Meditation is a great way to relax and calm your mind. It can even have beneficial psychological and physical effects. According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation is an excellent stress reducer that can help you sleep better, focus better on work, and stay calm throughout the day. There are many different types of meditation that can be used to achieve a calmer and more peaceful state of mind.
Mindfulness Meditation is one type of meditation that encourages expanding your awareness. You focus on what you experience during meditation, such as the flow of your breathing, and observe your thoughts and emotions without judging them. Breathing awareness is a type of mindful meditation that encourages conscious breathing. Practitioners breathe slowly and deeply, counting their breaths and focusing only on breathing while ignoring other thoughts that enter the mind.
Meditation techniques are often described as calming or insightful meditation. The intention of relaxing meditation is to cultivate a calmer and more peaceful state of mind and better concentration. Most relaxing meditation practices involve focusing on a particular object (breathing, a mantra, a visualization, a physical object, even the physical sensations within the body) and returning to that object every time you become distracted or notice your mind starting to wander. Mindfulness meditation involves greater awareness of the present moment.
With practice, it can be used anywhere and can provide lasting stress-relieving benefits. This simple meditation technique can be learned quickly and is considered by many to be one of the easiest meditations for relieving stress. Focused Attention Meditation is another type of meditation that involves focusing on a mantra (which could be a syllable, a word, or a phrase). This technique is similar to mindful meditation, although instead of focusing on your breathing to calm your mind, you focus on a mantra.
Meditations in the bath involve the usual aspects of meditation, but with the relaxing environment of a bath. Sending this energy inside during meditation is believed to help the body heal and function; sending the energy outside can help heal another person. Students are encouraged to practice twice a day, which often includes morning meditation, and the second session is in the middle of the afternoon or early evening. No matter how busy you are, you have time for mini-meditations which last 30 seconds or less. If you've ever seen statues of the Buddha meditating, you might wonder why there's a half smile on his face - this is because he was practicing one of these mini-meditations! If a person continues with it and is willing to experiment with the different methods, they are more likely to discover a type of meditation that works for them. People use meditation to promote relaxation and increase awareness in a stressful world where the senses often become opaque.
As a form of mindfulness meditation, breathing awareness offers many of the same benefits as mindfulness. Some people benefit from guided mindfulness meditations while others love nighttime meditations to sleep. For some people, unguided meditation is simply about sitting in silence and paying attention to the body and thoughts for a certain period of time. Meditation has become popular as a treatment for everyday mental health problems such as stress, anxiety and insomnia. While there are some risks associated with it, very little research has explored potential harmful effects.
So if you can't or don't want to devote time to formal meditation, try one of these mini-meditations or create your own - experiment and discover what helps you!.
