also need to practice healthy living, with the right food choices, as this is how our overall wellness works. Body and mind cannot be in isolation if we work towards mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing is also equally important.
Make choices in a much aware manner!
Related Read: Tips to lead a healthy lifestyle
More Love and Shine,
