How and why you should start meditation NOW
So I kinda wanted to talk about meditation and mindfulness today. I'm not amazing at either of these things, but they're things I've been adopting into my life for the past three months, and feel that now is just about the perfect time to start being a bit more mindful about yourself and your surroundings with what is going on in the world.
So what do these terms mean?
Mindfulness is taking a step back to realise how you are feeling and thinking in a moment. Sometimes we get so caught up in whisking ourselves of our feet with distractions and "things to do" that we don't stop for a second to check in on ourselves and our feelings.
Meditation is the practice of using mindfulness to focus and redirect your thoughts, which comes with a whole bunch of benefits.
Benefits of meditation and mindfulness:
- Reduces stress, as well as stress related illnesses like IBS, PTSD and fibromyalgia.
- Reduces anxiety, helping with anxiety disorders, OCD and panic attacks
- Improves depression, creates a better outlook on life and can have long term effects in this area.
- Allows you to have a better understanding on yourself, which can lead to other positive changes.
- Improves your attention span
- Improves your memory
- Being kind to yourself keeps you kind towards others
- Helps with addictions
- Improves sleep
- Decreases blood pressure, during meditation and in the long term, reducing strain on heart and the chance of heart disease.
Meditation has a physical impact on the brain, slowing down receptors and shutting down the frontal cortex which is responsible for your self conscious, this scientifically leads to said benefits. For example the relaxation of the brain loosens the connections of particular neural pathways which actually makes us respond calmer to things that could have triggered an intense emotional response beforehand, which leads us to reduced anxiety.
There are so many types of meditation based off of different cultures and beliefs, some examples are:
- Focused attention, which uses the focus of breath to anchor the mind and maintain awareness.
- Body scan, where you mentally scan your whole body to keep it in sync with your mind.
- Noting, this meditation allows you to note what is distracting the mind.
- Visualisation, instead of focusing on breath you focus on something or someone.
- Zen, an ancient buddhist tradition of letting the mind be and focusing on breath, sense of presence and alertness.
- Mantra, used to encourage a positive change by the vibrations of the repeated mantra.
- Yoga, this focuses on strengthening the nervous system to cope with everyday stress and problems.
- Chakra, aimed to keep the body's chakras in balance, believed to cause physical and mental symptoms if blocked.
Meditation is becoming more common and less "hippie" and more people are starting to use it more frequently to help them through this day and age, as everyday stresses seems to get more and more intense. Even collecting crystals, buddha statues and tapestries have become more of a trend, but everyday meditation doesn't have to be hippie or crystal orientated. My first ever meditation actually involved chocolate, which is always a good idea. It can be fun...
Meditation can just be about, sitting in silence for 5 or 10 minutes.
Every time I work out and stretch afterwards, I do a 5 minute guided meditation off of Youtube just to incorporate some mindfulness into my day. There was a stage I was doing it every morning as well. I really enjoy it because it seems to slow everything down for a moment and the change of pace breaks the day up a bit.
I also suffer with insomnia and at one time used sleep meditations religiously to get me to sleep, especially when I've got a lot going on in my head, sleep meditations help you go into a much nicer sleep than you would if you fell asleep overthinking and stressing on something.
Anyway, the reason this post came about is because the app Balance is currently giving everyone a free year subscription to their services, which are tailored completely to you and what you could personally get out of meditation.
They set up a kind of plan with you and keep you accountable with your daily meditations. But also have pages of "singles" where you can choose a meditation for anything you could need in a particular moment. As well as a page on sleep meditations too.
I've only had the app today but I really like it, it's easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I really wanted to get the word out about their free year subscription offer at the moment.
It's definitely the right time to be using meditation with the heightened levels of stress in the world at the moment and being stuck in the house with nothing but your thoughts.
This app is also great for people who might be interested in meditation but just don't know where to start or how to do it, it has various levels of beginners and occasional or frequent meditators.
To get the free year subscription, email access@balanceapp.com and they will email you back with the details. Offer runs until the 15th April.
Also, I am not sponsored to say this, I just saw it, thought it would be a really beneficial thing for a lot of people and thought now would also be a perfect time to talk about meditation and its' benefits. I did some research for this post, I got my facts from the following sites:
headspace.com
healthline.com
I hope everyone is staying safe and inside and holding up okay.
Shan x
So what do these terms mean?
Mindfulness is taking a step back to realise how you are feeling and thinking in a moment. Sometimes we get so caught up in whisking ourselves of our feet with distractions and "things to do" that we don't stop for a second to check in on ourselves and our feelings.
Meditation is the practice of using mindfulness to focus and redirect your thoughts, which comes with a whole bunch of benefits.
Benefits of meditation and mindfulness:
- Reduces stress, as well as stress related illnesses like IBS, PTSD and fibromyalgia.
- Reduces anxiety, helping with anxiety disorders, OCD and panic attacks
- Improves depression, creates a better outlook on life and can have long term effects in this area.
- Allows you to have a better understanding on yourself, which can lead to other positive changes.
- Improves your attention span
- Improves your memory
- Being kind to yourself keeps you kind towards others
- Helps with addictions
- Improves sleep
- Decreases blood pressure, during meditation and in the long term, reducing strain on heart and the chance of heart disease.
Meditation has a physical impact on the brain, slowing down receptors and shutting down the frontal cortex which is responsible for your self conscious, this scientifically leads to said benefits. For example the relaxation of the brain loosens the connections of particular neural pathways which actually makes us respond calmer to things that could have triggered an intense emotional response beforehand, which leads us to reduced anxiety.
There are so many types of meditation based off of different cultures and beliefs, some examples are:
- Focused attention, which uses the focus of breath to anchor the mind and maintain awareness.
- Body scan, where you mentally scan your whole body to keep it in sync with your mind.
- Noting, this meditation allows you to note what is distracting the mind.
- Visualisation, instead of focusing on breath you focus on something or someone.
- Zen, an ancient buddhist tradition of letting the mind be and focusing on breath, sense of presence and alertness.
- Mantra, used to encourage a positive change by the vibrations of the repeated mantra.
- Yoga, this focuses on strengthening the nervous system to cope with everyday stress and problems.
- Chakra, aimed to keep the body's chakras in balance, believed to cause physical and mental symptoms if blocked.
Meditation is becoming more common and less "hippie" and more people are starting to use it more frequently to help them through this day and age, as everyday stresses seems to get more and more intense. Even collecting crystals, buddha statues and tapestries have become more of a trend, but everyday meditation doesn't have to be hippie or crystal orientated. My first ever meditation actually involved chocolate, which is always a good idea. It can be fun...
Meditation can just be about, sitting in silence for 5 or 10 minutes.
Every time I work out and stretch afterwards, I do a 5 minute guided meditation off of Youtube just to incorporate some mindfulness into my day. There was a stage I was doing it every morning as well. I really enjoy it because it seems to slow everything down for a moment and the change of pace breaks the day up a bit.
I also suffer with insomnia and at one time used sleep meditations religiously to get me to sleep, especially when I've got a lot going on in my head, sleep meditations help you go into a much nicer sleep than you would if you fell asleep overthinking and stressing on something.
Anyway, the reason this post came about is because the app Balance is currently giving everyone a free year subscription to their services, which are tailored completely to you and what you could personally get out of meditation.
They set up a kind of plan with you and keep you accountable with your daily meditations. But also have pages of "singles" where you can choose a meditation for anything you could need in a particular moment. As well as a page on sleep meditations too.
I've only had the app today but I really like it, it's easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I really wanted to get the word out about their free year subscription offer at the moment.
It's definitely the right time to be using meditation with the heightened levels of stress in the world at the moment and being stuck in the house with nothing but your thoughts.
This app is also great for people who might be interested in meditation but just don't know where to start or how to do it, it has various levels of beginners and occasional or frequent meditators.
To get the free year subscription, email access@balanceapp.com and they will email you back with the details. Offer runs until the 15th April.
Also, I am not sponsored to say this, I just saw it, thought it would be a really beneficial thing for a lot of people and thought now would also be a perfect time to talk about meditation and its' benefits. I did some research for this post, I got my facts from the following sites:
headspace.com
healthline.com
I hope everyone is staying safe and inside and holding up okay.
Shan x
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