Meditation – Path To Stress Free Life

Meditation, Ayurvedic therapy to focus, feel calm and finds a clear view about life. It is a condition of deep peace which occurs when the mind is calm and silent, but still aware. Meditation has the potential to develop your life in a positive way and stress-free. It also decreases the health care expenses. Meditation is effortless and guides you to a state of “thoughtless awareness” in which excessive stress producing activity of mind is resisted without affecting alertness and effectiveness.

Meditation is not concentration, loss of control, exercises or mental effort. In meditation, the brain is clear, calm and inwardly focused. When you meditate, you are completely awake and alert. But your mind is not wasting its focus on external happenings taking place around you. Meditate requires an inner state that is still and one pointed so that the mind becomes silent. There are so many things in life that beyond our control. So it is better to take responsibility for our state of mind to grow better. The most important thing for this we can do is MEDITATION. The word meditation is described from 2 Latin words one is Meditari (to think), and other is Mederi(to heal).

The goal of Meditation is to go beyond the mind and experience our essential nature, which is described as peace, joy and pleasure.The mind is not governed by any discipline or rules; it has its own brain. It resists any attempt to lead it to a specific path. Meditation is a way of training the mind so that you are not distracted caught up in its endless churning.
Eastern culture is first to recognise Meditation. They have found the health benefits of meditation for thousands of years. There are mainly 2 meditation techniques.

1. Concentrative Meditation – It involves focusing on a single point. It involves breathing and repeating a single word or mantra. Like staring at a candle flame, counting beads of mala. Meditation for beginners might be for few minutes, then can be increased for longer durations. In this form of meditation, you just refocus your alertness on selected object of observation each time you notice your mind wandering. By this procedure, your ability to concentrate improves.
2. Mindfulness Meditation – This encourages to observe different thoughts as they roam through the mind. This process is not about involving in these thoughts but to get aware of these thoughts every time they arise. Through this Meditation, you mould your thoughts and feelings to a specific direction. Over a period of practising you become more aware of the potential of your mind to decide on a particular matter of right and wrong. With time inner balance is developed.

 

HOW TO MEDITATE – Meditation for Beginners.

1. Sit or lie in a comfortable position. If you are sitting uncomfortably, you will not be able to sit for a longer period.
2. Shut your eyes.
3. Just breath effortlessly. Simply breath.
4. Focus on your breathing and observe how the body moves while exhaling and inhaling fresh air. While breathing notice your chest, shoulder, rib cage and belly. Just focus your breath without controlling its pace or intensity. If your mind wanders, return your focus to your breathing.

Start this breathing practice for 2 3 mins, then extend this for longer periods of time.

Here are some health benefits for different illnesses. Meditation is the perfect example of healthcare without side effects. Because it is about breathing. You just have to breathe to make your body healthy. Some cases are explained here.

Meditation for Depression

In the brain there are neurotransmitters, they form a network to pass information from the brain to body parts. For depression sufferers, there are 2 critical neurotransmitters- Serotonin and Norepinephrine. When these 2 important chemicals get too low, the person feels an overwhelming sense of sadness; this is Depression. With meditation, you can increase both Serotonin and Norepinephrine to healthy level also called “ Depression Resistant” level, and it’s done naturally. In reality, meditation creates within your brain a sort of “Neurochemical Utopia” where depression is unable to survive. Mindfulness meditation is helpful in curing depression.

• Sit back in a straight-backed chair, with your spine about an inch from the back of the chair and your feet flat on the chair.
• Close your eyes. Use your mind to watch your breath as it flows in and out. Observe your sensations without judgement. Do not try to alter your breathing.
• After a while, your mind will move your attention back to you. The act of bringing your attention back to you is a key point.
• Your mind will ultimately become calm.
• Repeat this process every day for 20 to 30 mins.

Meditation for Stress

Stress is that part of life which can either help us to learn and grow or can give us significant problems. Actually, stress is related to both external and internal factors. External factors are environmental and our life related, whereas internal factors include your nutritional status, overall health and fitness levels, emotional well-being and the amount of sleep and rest you do. These days Meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate different thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This action may result in intensifying the physical and emotional well-being. When you meditate you clear out the information that is crowding in your mind every time and contributes to your stress.

Meditation reduces stress by

• Gaining new point of view on stressful condition
• Building skills to manage your stress
• Increasing self-awareness
• Live in present
• Reducing negative emotions
• Increasing emotions and creativity
• Increasing patience and tolerance

Meditation for Anxiety

Anxiety and worry is a normal reaction to stressful conditions. In some cases, it becomes excessive and may result in Anxiety attacks or panic attacks. Both biological and environmental factors can cause this disorder. Symptoms of Anxiety are muscle tension, headaches, stomach cramps and frequent urination. Mindfulness meditation is an excellent cure for anxiety. One view of Anxiety is racing thoughts that will not go away, meditation help with this problem by removing overactive mind. Instead of going into fearful thoughts, you can start identifying with a silence that exists into every mental action. This involves remaining focused, being able to focus yourself is a skill that anyone can learn.
Here are 2 simple, practical ways to take advantage of all this knowledge to cure Anxiety:

• Regular Meditation – Open your mind to develop new thoughts besides the old worries. The mind begins to experience itself without being overshadowed by anxious thoughts.
• Exercise and Diet Full of Fibre – Exercise puts the body in the active state. High-intensity aerobic exercise is more effective than anaerobic. With exercise, if you eat healthy natural and fibrous diet, you will get peaceful condition even sooner.

Meditation for Concentration

Nowadays teachers and parents often complain about poor concentration level of their kids. But there is a solution to this problem, a simple technique called Meditation.
It has been found that regular practice of meditation can help increase attention and sustain it even during boring tasks. If a kid does meditation even for few minutes daily, it can build up his or her improved focus and better performance. Even two and a half mins Pranayama can help retain and improve concentration for 3 hours. It helps improve memory and retention power and reduce the time taken to task. Sudarshan kriya is also a unique breathing technique. It helps to reduce thoughts in mind thereby letting you concentrate better, especially when it’s needed the most.

Meditation for Relaxation

Meditation is a deep relaxation method that stills the mind and stops the constant talking in your head. When this internal dialogue in mind becomes settled, the body begins to relax. Because the human is deeply connected mentally and physically that if one part begins to relax the other part feels it too. Rest is nature’s way of healing our body. As deep rest is an essential aspect of recovery and rejuvenation, meditation plays an important role in appealing your inner heal. Meditation has more benefits than the most people realise. It lowers blood pressure, strengthens the immune system, reduces stress toxins in your body and brings peace, relaxation and happiness in everyday life. Here is a way to meditate for relaxation:

• Get Comfortable – Comfortable posture is important for meditation because you can’t sit too long uncomfortably. So it is good to sit in nice posture.
• Switch Off – In starting close your eyes and start repeating the mantra of GOD’s WORD silently to yourself. When you notice thoughts jumping in your head, just go back and repeat your mantra to help them go away.
• Experience the Peacefulness – Stop after 20 mins of repeating your mantra and take few moments to open your eyes. You will observe your body and breathing have already slowed down. You will feel more relaxation, peace and energy in yourself.

Meditation for Mental Health

Giving few minutes to meditation every day with the aim of getting a stage of more mindful and focused on the present is a great way to relieve stress. But it is an even stronger thing. Mindfulness meditation helps in relieving mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), Schizophrenia. Here are some mental and emotional benefits of meditation:

• Reduce Anxiety and depression by enabling your body to balance its own neurochemical system.
• Make you enable to take a better decision and improve critical thinking.
• Leave unhealthy habits by helping you disconnect from emotions associated with an action.
• Upgrade your communication with yourself. When you understand yourself even better you have more control over your thoughts.
• Try to live in present moment. When you leave the past and the future, you live every breath in the present which affects every aspect of your life and relationships.

Do meditation at least for 10 mins daily for sustain results.

Meditation for Bipolar Disorder

In Bipolar disorder person experience extreme highs and lows in mood. The disorder causes anxiety at one end and depression at other. It is an easy and natural method for relaxing and reducing stress in person and especially in people with Bipolar disorder. It is helpful to cure Bipolar disorder for a longer period.
Meditation helps strengthen the connection between your body and mind. Medicines for Bipolar disorder helps to boost Serotonin, meditation does the same but naturally. Serotonin is mood stabilising neurotransmitter. Meditation enables the Serotonin in abundance for both preventing and reversing Bipolar disorder and all of its harmful effects.
There is a meditation technique to cure this disorder

• Think of a pleasurable moment and try to create it in your mind, as strong as possible.
• Keep on repeating a soothing mantra like GOD’s WORD “OM”.
• Steadily focus on different parts of your body for various sensations like warmth, tightness or soreness.
• Taking a walk and focussing on the sensation of walking.

Refrences:
https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation
https://www.gaiam.com/blogs/discover/meditation-101-techniques-benefits-and-a-beginner-s-how-to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/19/meditation-benefits_n_5842870.html
http://liveanddare.com/benefits-of-meditation/