Life can be quite chaotic at times. Every day’s issues often leave us stressed, tired, and sometimes unhappy. Meditation is a useful simple and effective tool to calm your mind, relax your body, and find inner peace to help us order a bit the chaos of everyday life.
If you are new to meditation you may feel a bit intimidated. Most people who are not familiar with it imagine a monk sat for hours in the lotus position (crossed legs) on top of a mountain. The truth is that meditation is easier and more accessible than most people believe.
Below you will find 10 simple tips to get started.
sit straight
The easiest and most common place to meditate is sitting, on the floor or on a chair, keeping your back straight and relaxed. Leaving your bones to relax over each other. You can help your body to find relaxation in this pose using a block or a blanket, so you can have higher hips and you won’t need much flexibility.
Now imagine that you have a thread attached to the top of your head that pulls your spine, neck, and head toward the ceiling, this will help you to keep a relaxed position with your back well straight.
Relax the body
Close your eyes and bring your attention to the different parts of your body, from bottom to top, and relax completely. Start with your feet, your legs. your hips,…. until the whole body is completely relaxed. Don’t forget to relax your shoulders, neck, eyes, and jaws; all areas where it’s easy to accumulate tension throughout the day.
Silence
Now that you are sitting straight and relaxed, take a moment to be motionless. Be aware of the space around you, your body and the noises around you. Do not react to try to change something, just be aware of what’s going on.
Breathe
I will never get tired of this: bring the attention to your breath. Breathe silently and deeply. Use the diaphragm and feel your lungs expanding, without forcing. Notice how with the breath you can feel the air passing through the nose, throat, chest, and belly, as it flows in and out.
Use a Mantra
A Mantra is a sound, a word or a phrase that is repeated during meditation. The mantras can have specific spiritual and transformative benefits, or they can simply provide a clue to focus the mind during meditation. You can repeat them aloud or mentally to yourself. A simple mantra that you can use when you start meditating is mentally repeating “inhale, exhale”, in sync with your breath.
Calm the mind
When you concentrate on your breath your mind will relax and will focus on the “Now”. When you realize that a thought comes to your mind, just look at it, put it aside, and bring back the concentration to your breath. Never fight your thoughts: when you sit to meditate, there will be times when your mind will be busy with a lot of talk with yourself, while other days it will be calmer and focused and it will be easier to free it from thoughts.
When meditation ends
There is no too much or too little for meditation time, however, if you just started meditating, you might want to start with brief sessions (max. 10 minutes). As soon as you feel comfortable with the practice, meditate more. If you prefer to meditate for a predetermined period of time you can use an alarm or decide previously the number of breaths you will count before finishing the session.
How to end your meditation
When you are ready to stop meditating, slowly bring your attention to the outside. Feel the presence of the body in the space around you. Gently move your fingers and toes, then slowly stretch your arm and legs. Open your eyes. Slowly move and take your time to get up.
Meditate often
Continuity is always more important than quantity. Meditating for 5 minutes every day will give you greater benefits than meditating once a week for 2 hours.
Meditate everywhere
Meditating at home, with silence and comfort, is the best way to get started, but once you start, it’s perfect to explore new places to meditate. Meditation in a forest can be just beautiful or even try meditating on the bus on your way to work to calm down and get rid of stress.
Meditation is a useful, simple and effective tool to calm your mind, relax your body and find the inner peace that serves to order the chaos of everyday life.
So what are you waiting for? Start meditate today and harvest immediately its fruits!