Meditation is the practice that serves to educate the mind and become more conscious in your daily life and career.
Meditation restores the connection with your inner true self, which in turn provides clarity and peace of mind.
It helps you to understand our own life in a better way and also provides you with a harmonious way of life with your surroundings.
Getting started in meditation as a beginner is a decision that will bring you many benefits in all the areas of life. With the current turmoil in society that is always going faster and faster, many times we get mentally and physically fatigued and become unbalanced. Meditation will help us maintain our balance and perform better in the tasks of everyday life.
Like everything in life, in the beginning, it will require a little more effort to keep focused attention to achieve a daily meditation practice. But the important thing is to always keep exploring meditation methods and keep practicing every day, for at least 10 minutes. Over time it will become increasingly simple and you will feel what this practice of meditation can bring to your life.
There are different techniques and exercises to meditate, you just have to find the one that best suits your lifestyle, the place you choose and the time you will spend meditating. Every day you spend a few minutes meditating, you can get the great benefits that meditation offers everyone. So in the following article, I will explain how to meditate for beginners and the four important techniques to use in your daily meditation practice.
What are the benefits of meditating as a beginner?
Meditation brings many benefits to the practitioner. Every time we meditate we improve our mental, emotional and physical health.
Meditation serves to optimize memory, relieve stress, depression, anxiety and also helps lower blood pressure. Develop empathy towards people and increase emotional intelligence and happiness.
When you learn how to meditate and make it a habit, the ability to concentrate increases, thus preventing our mind from wandering and getting distracted easily.
It is also used as a tool to treat addictions as in the case of Mindfulness meditation techniques. When we meditate we can also boost our immune system, which makes us less vulnerable to getting sick.
So, how meditation can help us to deal with both our physical and our mental health?
These are some of the great benefits of the practice any beginner can enjoy:
Greater tolerance to pain
Meditation can make us more tolerant of pain. Just ten minutes of mindfulness meditation could be used as an alternative to painkillers, according to pain meditation techniques research by Leeds Beckett University.
Leeds Beckett University. “Meditation could be a cheaper alternative to traditional pain medication, study suggests.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 June 2017.
Results of the study suggest that a single ten-minute mindfulness meditation session administered by a novice therapist can improve pain tolerance, pain threshold and decrease anxiety towards pain.
“The mindfulness mediation was led by a researcher who was a novice, so in theory, clinicians could administer this with little training needed. It’s based on traditional Buddhist teachings that focus attention and awareness on your breathing.”
Reduce negative thoughts and feelings
Reduce and finally eliminate the negative thoughts and feelings that often overwhelm us, such as hate, resentment, greed, among others. It will help us to feel comfortable with ourselves, therefore relationships with others will improve considerably.
You can clarify our ideas for smarter decisions
By giving us mental clarity, meditation helps us make smarter decisions. It will help us to better fall asleep when we start in meditation and have a more relaxed and deep rest. Meditation mainly serves to improve our quality of life and performance in the activities of our daily routines and increased creativity at work.
Basic Meditation for Beginners: how does it work?
A basic beginner meditation will begin with attention to breathing. Start by choosing a quiet place where you can meditate without interruption. It can be in your room, or in a garden, where you feel most comfortable. The important thing is that it is harmonious and that you can go there every day to meditate away from those who don’t meditate.
The best thing is that you choose a time of day in which you can spend for practice every day. It is recommended that it be in the morning when you wake up before you start your daily activities, and/or at night before going to bed.
Avoid any distractions, turn off all electronics, ask your family and friends not to interrupt you during your meditation time. Put on comfortable clothes, preferably baggy. Use a blanket if needed, it’s very important to be warm and comfortable when meditating.
Use an appropriate body position, it is recommended that you learn how to meditate sitting if possible. You can lay down if you have health problems or you have been meditating for some time. You can use a meditation cushion for your comfort as well.
Start by closing your eyes and focusing your attention on your breath, inhale and exhale slowly feeling the air move gently in and out through your nose. Try one minute with a timer, then the next day try five minutes increasing each day up to twenty minutes in the morning and evening.
The power of your breath
Mental chatter and distractions will surely arise, let the thoughts manifest but don’t give your attention to them. Let them come into your mind and leave your mind by focusing only on your breathing.
When you get distracted remember to put your attention back on your breath. In this way, your help self to always be attentive in the present moment.
After you learn to stay focused and alert to the present, without paying attention to your breath then you will be prepared to continue with more advanced meditation techniques. The important thing in achieving results is to be consistent and spend at least a few minutes every day to practice the meditation method.
How can you start to meditate?
My recommendation is that you do not rush your meditation journey, but meditate with constancy.
To start meditating, you have to have a daily time, even just five minutes to dedicate it to your daily meditation.
It will be your personal time, try to always meditate at the same time, that will help you integrate it into your lifestyle. 5 minutes to start with is more than enough.
You wouldn’t deny yourself at least 5 minutes of your day to change your life, right?
The important thing in meditation is constancy, you have to develop this important habit on a daily basis.
This is the only way you will achieve constant and permanent results to begin to perceive greater mental clarity, better energy levels and enjoy all the benefits of inner peace and happiness.
Once the mind is calm you can stop focusing your mind on the breath and you can start a visualization to live the life of your dreams. Through this visualization you can create the reality you desire and want, intentionally programming your future with calm and precision, generating the many rich details of your desires.
This meditation strategy improves attention and makes it easier to have a clearer and quieter mind, which will be reflected in your life.
How to meditate correctly? The four essential techniques to meditate effectively
To meditate correctly we have to keep in mind the following techniques so that your meditation is successful and you can enjoy the benefits for your mind and body.
1. Body Technique
Body position must combine two aspects: stability and staying awake, so doing it lying down is not recommended unless for health concerns, unless you already have some experience in meditating.
The posture should allow you to remain still and at the same time attentive for as long as possible. It is essential for proper meditation.
2. Emotional Technique
We must allow everything that appears in your consciousness to flow freely. Accept every feeling, emotion or thought as it is, without choosing or rejecting. Just simply return your focus gently on your breathing.
3. Mental Technique
Do not take sides with or against anything in your mind, no matter what it is. Do not judge your own feelings, sensations or thoughts. Don’t say, “This is good, this is wrong.” If judgments and assessments appear in your mind, be aware of the judgments and assessments that have emerged and let them be without giving them importance.
It is important to know that controlling of your mind is essential to obtain all the benefits of meditation. It will get easier with practice, just keep at it and don’t give up on yourself. Believe and feel the knowingness deep inside you that you deserve this experience in your life!
4. Spiritual Technique
It’s a true fact that only the true seekers of Spirituality become the masters of their destiny. Knowingly or unknowingly many individuals who have a materialistic goal in life travel the path of Spirituality and become successful in life.
It isn’t a happening by chance… all was the result of a law. These highly acclaimed people unknowingly tread the path of pure Spirituality and accomplish their goals in their life.
Without Spirituality, the life of an individual is like a rudderless boat going round and round in the unfathomable sea of life. It’s Spirituality, which teaches every individual the real value of life. being spiritual isn’t being religious alone. Spirituality teaches us the core values of life. It teaches the real essence of us!
Spirituality has no relationship whatsoever with religion. Following a religion means following the dictates of a successful spiritual master. One who has already covered the journey and has become capable of mankind to its logical end.
At its core, spiritual meditation is the mindful practice of connection to something that is greater, vaster, and deeper than the individual self. It may seem paradoxical, but the path to that connection passes through honest self-reflection.
One of the best ways I know to initiate this process of awakening to the Truth of who we are is to let go into the stillness of deep spiritual meditation.
These are the first steps to learn how to meditate for beginners. Remember to always live your meditation practice as a journey with commitment, patience, and kindness towards yourself. Your future meditation session goal should be a pure moment of bliss, a moment where you can be yourself with no masks, no stress and where you can learn to be the best version of yourself and carry that into your personal life and career.