Hi there,
In this blog I want to share with you something about what meditation is and why you should be do this. Hope you will enjoy. If you have questions after reading this. Don’t hesitate to contact me.
What is meditation?
The word meditation comes from the Latin word “meditare”. And it means “thinking” or “overthinking”. These translations are misleading for what meditation really is all about.
In meditation we are aware, we concentrate on something else. We slow the chatter of our monkey mind down and go deeper inside. When the chatter in our mind stops, the inner peace will start to grow.
Types of meditation
There are a lot of different ways to do meditation. Here are some examples of meditations you can do:
Walking:
You can walk very slow for 2 minutes. Be aware of your feet. How do your feet feel when you walk, how is your pace, what other things can you notice at your feet?
After those 2 minutes, you can walk for 2 minutes seeing the world around you by walking slow. Be aware of the surroundings and what do you see around you?
Chanting mantra’s:
A mantra is an affirmation with a meaning. Every mantra has a different meaning. The mantra can exist form one word or a whole sentence. Choose one that resonates with you.
You can chant the mantra out loud or silent in hour head. Keep on repeating this mantra during the meditation practice.
For example: the mantra: “Aham Prema” means “I am love”.
Breathing:
You can use your breath to move your focus off your mind. Also counting your breaths is possible. You can count evenly or you can make a difference between the counts of breath in and out.
For example: Breath in (4 counts), pause (4 counts), breath out (4 counts), pause (4 counts). This is 1 cycle.
Use energy and movement:
You can use de different chakra’s in the body to move the energy through. Or you can do movement form like Qigong.
Dancing:
You can dance on music and just take you through what you are feeling and not thinking about anything else.
Or any other form of where you can find peace and calmness in your mind. Choose what works for you.
I have placed some free meditation practices on the website via this link: Practice with | Yogista
There are a lot of different benefits when you start meditating. According to scientific research frequent meditation can give you the following benefits:
Reduces your levels of stress
Improves/boosts your immune system
Reduces anxiety
Reduces blood pressure (hypertension)
Reduces the heart rate
Reduces pain
Reduces headache and migraine
Improves memory
Meditation can sometimes be difficult. The mind wants to wander into the past and the future. It wants to revisit the memories and relieve them. Or it wants to wander what is going to happen in an future event.
When sitting in meditation, you can also find discomfort of the posture. For example your legs can start sleeping. You can also find yourself still sleepy when you meditate in the morning.
I hope this will motivate you to start doing meditation.
Have a nice day and Namasté from Yogista,
