1-1. Making an easy-to-meditate environment
Before you begin meditation, let ‘s create an easy – to – meditate environment.
Meditation is a process of calming the mind so it is important to prepare an environment where you can ‘let go’ without thinking of anything. First, find a place to meditate. A quiet room should be ideal. As beginners are easily distracted when learning meditation, in order to concentrate, its important to keep the room temperature at a comfortable level. Closing windows and shutting out outside noise makes it easier for effective meditation.
Next is posture. Meditation is said to be effective if done from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Therefore, let’s prepare a chair that does not make you feel tired even if you sit for long. Loose clothing is highly recommended because its important to wear clothes that are comfortable.
1-2. Meditation – the basics
Once the environment is in place, we will go through the basics of meditation.
First of all, you should sit in a chair and put both feet on the ground. Turn your hands upside down in a lightly open position. You can touch the thumbs if you wish. Next, extend your spine and correct your posture. The energy during meditation goes up and down along the spine, so if the posture is bad the energy does not circulate well. However, if you are a beginner, you can go with a comfortable posture until you get used to it. Note -Just make sure you are not too comfortable or else you may fall asleep !
1-3. Enter into meditation
Once you have attained your posture, you can commence meditating. To begin let’s breathe heavily before entering into meditation. Open your eyes and breathe in heavily from your nostrills, stop breathing for about 5 seconds and then exhale. Repeat this process 3 times, then dim the room lights and enter into meditation. If you do not want to lose track of the time you can set an alarm before you commence.
2. Tips to make your meditation successful
There are several ways make it successful.
2-1. Breathe slowly
To make your meditation successful, slow breathing is important. If you breathe slowly your body will naturally get into a rhythm of slow inhaling and exhaling. It is most effective to perform abdominal breathing, but there is no need to force it if it does not occur naturally. Breathe naturally without being conscious of it as much as possible.
2-2. Empty your mind
To make meditation successful, it is important to empty your mind of thoughts and feelings. As mentioned earlier, meditation is a state of “nothing”, so avoid thinking as much as possible. That said, it is very difficult to make this happen. Repetition of a mantra may help some beginners. A mantra is like a spell with words that are completely meaningless. If you continue to chant the mantra all the time, the brain will get bored with that word and gradually stop thinking.
Since mantra is an enumeration of words, you can repeat any words. Beginners can try repeating the word ‘Ohm’. Hindus believe that the sonic vibration of the word Ohm was the original sound of the universe when it took its current form. Ohm (Ooooohm) can be chanted while exhaling.
The second is to bring consciousness to breathing. Now let’s concentrate on changes to the body while breathing, such as how oxygen enters your lungs from the nostrills, how it travels through the body, how your body changes when you breathe etc. Here too, the mantra may help to bring back consciousness to breathing when concentration is interrupted.
2-3. Practice daily
Like any other thing practice makes perfect. Meditation is most effective when done daily, but people who do not have time should do at least once a week. Research shows that it is necessary to meditate regularly for 8 weeks in order to produce results.
3. Benefits of Meditation
So what are the benefits of doing meditation?
3-1. Stress relief
The biggest advantage of meditation is stress relief. When a person is in a state of stress, a hormone called cortisol is secreted. Research has shown that this hormone decreases during meditation. Meditatin is also said to relieve stress and anxiety. It is also said to be effective for psychosis such as various phobias.
3-2. It leads to physical health
Meditation is said to lead to health of the body.
Illnesses affecting people such as cancer and hypertension are caused by the dominance of sympathetic nerves that strain the body. By doing meditation sympathetic dominance condition and parasympathetic nerve dominance are reduced.
3-3. Creative thinking is born
Meditation makes creative ideas easier to be born.
Meditation has the capacity of increasing concentration, and it is said that it has the effect of nurturing the ability of innovation. Also, as parasympathetic nerves become dominant, you will become more aware of what you did not normally notice. From this, a sharp intuition and a new sensibility are born, and a creative idea will be born. We will see new ideas, goals, vision and improve work efficiency.
4. Celebrity acquiring success with meditation
Among celebrities who have had success, there are many who have meditated or currently engaged in meditation. Among them are Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Madonna, Tina Turner, Richard Gere, Paul McCartney, Katy Perry and Hugh Jackman.