September, 2024 | BlogZynergy

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. –Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation is a habit that seems very complicated on the outside. It sometimes can appear as a “special” skill for special people, but nothing could be further from the truth. Meditation is a skill anyone can master in as little as five minutes per day. It also comes with a broad set of benefits.

What are the benefits of meditation?

Mental

You are likely to have a calmer and clearer mind. Meditation gives you more control over your thoughts but it also empowers you to face negative thoughts without spiraling.

Emotional

Meditation comes with a host of emotional benefits as well. For most people, it provides a lasting sense of peace and serenity, which grows the more you practice meditation. It can help reduce anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions.

Physical

Meditation appears to counteract the negative effects of stress on the body. It can improve sleep and also provide benefits for the brain, from a physical perspective.
There are other benefits to meditation. The practice has been studied for many years and has a lot of advantages. But often it can feel difficult to add another habit on top of a really busy life. So, how can we begin to meditate?

Start with a few minutes

Don’t try to begin by meditating for hours on end. Instead, you can easily do this by starting with five minutes or less. The goal is not to do a lot but to take full advantage of the time you do have.

A few minutes is much better than none. As you become more proficient, you may want to increase the time, but many people stick to their five minutes successfully and reap the benefits.

You can usually make time for five minutes of meditation. You can fit it in your morning routine or the time you have before bed. You can even do it while you commute to work, if possible, on your lunch break, or while waiting in line. A more focused, concrete objective is more likely to be achieved.

Don’t try to clear your mind

The stock phrase associated with meditation is “clear your mind.” Many people find that they can’t do that and, so, they think they can’t meditate. However, this is not the right conception of what meditating is. Instead, it involves bringing your focus back whenever it wavers and trying to focus on something specific, like a thought, a phrase, or your breathing.

It’s normal to get distracted, that’s a part of the process. Just gently bring your mind back to where you want it. As you practice, it might become easier. But the process of meditation is trying to keep your focus, not achieving it perfectly.

Get comfortable

Make your meditation comfortable and easy. You don’t need to sit in the cross-legged pose if you don’t want to. You can sit or lie down, whatever’s most comfortable and most viable in the moment. You can close your eyes or keep them open.

You will usually be able to meditate better if you are not too hungry or thirsty, hot or cold. While experienced meditators can do it anywhere, anytime, it’s fine to first try and be as comfortable as you can.

Make it a time for yourself

Meditation is meant to be something you do for yourself. So make it a nice experience. Do it if you want to, and you’re more likely to build a solid habit. You can enhance the experience by pairing it with things you enjoy, like a particular scent. You might also make it part of the time you dedicate to yourself and cultivating this relationship.

If you enjoy meditation and spend five minutes a day very pleasantly, you are very likely to make it a habit. So try to find a way to make meditation a wonderful part of your day.

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To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. – Alan Watts

Relaxing is very important for our physical and emotional well-being. When we live without enough rest and relaxation, it wears our bodies down, keeps your brains anxious and exhausted, and also makes us less creative, less able to solve problems. Relaxation is what keeps us afloat. But different people can find different ways to rest and knowing what works best for you is essential.

Relaxation and recreation are not the same thing

The first thing to understand in regards to relaxation is that it’s not the same thing as recreation. Relaxation usually involves activities that allow your body to recuperate and heal, while recreation can be much more active. Going for a walk can be relaxing; going for a jog is probably recreation.

Both are important to include in your leisure time. However, if you do too much recreation, you might not be getting enough rest. On the other hand, too much relaxation can mean that you have a sedentary lifestyle, which comes with its pitfalls. Identify which activities are relaxing for you and which, while fun, require a certain degree of effort.

Pay attention to your body

It’s important to pay attention to your body. While there are many activities that can be fun and enjoyable, these can also leave you feeling tired and needing rest from the break you just took. The best way to identify them is by paying attention to how you feel.

Ask yourself whether you feel more energized or drained of energy after doing something. This will help you identify whether this is restful for you or not. In your leisure, you should have a good balance of restful and recreational activities, so that your body has the chance to recuperate.

Plan for the things that you enjoy the most

There are many restful activities you can try. People enjoy napping, cooking, reading, watching shows, meditating, and so on. But you might not enjoy them equally or find them as recharging. Some people get bored while meditating. Others find that watching TV leaves them feeling tired.

It’s important to identify the best activities for you and include them in your daily schedule. Make sure that you leave time in your week for your favorite kinds of relaxing activities, and even fifteen minutes are better than none.

Let go of the guilt

An important obstacle when we try to relax is the feeling of guilt or shame over not being productive or not doing enough. When we have the chance to rest, we might not always take it because we feel like we should be doing something else. We push for productivity and end up not doing so well in the long run.

An important factor here is being able to let go of the guilt and shame of not being productive. When we allow ourselves to rest, we do make ourselves better able to be more creative, solve problems, and simply do more work. But we have to give ourselves these breaks. While at first it can be tough, over time we should make our peace with the need for rest.

Make relaxation a priority

Even if we let ourselves rest, we might consider it as something to do when there’s nothing else. We often don’t make it a priority. But we should. When we don’t pay attention to this aspect, it’s easy to let it slip and decide to leave it until tomorrow, until the weekend, or until an unspecified future time, which might never come.

Instead, we should treat rest as any other important issue. Make space for it in your calendar and make sure you have a space every day or as frequently as possible to just relax. Sometimes, it does mean we have to stop doing other things in order to prioritize rest. But it is very important that we do. Without rest, we wear ourselves down and can perform much worse. It leads us to making mistakes and having accidents. Rest is what helps us be at our best and most productive, so by prioritizing it, we ensure better results across different areas of our life.