What is Meditation?
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. – Wikipedia
How to Quiet Your Mind
You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings. You’re learning to observe them without judgment. – Headspace.com
Sometimes in meditation the instruction at the start is something like “clear your mind of all thought”. This can lead people to feel frustrated if they can’t stop their thoughts, and the harder they try not to think, the more they think. They can then decide that they can’t meditate. Meditation is not stopping thought – our brains are made to think, we cannot stop that. Meditation is about focusing your awareness.
This can be done in two main ways.
- Focusing your awareness to what feels like the quiet place within yourself and practicing observing your thoughts rather than engaging with them. This is like standing on the side of the road watching your thoughts as if they are vehicles travelling past. You are aware of them, but simply watch them go by rather than getting in to drive the vehicle, or even just getting into the passenger seat and travelling with the vehicle.
- Choosing a deliberate focus. This may be a visualization, a physical thing like a candle flame or your breath, or a mantra word or statement.
Meditation is a Practice
You will probably find some methods of meditation feel better or easier to you than others. Whichever method you engage with, understand that meditation is a practice. When you first begin you may find it challenging to maintain your focus, and so you may drift off to engage with other thoughts or feelings, or get distracted by something happening around you. This is perfectly normal. The more often you meditate, the longer you will be able to maintain your focus, and the more deeply you will relax.
Common Meditation Speed Bumps
Worrying that you are not doing it right
When you first begin meditating, as with learning anything new, it is fairly natural to wonder if you are doing it right, and for me to say there is no right way to meditate may seem a bit unhelpful when your ego mind is seeking reassurance. However, the essence of meditation is self-awareness, and coming to know yourself and what works for you and what doesn’t.
The thought “am I doing this right?” is just a thought. It is your choice whether you engage with it or simply observe it with curiosity. (see “Doubts” below for more on this).
If you are feeling unsure of how to meditate or if you are doing it right then you may find it helpful to listen to guided meditations until you feel like you understand the process enough to do it unguided.
Restlessness of Body or Mind
Restlessness in your body may show up as fidgeting, or feeling like you can’t quite get comfortable. In the mind it shows up as racing thoughts, an overly active mind, or a mind that can’t seem to stop chatting to itself and is looking back to the past or planning for the future rather than focusing on the present.
Remember, meditation is a practice. Sitting still and focusing your mind for extended periods may not be something you currently do on a regular basis so your habitual body and mind may feel unsettled with the change in behaviour. As you do it more and more it will become more familiar and then eventually a new habit, and your body and mind will settle into the new groove.
If you are not used to pausing, and stepping back, and noticing what your mind and body are doing, then at first it may feel uncomfortable to start having this awareness. It may feel unnerving to opening to becoming fully aware of your thoughts and feelings. Most people distract themselves from this awareness most of the time through busy-ness, or entertainment, or alcohol/cigarettes/drugs, or sex, or even serving others and engaging in personal development work. Getting quiet with yourself can feel darn unsettling if you are not used to it. It can bring up a lot of fear of what you may have to face and deal with.
Be aware that what your mind and body are doing are actually not important. What is significant is how you are relating to and perceiving what your mind and body are doing i.e. whether and how are you interpreting it and giving it meaning. You can choose to be in acceptance of it and simply observe it with curiosity. When you think it is a problem, or it means you are doing something wrong, or there is something wrong with you if your mind and/or body are restless, then you are judging yourself and that creates a sense of contraction and resistance. When you accept it as simply the current state of your mind and body and accept that it is okay, then this creates a sense of space and opening and allowing, and you may find that it settles down naturally.
If you are a highly kinaesthetic person who processes information by doing, then you may find that a moving meditation method works better for you. This can be simply focusing on your breath or the rhythm of your steps as you walk (or run), or it can be doing somatic based movements like Tai Chi, Qigong, and other slow somatic movement practices.
Doubts
Doubts are just thoughts, but they can be very loud and persistent in demanding that they are important and we should listen to them. If they come up during meditation aim to see them as just thoughts like any other thoughts, because that is all they actually are. Step your awareness back a little from the thoughts and feelings that are coming up. Watch them like cars (or they may seem like big trucks) going past on the road, and detach from buying into them or getting swept away or overwhelmed by them. Simply notice them, accept them as okay, and let them go.
When is the best time to meditate?
Early morning when you first wake-up is a very beneficial time to meditate. This is because your conscious thought has ceased while you slept and when you wake up you have a relatively clear fresh mind. Meditating at this time can be easier, it also starts you off on the day from a calm positive place. I would recommend starting your day with meditation and soothing music and delaying looking at your emails or social media for as long as possible as these can easily stimulate a stress response (1) and are hyper-stimulating for your nervous system.
If you have difficulty sleeping then you may find it helpful to meditate to relax your nervous system before going to bed. I recommend meditating in a seated position somewhere other than your bed and then going to bed unless you want to fall asleep while meditating. Personally I find that if I try to meditate in bed just before I go to sleep then I fall asleep quickly and don’t actually meditate for long which means I haven’t really received the full benefits of meditating.
Easy Meditations to Start With
One of the easiest types of meditation to begin with is a counted breath mediation. Below are two examples of counted breath meditation that you can try. Even practicing these for 5 minutes a day can have significant benefit. If you have difficulty motivating yourself to stick to a regular practice then you may wish to make an accountability agreement with a friend to both meditate for 5-10 minutes every day for 30 days and see if you notice any improvements or benefits.
Remember to be compassionate with yourself as you learn something new. If you notice that your mind has wandered while you are meditating simply return to the breathing practice again. Keep returning. Keep gently persisting and eventually you will find it easier to stay with it and to stay with it for longer periods of time. The same principle goes for establishing a regular practice. If you miss a day for some reason, or even two then just come back to it the next day and continue from there.
Laughing Balloon Breathing
This practice is good for learning the basics of relaxing abdominal breathing and for clearing out your lungs and bringing in fresh oxygen. Even the simple act of breathing from your abdomen (belly) signals your body to switch into the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is sometimes called the rest and digest system because it slows the heart rate, increases intestinal and gland activity, and relaxes sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract.
Stairs (correct posture for seated meditation)
When you sit let your body make the outline of stairs – feet flat on the floor under your knees, thighs parallel to the floor, spine straight with shoulders relaxed back. Keep your whole spine in a straight line with your head relaxed slightly forward, and your nose slightly down. Imagine a string extending from the top of your head lightly holding it up, extending in a straight line from your back through your neck.
Balloon (correct abdominal breathing)
Place your hand on your belly, then breathe into your belly and feel your abdomen expand like a balloon. Feel your abdomen contract as you exhale like a balloon deflating.
Laughter
Shallow breathing can cause up to a litre of stale air to collect in your lower lungs. Focus on exhaling fully. Every so often spend a few minutes forcing an extra exhalation at the end of your out breath with a ha, ha, ha sound.
Instructions
Sit in a stairs position and place your hand or hands on your belly. Breathe in lightly through your nose for a count of 6, pause your breath for a count of 4, exhale through your mouth for the count of 4, then give three ha, ha, ha exhales at the end to fully empty your lungs before repeating the sequence by inhaling again. Pause in your breathing rather than holding your breath. When you hold your breath it is like a contraction in your chest. The aim is to pause in your breathing and sense into the air resting in your lungs.
Box Breathing
Box breathing, also called square breathing, has also been shown to calm and regulate your autonomic nervous system (box breathing is taught extensively in the military to help control stress response). In addition, it can help to reduce patterns of over-breathing and facilitate more effective utilization of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Over-breathing can cause us to have an excess of oxygen in our blood which leads to the formation of free radicals. Most of us are taught to increase the oxygen in our bodies by taking deep breaths, however, while you may be inhaling more oxygen doing this, it is likely that you are absorbing less of it. The reason for this is because over-breathing increases oxygen and reduces carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is needed for your blood to release oxygen to your cells and tissues (including your brain).
Breathing lightly through your nose, and practicing intermittent breath-holding can help to correct the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body, increase oxygen absorption, and supply more oxygen to your brain. This can be done through a box breathing practice.
The idea is to breathe in a box like pattern of four parts:
Breathe in through your nose for the count of 6,
pause the breath for a count of 6,
exhale through your nose for a count of 6,
pause the breath for a count of 6,
repeat the sequence from the start.
A good timing rhythm for counting the breath is a slow resting heartbeat rhythm pace or count along with a ticking clock. As I said above, pause in your breathing rather than holding your breath. When you hold your breath it is like a contraction in your chest. The aim is to pause in your breathing and sense into the air resting in your lungs or the feeling of your lungs being fully emptied.
If you find it a bit uncomfortable to use a count of 6 then you can do this using a count of 4. The practice should feel comfortable for you. As you continue to do it, you will find it easier to slow and control your breathing.
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