7 Benefits:
- Increase self-esteem
- Less anxiety
- Low blood pressure
- Lower stress
- Increase focus
- Increase immunity to disease
- Slows down aging
Meditation isn’t only reserved for Buddhist monks and down to earth hippies. It’s actually quite a simple practice that would only take up 5 minutes of your day. By meditating, your negative thoughts will have less control over you. It’s a practice in which you clear your mind and focus on one thing. The easiest way is to focus on the breath. Simple? Right?
There are 2 types of meditation, mindfulness and focused meditation.
Mindfulness Meditation
Use all of your senses and do not think anything of it. Just see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. The reason for this is to avoid monkey mind, the act of thinking nonstop about nonsense. See the trees. Hear the background sounds. Feel the texture of your pen. Smell the fresh baked cookies. Taste the fresh-baked cookies. Do not think about it. Notice your thoughts and don’t pass judgment. Observe the positive ones and negative ones. Over time, you will realize how little these thoughts have control over you. Clear your mind and just experience life.
Focused Meditation
Concentrate on one thing. Concentrate on the breath, meditation beads, a flame, or chimes. The easiest is to focus on the breath. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Sit down and close your eyes. Breathe in and out. Notice how the air flows through the body. Listen to it, hear it, and feel it. Don’t worry if your mind wanders. Imagine, focus is like lifting weights. The more repetitions you do, the stronger you will get. When the mind wanders away, and you start thinking about anything other than your breath, just bring your focus back to your breath. This is one repetition. The more reps, the more benefits you will receive.
Meditation is something you can do anytime of the day. Use mindfulness when you are on the run and want to stop thinking about stupid nonsense. Use focused, when you are alone for 5 minutes and want to calm down and clear your mind. Both of these practices are not an easy fix. Without doing them consistently, you won’t see any benefits. So do it every day. In the end, your thoughts will have less of an impact on the way you feel.
