So, you want to start meditation? And you don’t know how and where to begin? No problem, we are here to help you only. Here, you will know all the details related to meditation. How to begin, what to do, how to do, everything. So, without wasting any time, let’s start the journey to the spiritual world.
What is Meditation?
Before proceeding further, let’s find out what meditation is? Meditation is not about masking a different perspective but discovering a new YOU-self inside an old one. It is about being aware of your surroundings and the things that are around you. Feel every aspect of yourself through the senses as well as other life.
It is all about gaining a fresh perspective and observing your every thought without any judgment. Finally, you will understand the real meaning of your wisdom.
Mindfulness…You must have come across this word once in a lifetime. But have you ever thought about what it actually means? Mindfulness is an impressive technique to be present at the moment. A beautiful technique to pay attention to every thought that crosses your mind and emotion that your mind creates without being judgmental and thinking beyond the horizon is called mindfulness.
Why Is Meditation Important In Life?
Your mind is just a heap of accumulated impressions, and your body is just the manifestation of the food you eat. But, Meditation is like transgressing above and beyond all these gathered beliefs and experiences. No doubt, your body and mind have an excellent synergy to survive and lead a good life even during unprecedented times. But ask yourself – How HAPPY and CONTENT you are? Well, for a contented and happy life, you always seek something more. And this is where Meditation comes into play.
If you don’t know who you really are, living a good life is just a waste. You can only know the real nature of yourself by going beyond the limitations of your body and mind. Thus, meditation is necessary, going beyond the sense of your body and seeking the real truth of life and meeting with your real self.
Why do therapists recommend meditation? consult our expert therapist to know more.
Here are Five Main Reasons to Meditate:
- To meet your true self
- Improve focus and concentration
- Get familiar with your pain and stress
- Seek peace and happiness inside you
- To break every limitation & to rise above your thoughts.
7 Useful Techniques of Meditation for Beginners
Meditation is no rocket science that you can’t learn, but it’s still a skill like any other skill that you can master with practice. Here are some basic methods for beginners to learn Meditation.
Find a peaceful place to sit:
Choosing a quiet place is necessary as it makes your meditation more enjoyable and beneficial.
Set a convenient schedule
If you are a beginner, then set a short period. Maximum 10 Minutes will be better for a beginner meditator. Otherwise, you may feel exhausted and unmotivated.
Embrace a comfortable posture:
Sitting in a comfortable posture makes you stable. Thus, be relaxed and sit comfortably with the spine erect.
Empty stomach
To get the most out of the meditation, it is necessary to have a relatively empty stomach. Be it at home or in the office; you can do it. However, it would help if you did not start meditation after lunch or breakfast.
Be conscious of your breath.
While meditating, feel the sensation of your breath. How it goes out and how you take it in.
Notice your thought:
While meditating, your thoughts will flow like water. So, when you get around to noticing your mind is wandering, return the attention to your breath without judgment.
Open your eyes gently
When you are ready, gently open your eyes and feel the surrounding ambience and sound.
What Amount Of Meditation Is Perfect For Beginner
For beginners, finding the right amount of time to meditate is crucial. It’s not that meditation is uncomprehending for a beginner, but feeling motivated after the first session of meditation is necessary. Without motivation, it will not become a part of your daily life. So, what is the optimal time to meditate for beginners?
As per the recent finding, 10 minutes a day is enough for quality meditation rather than 70 minutes a week. Just remember that quality always transgresses quantity.
Meditation Tips And Techniques For Beginners
Sitting with the mind for 10 minutes demands commitment, perseverance, and discipline. So for beginners, if you feel discomfort and frustration during meditation. That’s ok it’s completely natural. After all, Meditation is also one kind of skill set! And any skill to be mastered is a matter of time. So, if you want to master the skill and benefit the most, here are some Meditation techniques and tips for beginners.
Start Morning With Meditation
Try to start the peaceful day with a dose of meditation. As for meditation, there is no better time than morning. In the morning, the whole world is sleeping, and there’s no disturbance at all. Through this, you can be sure of your regular meditation routine and also benefit the most without bumping off to the to-do list for a later period.
Develop a Lasting Habit
If the morning is not perfect for you, then commit to meditating at the same place and same time. Developing a lasting habit of practising meditation can be a key to make the most out of it.
Be Creative With Meditation
There are several meditation techniques in the spiritual field. So, to fight off the boredom of practising the same process, you can be creative with meditation and try other techniques to feel rejuvenated. Here are some methods:
- Visualisation
- Mindfulness
- Loving Kindness
- Color Meditation
Make Your Comfortable Sitting Position
Sitting cross-legged for a long 10 minutes might be excruciating for some. So, to feel comfortable, if you want to sit on a cushion or without cross-legged, then you can. After all, what matters more, in the end, is quality meditation. Just make sure to feel comfortable during meditation.
Use Breath As A Catalyst
For beginners, concentrating while mediation can be a difficult task. So make your breath a catalyst to find concentration in meditation. Any time you feel your mind has wandered, take a deep breath and concentrate on the feeling of it.
Our mental wellness experts can equip you with quite a few skills to deal with day-to-day stressors.
How To Remain Firm In Practice For Beginners & Others
Our life is nothing but an accumulation of day-to-day habits. How in shape or out of shape are you? It’s just a result of daily practising habits. But the question is, what is a habit and how does it work? Habits are what we do regularly. Primarily, it is what you do in a day, like what you think, how you feel, and what personality you portray. All these things help form a habit.
The process of building a habit is separated into four parts. Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. This four-step pattern is a cornerstone of every habit, and the neural system of your brain runs through this pattern only each time. Cues generate behaviour, behaviours lead to craving, craving makes you take action, and finally, it comes to reward, the last section of the habit where you get the result of your habits.
Thus, to remain firm in your practice, visualize a result into your mind you want to achieve through meditation. It will impel you and give you the motivation to remain firm in your habit.
Some Best Guided Meditations For Beginners:
Meditation is a beautiful technique and practice to move away from this hectic world. The beauty of it is there are not one but several methods that are as beneficial as any other mediation. Most meditations are relatively simple and easy to practice regardless of place and time. In this guided meditation, we will get familiar with such meditations that will help you adopt mindfulness.
Meditation is a very pleasing way to get off stress and anxiety that has built up over time. If you have never tried it before, it might be intimidating at first, but a simple meditation can help you cope better with life. So, let’s see some effective meditation techniques for beginners.
Mindful Meditation: The Exercise Of Being Open To World
Mindful Meditation is all about being present in the moment and not being distracted by past thoughts or future talk. According to the finding, Mindfulness is a type of meditation that teaches you how to be aware of your feelings and surroundings. And not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going around you.
How to Start Meditation At Home & Its Effects
Nearly every task we perform in a day can be done more mindfully. Be it brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, talking with friends, and exercising. When you practice mindfulness in your life, you pay attention to every detail of your thoughts and emotions.
If you have a hectic schedule and no time to meditate, practising mindfulness will be enough for the day.
Mantra Meditation:
Chanting is an old-age practise that people would use for millennia. The mantra is famous in many cultures, but the Buddhist faith on the mantra is renowned everywhere. Mantra Meditation involves chanting words or verses for a period to gain focus and clarity. The best thing about Mantra Meditation is you don’t have to use a high-frequency sound all the time. You can even use simple words like peace and love.
In mantra meditation, when you chant the words and verses of any kind, it creates a certain kind of frequency depending on the words you are chanting around you that directly make the spiritual connection to the world of the unknown.
If beginners want to practice this Mantra Meditation, then find the peaceful spot, sit quietly and repeat the mantra 108 times for a certain period to see the effect.
Visualization Meditation
In this meditation technique, we give birth to images that generate a certain amount of emotion in our minds. In other words, you can close your eyes and imagine certain places like a serene lake or beautiful mountains and any other visualization that speaks to you. In a mindful exercise, we imagine our thoughts and emotions as the stream’s flow that gently sweeps downstream. This is said to give the meditator a sense of relief from anxiety and mental pain.
More formally, Visualisation is a meditation that belongs to the Tibetan tradition who practices this technique on specific religious lore to find the peace inside them.
Walking Meditation
Walking meditation stems from Zen Buddhism and is also known as Kinhin. It is a practice in which a meditator circulates the room with their hand holding another hand in a fist. During this walking meditation, each step is taken after a full breath.
There are several variations to walking meditation, and it can be gratifying and relaxing for beginners. The main idea behind this walking meditation is to walk in silence while observing everything coming before your eyes.
For instance, if you are outside, you could pay attention to the colour the leaves possess, the sound your feet make while walking, and the textures of the entire surrounding.
For those who have trouble sitting while meditating, this walking exercise is perfect.
Loving Meditation
Loving Kindness meditation is popular self-care meditation that involves asking yourself to send kindness to others. Those who regularly practice love-kindness meditation can develop love, forgiveness, and compassion for others. But it is not as easy as it looks. During this love kindness meditation, you inhale benevolent and loving energy into yourself first and exhale it towards others. To practice this loving-kindness meditation, you have to find a comfortable and peaceful place. Then close your eyes, relax your muscles and take a deep breath.
Imagine yourself being in love, thank yourself for what you have been receiving, and show gratitude towards all the things you have and others don’t. In this way, you will develop a pure love towards others and send it easily.
Meditation is a practice we all can do by being present and focusing on this that we are into. However, mingling meditation with some simple yoga poses can greatly affect our body and mind. So, let’s see some simple yoga poses that you can use as an addition to make meditation more effective.
Four Effective Yoga Meditation for Beginner
Yoga is considered to be the other form of meditation. Yoga is in practice for ages. According to Indian lore, over fifteen thousand years ago, Shiva attained the highest stage of nature and deserted himself in an intense ecstatic dance upon the Himalayan. Seeing Lord Shiva in a state of ecstasy and stillness, curiosity killed the cat, and people developed an unknown interest in themselves. Since then, yoga came into being, and people started practicing yoga to calm and feel the ecstasy of nature.
Till now, several dynamic yoga poses have come into being, and people practice these poses to make a connection with the unknown and find peace in themselves. If you also want to find peace through yoga and practice, some poses for beginners to try at home.
1. Vajrasana
This pose is also named as Administrative pose. Basically, breathing exercises and Anulom Vilom are done while sitting. So, while meditating and breathing, you can try this pose as a catalyst. In this pose, you have to sit on your knees. It will help your body to become as strong as a diamond.
Top Benefits Of This Pose:-
- Aiding in Digestion
- Relieving and preventing constipation
- Consolidating pelvic muscles.
2. Tadasana
Tadasana is the most basic form of Yoga pose. For beginners, it is both easy and beneficial. This pose is also named a mountain pose. In this, you have to stand with separating toes and your heels slightly apart. This pose will help you balance the crown of your head and the centre of your pelvis.
Top Benefits Of Tadasana:-
- Help Improve Balance
- Correct postures
- Tone abdomen and hips
3. Dandasana
It is the most active pose in Yoga, and it derives from the Sanskrit Word “Danda”, which Means Stick. Dandasana is a simple seated pose that bolsters the deep muscles of the lower back, the abdomen, and the muscles deep in the pelvis. This asana helps improve overall posture and enables the building of a healthy spine.
Top Benefits of Dandasana
- Improve posture
- Strengthen back muscles
- It helps to calm brain cell
4. Uttanasana
The Sanskrit Word Uttanasana comes from the word Ut, which means “Intensity”, and Tan means “Stretch”. It covers the stretch of the entire body. It only helps heal the overall body but also rejuvenates the entire part of the body. In this asana, your head is below the heart that enables blood circulation in your head.
Top Benefits Of Uttanasana
- Strengthen the hips, hamstring, and calves.
- Reduce stress, anxiety, and depression
- Relieve tension in the Spine, Neck, and Back
Wrapping Words:
Meditation is a Journey, and every odyssey starts with a single step. Many ups and downs will be your life process in this blissful journey, but the key to reaching the destination would be to sit every day, even if it’s for five minutes. It will allow you the change you want to incorporate into your life and release those that are unworthy.
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