What is the Most Beneficial Type of Meditation?

Mindfulness meditation is the most popular form of meditation in the West & Love & Kindness Meditation is designed to cultivate an attitude of love & kindness towards everything including enemies & sources of stress.

What is the Most Beneficial Type of Meditation?

Mindfulness meditation is the most popular and researched form of meditation in the West. It originates from Buddhist teachings and involves paying attention to one's thoughts as they pass through the mind. Love and Kindness Meditation, also known as Metta Meditation, is designed to cultivate an attitude of love and kindness towards everything, including enemies and sources of stress. Mindful meditation can be done almost anywhere, even while standing in line at the supermarket.

Evidence suggests that mindfulness can improve health, such as lowering blood pressure in African-American men with chronic kidney disease. Breathing awareness is another form of mindfulness meditation that offers many of the same benefits, such as reducing anxiety, improving concentration, and greater emotional flexibility. It requires more discipline and practice than mindfulness meditation. People may prefer it if they are looking for both relaxation and a spiritual path.

Mindfulness combines concentration with awareness and requires a disciplined meditation posture, a straight back, and honesty with oneself. Common approaches to mindfulness meditation include breathing and impartial observation of physical sensations. Whenever thoughts wander, simply notice them without judgment and return attention to breathing. Practicing mindfulness has been shown to reduce depression, stress, and anxiety, as well as promote resilience.

It also helps one be more present in any activity, such as walking a dog or doing the dishes. Beginners often start with a more formal mindfulness meditation. Learning to meditate consists of being able to redirect thoughts when distracted and breathe again instead of being carried away by distractions. Body scan meditations focus on consciously relaxing different parts of the body and can help relieve tight shoulders or a tense neck caused by stress or anxiety.

Walking meditation allows one to move while still focusing on an object of consciousness. Transcendental meditation may not be the first choice for someone who wants to start a meditation practice but research has found that it may have health benefits similar to those of mindfulness meditation. In our modern world, meditation has gained ground in recent years as a way to manage stress and combat chronic diseases like depression, heart disease, and chronic pain. Guided meditation or visualization involves forming mental images or situations that are relaxing.

Vipassana is an ancient Indian form of meditation that dates back more than 2,500 years and is credited with the mindfulness meditation movement in the United States. Zen meditation, visualization meditation, samatha meditation, and love and kindness meditation are examples of focused attention meditations. Vipassana meditation, Insight meditation, and many types of mindfulness meditation are examples of open monitoring meditations. Mindfulness is one of the best types of meditations for beginners because it provides a solid foundation of concentration and stability.