meditation
One of the challenges of being human is that our heads tend to be highly active and dominate our life. We can, if we are not careful, live a kind of virtual life where the day passes us by whilst we are in a perpetual daydream.
We have evolved to be so intelligent that we can drive through a familiar city whilst listening to the radio, drinking a hot drink, talking to a passenger and still have other thoughts running through our head.
One of the problems is that sometimes the thoughts, scenarios, images and conversations running through our brain can cause emotional upsets. We can choose to think in ways that will cause stress, anger, resentment, depression, sadness and fear.
One way to overcome this is to calm our mind for a while with meditation. The meditation can be very simple and only needs to take a minute. I find that after a short meditation my mind can be calm for an hour or more after. It is almost like restarting a computer and the quick meditation feels like my mind has been re-wired in a way that helps me focus and concentrate whilst feeling calm and content for some time after.
Through meditation we can experience great calmness and find a deep contentment. This can help with all kinds of stress related illnesses. These are thought to include high blood pressure, heart disease, some forms of cancer, asthma, eczema, psoriasis, headaches and many forms of indigestions. The common link for all this is that when stressed we become more acidic whilst regular meditation can help us become more alkaline. People have found meditation can be a great aid to all kinds of healing.
To meditate first find somewhere comfortable to sit down. Close your eyes for the first few times to reduce the risk of being distracted. Begin the meditation by consciously starting each breath with your mind. You decide when to breath in and when to breath out again. As you do this try to be aware of the air in your nose. Each time you breathe in your nose will feel cooler and each time you breathe out it will feel warmer.
As you continue to use your mind to start each breath and feel the air of the breath through your nose consciously make each in breath a gentle self loving act. As you breath in you are feeding yourself with oxygen and keeping yourself alive. So make your in-breath one that is gentle, loving and nurturing.
Try to get lost in the feeling of each breath. If you notice you are thinking about something, be aware of this and go back to starting each breath and feeling it. Even a few seconds of this kind of meditation makes for a good start. With practice you may find you can keep your mind on your breathing for a minute or more.
After a while you will find you can also meditate with your eyes open. You can stare at something to aid your meditation. In this way you can meditate on a bus, tube or train, in a café, at the office, in a park, at home or in the garden. You might find it helpful just before going to sleep or when you wake up.
According to scientists experiencing more than a total of ten minutes meditation a day can help our brain develop in a way that helps us better control our emotions and be able to take on challenges without feeling stressed.