The benefits of meditation and a guide on how to meditate properly

 

If you’re someone who’s undergone any form of stress or anxiety, you’ve probably heard the word ‘mindfulness’ and ‘meditation’ been thrown around pretty often. Maybe, you’ve been a skeptic like me and thought: how useful could it really be? Lack of comprehensive sources on the topic might have left you even more confused.

This post aims to summarize the various advantages of meditation as well suggest some effective sources to get you started on your meditation energy.

Benefits of meditation:

1.      Health Benefits of meditation for illnesses:

 Meditation has been proven to be effective in countering various physical ailments and helping reduce the symptoms. Some of the illnesses that meditation may provide relief against include: High blood pressure, headaches, asthma, chronic pain, insomnia and anxiety to name a few. 

However, it must be kept in mind that meditation is no alternative to established scientific treatments and so must be treated as a practice that complements traditional treatments only.

2.      Meditation for Stress Relief:

Stress has become something that most people today experience. From students, to professionals in various field or any individual troubled in any way. Hence, stress management must be prioritized in order to stop it from interfering with the quality of one’s life. Meditation provides an effective way to do just that.

3.      Meditation and increased focus:

The increased screen time that we find ourselves a victim to today has left most of us feeling unmotivated, unfocused and scatter minded.  The shift to online education has further worsened the situation. Incorporating daily, short meditation sessions can greatly help improve the overall focus and alertness in students as well.

4.      Improvement in overall emotional health

The increased influx of information as well as different daily stresses can often lead to an intrusive thought process. Meditation can help one to slow down our though processes thereby leading to feelings of calmness and feeling more in control of daily life.

 

How to start meditating?

A source that I found extremely useful in my journey with meditation was the Netflix series titled: ”Headspace guide to meditation”. The series covers the topic in a very comprehensive manner, including both the theory as well as interactive guided meditation for the viewer to practice. The series allow one to ease into the practice of meditation from the comfort of one’s home.

If accessing Netflix content is an issue, there are several free Youtube Videos available that provide great content for guided meditation in the form of 10 minute, 5 minute etc meditation videos that are instructive and easy to follow.

Following is a link to a playlist of meditation videos that I found extremely useful:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17JejtgsL8Vrbr2tPOX1k9XI9OCg8OF2