What Is Meditation?
Meditation is a group of mental training techniques. You can use meditation to improve mental health and capacities, and also to help improve the physical health. Some of these techniques are very simple, so you can learn them from a book or an article; others require guidance by a qualified meditation teacher.
During most forms of meditation practice you will do the following things in order to relax your mind:
1. You sit or lie in a relaxed position.
2. You breathe in deep breaths at regular intervals. When you breathe out you relax your muscles so that your lungs are empty, but without straining.
3. You try not to focus on problems or issues you are experiencing that are making you stressed.
4. You dedicate your complete concentration your thoughts on a sound, a word you repeat (known as a mantra), an image, an abstract concept or a feeling. Your whole attention should be pointed at the object you have chosen to concentrate on.
5. At first it will be hard to clear your mind of thoughts. When you experience a thought realize that you have experienced it but do not pursue it. Gently bring your attention back to your object of focus every time you find your mind wandering.
The different meditation techniques differ according to the degree of concentration, and how foreign thoughts are handled. By some techniques, the objective is to concentrate so intensely that no foreign thoughts occur at all.
In other techniques the concentration is more relaxed so that foreign thoughts easily pop up. When these foreign thoughts are discovered, one stops these and goes back to the pure meditation in a relaxed manner. Thoughts you experience will often be about things you have forgotten or suppressed, which can allow deep access to many memories you may have forgotten. This rediscovery can have a psychotherapeutic effect.
Meditation has the following effects:
1. Meditation will help you to rest.
2. You learn to relax.
3. You learn to concentrate in order to solve problems better.
4. Meditation often has a helps with high blood pressure.
5. Meditation has beneficial effects on inner body processes such as circulation, respiration, and digestion.
6. Regular meditation will have a therapeutic effect that you will notice in daily life.
7. Regular meditation will facilitate the immune system.
8. Meditation is a pleasant way to take time out from your busy day.
Hypnosis may have some of the same relaxing and psychotherapeutic effects as meditation. However, when you meditate you are in control yourself; during hypnosis some other person or some mechanical device is stimulating your thoughts for you. Hypnosis also does not have help you in your ability to concentrate.
Here is a simple form of meditation:
1. Sit in a good chair in a comfortable position.
2. Relax all your muscles as well as you can.
3. Stop thinking about anything, or at least try not to think about anything.
4. Breath out, relaxing all the muscles in your breathing apparatus.
5. Repeat the following in 10 - 20 minutes:
-- Breath in so deep that you feel you get enough oxygen.
-- Breath out, relaxing your chest and diaphragm completely.
-- Every time you breathe out, think the word "one" or another simple word inside yourself. You should think the word in a prolonged manner, and so that you hear it inside you, but you should try to avoid using your mouth or voice.
6. If foreign thoughts come in just stop these thoughts in a relaxed manner. Keep on concentrating upon the breathing and the word you repeat.
As you proceed through this meditation, you should feel steadily more relaxed in your mind and body, feel that you breathe steadily more effectively, and that the blood circulation throughout your body gets more efficient. You may also feel an increasing mental pleasure throughout the meditation.
