Meditation is a practice where an individual makes use of techniques in order to gain attention and awareness with the goal of being mentally clear; it is one of the eight limbs of yoga. The roots of meditation can be traced back to as early as 19th century, often practiced as a part of the path that leads to Nirvana. It doesn’t necessarily take any fancy equipment or even a major chunk of your time to meditate; it could include almost any practice that leaves you feeling at peace, energizes you, as it is mostly you trying your hand at training your mind to focus on one particular thing for a period of time. While you cannot be a yoga guru at your first attempt, dedicating yourself to meditation will surely yield results gradually.
How do I meditate?
Got you covered. Not going to lie, it is going to seem a little boring initially.
Your thoughts will wander, your legs will twitch, and your brain will scream at you to move around for a bit. Guess what? That’s okay.
Find yourself a place and sit comfortably, you’re going to be here for some time.
Start focusing on one thing (could be a thought, object or your breathing pattern).
Now you’ll find yourself getting distracted, which you must not try to suppress.
Once you get used to it, you’ll be able to return to your object in focus.
Voila! There you have it, you’ve achieved the 3 C’s- concentration, calm and control.
Iteration of the aforementioned steps on a daily basis will help aid the achievement of deep concentration as you will train your mind to wander less with the passivity of time.
The importance
To function better in a confrontational and isolated world such as ours, we need to be able to manage our interpersonal relationships and understand ourselves better; learn our triggers and know why we respond how we respond to things and situations. Ubiquitous situations such as demise, victory, fear elicit predictable yet normal emotional responses. It is imperative that we need to be aware of emotions or situations that have an adverse effect on our mental being which further elucidates that meditating will enable us to control our reactions.
- Helps in relieving stress, anxiety, pain.
- Enables you to question the validity of heightened emotions.
- Slows down ageing.
- Reduces cortisol production; a hormone that is stress-related.
- Lowers blood pressure levels and cholesterol levels.
- Lengthens attention span.
- May help fight addiction.
- Helps in becoming more empathetic.
- Improves the quality of sleep.
