The Art of Mindfulness & Meditation
(Video credit: How Meditation Changed My Life - Mamata Venkat - Tedx Talks)
We would all benefit from some form of meditation or mindfulness in our lives. The religious achieve this through prayer. Meditation is a form of mindfulness and mindfulness is and ancient yet effective technique of being in the moment, which modern humans have lost touch with. It is essential for remaining centred and combatting stress and anxiety. Although advanced mindfulness teaches complete detachment from your emotions, I would not advocate/ support this as I think it is important aspect of the human conditions is to be able to feel and be in connection with our emotions and what these physiological alert signals are trying to tell us. But just like a car alarm, once you have identified and resolved the problem, it makes no sense for that alarm signal to continue to signal. So we need to find a way to make the intensity less.
"Meditation is an exercise that trains your mind to regulate itself. Its the ability to focus on one thing, continuously without break. If practised properly and delligently its a consistent recconection with your true inner self"
Whether you’re religious or not you can still achieve this state through mindfulness and meditation. I have recently started meditating again myself and have found it hugely invaluable for a busy lifestyle and active mind. It helps you to disconnect from external noise and distraction and reconnect with your inner being, and sense of core strength, resilience, peace, relaxation, and resolution.
When you return your focus back to the outside world and your external environment- you are able to do so in a much more objective, sharpened, fine tuned and focused state of mind and being.
Just like the body needs exercise, training and discipline, so does the mind. Although it is also true that physical activity can take you to a state of meditation- it’s the feeling you feel when you are weight lifting, in the zone and counting through your sets.
A more obvious form of meditative exercise is yoga and also Pilates. I prefer reformer Pilates myself - But there will be times during the day that you can’t get to the gym or perhaps you would like to experience this feeling of focus calm more often. That’s where traditional meditation comes into play.
When you first begin meditation it will seem almost impossible as explained in the attached video - when you first try to quieten your mind it insists on becoming even louder! 🤣 The key is to start small, practice and build up. So don’t try to start with an hours meditation straight away, first start with 2-3 mins then build this up to 5-10 minutes and so on. The best times of day to meditate are first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening, but really moved you become more expect you will be able to meditate anytime any place.
The simplest meditation you can start of with is a technique called following your breath. You simply count your breaths as you breathe in and out and focus on the sensation- this can easily be achieved during weight lifting during counting reps. The next step is to control your breathing, bringing it more in line and in synch with your heart rate, inducing a state of relaxation. There are several phone apps such as iBreathe which teach you controlled breathing, demo included here. Having such simple apps on your phone means that you can access a quick, fast, and reliable form of meditation any time, any place any where and therefore can practice during the day or as needed.
Other popular meditation and mindfulness apps include "Head space" and "HeartRate+"
