Meditation Techniques

Techniques of Meditation

As we discussed yesterday, meditation helps us to relieve our stress & tension.

Meditation is widely recommended as a healthy way to manage stress, and for good reason. It helps to reduce stress and anxiety, relieves complaints like headaches and enhances your immunity.

Meditation helps to make you lighter & face the entire day with a new vigour & challenge. Today, we shall discuss on various techniques of meditation.

You may try any or all types of meditation & finally use / practice the technique that suits you best.

Majorly herein below are some of the Types or Techniques of Meditation:

• Breathing Meditation / Watching your Breath: Relax in a straight seated position or whatever position works best for you, close your eyes and start to pay attention to your breathing. Breathing through your nose gets your diaphragm involved and gets oxygen all the way to the bottom of your lungs. Just focus your attention on the air going in and out of your nose, even if your mind wanders here & there, just bring it back to your breath. Doing this for 5-10 minutes initially & gradually increase the time limit as and how you get used to it.
• Empty Mind Meditation: Meditating can create a kind of "awareness without object," an emptying of all thoughts from your mind. The techniques for doing this involve sitting still, often in a "full lotus" (padmasana) or cross-legged position (simple sitting position), and letting the mind go silent on its own. Try it, it may seem to be simple, however as you start doing it, you may find it difficult to empty your mind from thoughts & wandering.. but slowly you would get used to doing it.
• Walking Meditation: In this type of meditation, your entire body is working out. You may want to practice this meditation with your daily morning walk, or if not, you may simply want to practice this in-house, by walking back & forth in your room. Just pay attention to the movement of your legs, concentrate on your breathing and body as you walk, and to the feeling of your feet contacting the ground. When your mind wanders, just keep bringing it back to the process of walking and breathing.
• Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness is a form of meditation that, like activity-oriented meditation, doesn’t really look like meditation. It simply involves staying in the present moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. This is more difficult than it seems! Focusing on sensations you feel in your body is one way to stay, focusing on emotions and where you feel them in your body. This type of meditation is also known as vipassana. You can start by watching your breath, and then move your attention to the thoughts going through your mind, the feelings in your body, and even the sounds and sights around you. The key is to watch without judging or analyzing.
• Mantra Meditation: This is a very common type of meditation practiced by many. People find it easier to keep their mind from wandering if they concentrate on something specific. A mantra can help in thi. This is a word or phrase you repeat as you sit in meditation. For eg. the recitation of "Om" repetitively and aloud, can help you concentrate. You can also use any word or phrase that works for you, and can choose to either repeat it aloud or in your head as you meditate.
• Meditating on a Concept: Some meditation techniques involve contemplation of an idea or scenario. An example is the "meditation on impermanence" in which you focus on the impermanent nature of all things, starting with your thoughts and feelings as they come and go. In the Buddhist "meditation on the corpse," you think about a body in the ground, as it slowly rots away and is fed on by worms. The technique is used to guide you to an understanding that your rationalizing mind might not bring you to.
• Spiritual Meditation: Meditation can also be a spiritual practice. (It does not have to be, and certainly isn't specific to any one religion, but can be used as a spiritual experience.) Many people experience meditation as a form of prayer -- the form where God 'speaks,' rather than just listening. Many people experience ‘guidance’ or inner wisdom once the mind is quiet, and meditate for this purpose. You can meditate on a singular question until an answer comes.

Whichever meditative techniques you use, the potential benefits are clear and numerous, making it one of the more commonly recommended stress management practices.