You’re probably already aware that meditation is popular with a wide range of different people. This isn’t just a fad or a coincidence! If you want to hop on the bandwagon, read on to discover some helpful meditation tips to get you started.
Mindful meditation is the practice of ritually clearing your mind and focusing your concentration inward – is a potent tool for improving your life in many different ways.
Why Meditation Is Right For You
Meditation is a lot like expressing yourself artistically:
There’s no wrong way to do it.
Everyone can meditate, and the practice is universally beneficial for everybody who makes a habit of it. The number of different benefits you can derive from meditation is enormous. Here are three key ones that should get you interested in cultivating your own meditation habit:
1. Stress Relief
Meditation can be a great tool for elevating your mood and dealing with stress. This is helpful for both your mental and physical wellbeing.
Not only will you feel calmer and more centered after meditating, but you’ll also be doing genuine good for your body.
Any illness that’s exacerbated by high-stress levels – and that’s most of them – will be helped by regular meditation.
2. Better Focus
Maintaining a sense of mental clarity and focus is more challenging today than ever before. Your attention is constantly being pulled in multiple directions during every waking hour.
Think of meditation as your chance to “clear the deck” and banish distractions that are keeping you from being productive.
After a meditation session, you’ll be better equipped to concentrate on what really matters to you and less likely to get sidetracked by unimportant issues.
3. Improved Cardiovascular Health
Because proper meditation is intimately involved with your breathing, it actually helps train your respiratory system towards a healthier and more efficient way to work. This has far-reaching health benefits that have been verified through extensive research.
Meditating regularly can lower your blood pressure, reduce blood lactate levels, and even strengthen your immune system. All that translates into a healthier, more effective cardiovascular system.
5 Basic Meditation Tips For Beginners
Don’t get discouraged by the amount of information available on how to meditate. Once again, there’s no wrong way to do it.
Use the five basic tips provided here to get started, but don’t be afraid to alter your practice based on other advice or your own experience and feeling.
Meditation is an intensely personal exercise, and your only true goal should be to come up with a practice that helps you feel better.
1. Don’t Set Complex Goals
Meditating is like taking a trip, not running a race.
There’s no magic finish line you need to cross. Concentrate on making the experience as beneficial as you can and don’t get tied up on achieving arbitrary distinctions. This is one of the most important meditation tips; don’t make meditating a stressful experience!
If you can’t spend as much time meditating as you thought you could, or you find that the “comfortable” position your friend recommends gives you cramps, don’t worry about “failing” to meditate – that’s not possible! Keep refining your practice and it’ll get more and more beneficial.
2. Start With Short Sessions
Maintaining the focus and clear-mindedness necessary for meditation is really challenging when you first get started. In order to meditate, you need to empty your mind and keep it receptive.
Ease yourself into the practice by starting off with very short meditation sessions.
Even beginning with a period as brief as one minute will get you on your way. As you grow more comfortable with the practice you’ll have no difficulty extending an individual session as long as you want to.
3. Cultivate A Meditation Habit
It’s great to start off with brief meditation sessions because they’re easy to fit into your schedule, no matter how busy you are. Remember that meditating regularly is far more important than exactly how (or how long) you meditate.
Make space for one decent meditation session in every day. As you gain experience and make your sessions longer, you’ll find it easier to keep them in your daily routine if you’re already accustomed to meditating on a daily basis.
4. Focus On Breathing
Slow, steady breathing is one of the most important meditation tips. Concentrating on your breaths is also an excellent way to clear your mind and get rid of extraneous thoughts.
Try counting each inhales and exhales as a way to focus your attention.
To get into specifics, one way to breathe while you meditate is to inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.
You should engage the diaphragm with each breath – suck air down into your belly, not your chest.
Don’t worry about the details of your breathing if you’re finding it challenging at first, though. You can always improve over time!
You can also check out some breathing meditations here.
5. Pick Your Own Posture
When you think of meditation, you’re probably picturing yourself sitting on the floor with your legs crossed.
This is a very traditional – and very effective – posture, but it’s absolutely not a requirement.
You can meditate effectively in many different positions, including seated in a chair or even lying on your back.
What’s important is to make yourself comfortable in a position where your spine is straight and you can relax every part of your body. If you’re sitting upright, make sure you keep your head erect so that your mind doesn’t start to wander.
As you gain more meditating experience, your chosen posture is going to become an integral part of your practice. As long as you can clear your mind, relax your body, breathe deeply, and pay attention, your posture will be fine.
Meditation can be an incredibly complex and subtle practice, but the fundamentals are quite open-ended.
The advice presented here should be more than enough for you to get started.
Find a quiet moment, get rid of distractions, and turn your focus inward. If you do this on a regular basis, you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel!
