Meditation
Meditation comes in different shapes, sizes, and philosophies. Not every approach works for every person. However, they all have a couple things in common. One, you can think about meditation, wonder about the benefits of it, and intellectualize it for the rest of your life, yet to truly know it and observe changes within yourself, you put it into practice by meditating. Two, changes will occur and you will feel better with regular practice. Ancient wisdom and modern science agree that meditation benefits the mind and body.
Why Meditate?
Lower stress levels
Meditation reduces feelings of stress by encouraging breathing fully and slowing the breath down, making it easier to be centered on feelings of calmness and even gratitude, acceptance, and being humble, which lower stress.
Improved health
Meditation decreases inflammation and affects your body at the genetic and cellular levels. Meditation may increase the length of our telomeres, which play an important role in preventing illnesses. Telomeres influences the length of chromosomes, the activation of genes that are responsible for good health, the down regulation of genes that are responsible for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, alzheimer’s, auto immune illnesses, and some types of cancers. Meditation can also help lower blood pressure.
Better focus
Meditation encourages one-pointed awareness. With practice, the ability to be focused and concentrated on one thought, conversation, or activity becomes more natural. When we are able to be entirely focused on the task at hand, we are able to experience feelings of fulfillment, satisfaction, and equanimity.
Expanded creativity
Meditation induces a state of expansion, leading to creativity, fresh ideas and new perspectives.
Healthier relationships
Meditation increases beneficial hormones of self regulation which helps us to be more balanced and therefore to have more balanced relationships.
There’s a misconception that the point of meditation is to stop the thinking process.
There’s a misconception that the point of meditation is to stop the thinking process. That’s not what we’re doing here. Rather, by learning to observe your breath you learn to observe your thoughts. Like the image of the trees above, the trees are reflected back on the water, yet the water continues to move a bit. Similarly, once you’re aware of your thoughts, you have the ability to change them. Therefore, you have the ability to change your life.
Each of us have between 60,000 - 80,000 thoughts a day. Typically thought patterns move in the same way, through repetition. By meditating, we begin to change these thought patterns.
Try this.
Here’s a short five minute meditation to experiment with. Notice how you feel before and after listening to the meditation.