If you're like most people, you probably think of meditation as something that's only for "spiritual" people. Or maybe you've tried it before but found it too difficult to focus or just didn't "get it." This usually happens due to a big misunderstanding about meditation and how it all works.

Some people think it’s new-age magic, but the truth is that meditation has been around for thousands of years. Regardless of your culture, if you believe in it, meditation can work for you to heal your mind, body, and soul. Meditation is a potent tool for anyone who wants to improve their health and wellbeing.

Types of Meditation

There are several types of meditation, including mindfulness, loving-kindness, visualization, body scan, and breath awareness. However, the basic premise is always the same. You want to focus and quieten the mind. Your mind will quieten when you focus on a particular object, such as a flame or your breath, or a mantra or affirmation.

The Benefits of Meditation

The benefits of meditation are vast. Meditation reduces stress and anxiety, improves sleep, increases focus and concentration, and even boosts your immune system. Many people even see improvements in depression and other mental health conditions. For this reason, many certified counselors recommend meditation as part of effective treatment.

Getting Started with Meditation

If you're new to meditation, starting with some guided meditations can be helpful. Many great resources are available online or on apps like Insight Timer and Headspace. You can also search YouTube and find a lot of examples.

Once you feel more normal doing it, you can experiment with different techniques and find what works best for you. Remember, how you choose to meditate is unique to you. The main thing is to be positive during the experience and to be patient, consistent, and open-minded. Don’t allow anything to block you from this valuable tool to improve your life and heal your mind, body, and spirit.

If you're ready to try meditation, here are a few tips to get you started:

• Sit or lie down comfortably, supporting your spine. You don't need to be in a particular yoga pose or anything like that. Just ensure you're comfortable and won't be distracted by your surroundings.

• Take cleansing breaths – in and out – with your eyes shut. This will help you to relax and clear your mind.

• Begin to focus on your breath. Pay attention to the way it feels as you inhale and exhale.

• If your mind starts to wander, simply redirect your focus back to your breath. Don't worry if this often happens at first. It's normal.

• Continue meditating for 5-10 minutes or longer if you like. You can do this once or twice a day, or even several times if you have the time.

Meditation is a simple but powerful tool anyone can use to improve their health and wellbeing. Having said that, the only way to find out if meditation can heal your mind is to try it.

5 Ways to Improve Your Meditation Routine

Meditation helps release your mind from stress and makes it easier to find happiness and inner peace. It is a way to connect your mind to your body and practice mindfulness to stay on your life path and purpose. Adopt these following five strategies to improve your meditation routine today:

Pick the Same Time Every Day

Whether morning, afternoon, or evening, find the right time to perform your meditation routine, each day. This way, you know not to do other activities during this time and not have an excuse to skip it either. Make it as easy as possible. Think about where you would like to meditate and for how long. When are you around this spot and for the longest time through your day? That is when you should schedule it, write it down, or block it out in your calendar.

Find the Right Spot

Your space and energy around you can negatively impact your meditation routine. It can make you avoid it altogether. That is why it is crucial to find the right spot and fill it with things that inspire relaxation. A judge free atmosphere that you know no one else will come to while you are there. Free of unwanted sounds, items, or interruptions. Please keep it simple and don't make it too far away from somewhere you usually are.

Eliminate Distractions

Ensure the spot you pick is free of distractions like high traffic areas or noise from technology. Turn off your cell phone or notifications that will interfere with guided meditation applications or your routine.

Research and Try Different Meditation Styles

Experiment with different meditation routines as much as possible. Eventually, you will find one that resonates with you and your energy or mood. You may even find that you love to do a different one each day, and that's what allows you to perform your best.

Release Control and Perfection

No one, nothing, or routine is perfect. Release control of this idea and the things you can't control. The more you focus on how perfect everything is or question constantly, you will only create anxiety and develop the opposite results. Let go and trust in the process first.

Meditation is not a magical pill that will change your life overnight or create perfection. However, it can be a great practice to release stress, find your most authentic desires and inner peace to combat the world's daily challenges and live a more successful life.

Find Motivation to Meditate

Meditation is a healthy habit to adopt that can destress and relax your mind and body. It develops mindfulness skills, increases your self-confidence, and focus on achieving your goals and living a happier life. Below are a few more ways to find the motivation to meditate.

Understand Your Why

Why do you want to meditate in the first place? Highlight these reasons and fully understand them. Do you want to meditate for yourself or someone else? Will meditation provide you the value or happiness you are looking for? Whatever it may be, write it down and visualize it. Make it obvious and use it as a reminder.

List the Benefits to Meditation

Ask yourself, "What benefits does meditation provide me?" Make the benefits evident and personal. You can go a step beyond by developing a reward system to keep you accountable. Creating more benefits as you go along your meditation journey.

Outline Your Obstacles

What is keeping you from meditating? Be honest and take the time to answer this question truthfully. It's easy to create obstacles that are not there or make them up to prevent you from being successful. This often leads to the fear of success and is something you genuinely need to take the time to reflect and dissect to combat.

Learn to Schedule Your Time Better

Always schedule a time to meditate. There is plenty of time in the day, no matter how busy you think you are. It merely comes down to proper time management skills. Using a schedule and ensuring you block out enough time for every task you do, including meditation, provides the foundation to better use your time. You don't need a lot of time to get started, add five minutes to your morning or evening routine, or split the difference.

Find A Community

Studies show that being with more like-minded people helps you achieve your goals. The community keeps you on track and prevents you from being distracted. It is easy to stay motivated and focused if everyone around you is on the same path. Join Facebook groups, other online forums like Reddit or find local events and clubs to find your people and collaborate.

As you can see, finding motivation takes work and is personal. You can't expect it to come to you. You must find the motivation to meditate and then use it to your advantage.

How Meditation Helps to Reduce Blood Pressure

Heart disease is one of the leading killers of North Americans. With the combination of the Standard American Diet and a low priority for exercise, it isn’t any surprise that heart disease is easily one of the most dangerous things North Americans have to worry about. Not only that, but the stresses of daily life are constantly plaguing the population. Everybody wants, and needs, to succeed. And the stress associated with such important tasks can cause blood pressure to rise. Sometimes, stress can cause other issues associated with heart disease as well, such as stress-eating unhealthy foods that contribute to poor health.

Ultimately however, meditation is a great way to help keep that type of stress in check. Rather than allowing the negative cycles to persist, meditation can provide a way for us to unplug from the world around us and refocus our minds onto things that are not as overwhelming. When we engage in stress-relieving activities, our brains respond very physically. Chemicals such as nitric oxide are released and it is found to be helpful in reducing blood pressure.

In fact, one study even found that people who managed to keep a regular meditation schedule were able to lower the dosage of the blood pressure medications that they had been using to keep their health in check. That isn’t to say that if you start to meditate, you should immediately cut down on the does of whatever medicine you are taking. However, you can keep in touch with your doctor about your new lifestyle change and see if there is the option later on down the line.

Reducing stress is a huge key in reducing blood pressure. When we find ourselves getting stressed out, our bodies react. Our hearts beat more quickly, we get flushed, and we generally suffer from tightness in the chest or other limbs. Stress is known as the silent killer for a reason.

But meditation is a cure. While it may not always reduce the stressful situations you experience in your life, it does provide us with a great coping mechanism that allows us to build up our resistance to stress and process negative events in a healthy way rather than letting them bring us down. No matter what style of meditation you choose to utilize, it has a high chance of reducing your blood pressure. Whether you are simply focusing on your breathing, practicing mindfulness, or listening to guided meditations, taking the time away from your hectic life to focus inward is a great asset.

While we can’t completely cure the world of heart disease, we can at least take steps in preventing it from affecting us as badly as it could. In lowering our risk of heart disease by practicing meditation and lowering stress, we are ensuring ourselves, and those we care about, that we are capable of handling whatever life throws at us in a healthy way. In learning more about meditation, you may literally save your life!

How Meditation Can Improve Anxiety Disorders

Meditation is a great tool for anybody who has ever suffered from an anxiety disorder. The primary goal of meditation is to clear your mind and to be able to bring your attention to the present moment. You are meant to create an aura of peace surrounding yourself and create a safe place in your mind where you can escape if things get overwhelming, without detaching yourself from the world or your life.

Generalized anxiety disorder is very common in today’s world. Many of us find ourselves overwhelmed by the things going on around us, and seek to find comfort and control when we feel our security is being threatened. In learning to utilize meditation, we are providing ourselves with a very useful tool that we can access during any situation. We can remember to breathe mindfully and keep our attention on the present moment rather than succumbing to panic attacks or hysteria.

Anxiety disorders can be complex and can manifest in many different ways. Often, anxiety can cause sleep disturbances or result in shallow and unrestful sleeping patterns. Fortunately, meditation has been proven as a way to help us to sleep more soundly. It helps us to process the stresses that we feel on a daily basis so that they are not creeping just below the surface when we finally get a chance to lay down and relax our bodies.

Meditation is a way to help us to train our minds. People with anxiety disorders can very much benefit from this type of training. It can be easy for our thoughts to go astray, and when this happens, it can be very confusing and even a little bit scary.

Fortunately, utilizing techniques like mindfulness meditation can help us to stay focused on the here and now, rather than following the uncertain paths that our thoughts might take should we begin to experience anxiety. This tool is incredibly beneficial to sufferers of anxiety, and can be practiced until strengthened fully.

Whether or not you suffer consistently from anxiety or it only creeps up on you once in a while, learning how to practice mindfulness meditations is incredibly useful. A good way to begin is to simply close your eyes for a moment and focus on your breathing. What does your body feel like as you breathe? How quickly are you inhaling your breaths? What do you hear around you? What do you smell?

By taking your attention away from the thoughts that are causing your anxiety and focusing on the current world around you, you can begin to stay in the present moment and interrupt the disruptive neural pathways that are causing so much more harm than good. This way, you may find yourself much better e       quipped to handle the stresses of daily life without suffering from as much anxiety as you may have before.

Anxiety can be a very disruptive presence in your life, but in learning to practice mindfulness meditation, it can be a force easily reckoned with merely using the power of your own mind!

The Pros and Cons of Guided Meditations

The general consensus over the years is that meditation is a great thing.  It has served human kind for thousands of years and continues to be a very important resource to those who utilize it in their lives.

What many people don’t realize is that there are several different types of meditation and that each one of them can help you in different ways. Sticking to the type of meditation that works best for you can be important,  but ultimately it can also be limiting.

Guided meditation is a great way for anyone who has never meditated before to get the hang of it and learn more about how it works. It can give us something to think about and focus on while we get the hang of meditating. And if we find that we are having a very difficult time in getting out of our negative head space, listening to a guided meditation can be a great distraction.

Guided meditations can also be used to help us focus our minds on important things and specific goals and objectives that are meaningful to us. There are hundreds upon hundreds of guided meditations with specific goals in mind. If, for example, you wanted a meditation session to help you get the most out of your diet or work routine,  you could probably search online and immediately find guided meditations that are tailored to that specific goal.

However,  there are some negative aspects to becoming dependent on guided meditations. When meditation was first introduced,  it was generally considered a way to do important inner work. Something that was best done alone. If you find it impossible to meditate without the help of someone else,  then what is the point? You are losing out on important opportunities to look deeply inward and learn how to gain insight into yourself without the help of someone else.

Meditation is generally a personal thing.  It is an act most effectively mastered on your own. If you find yourself struggling to clear your mind and find a safe, peaceful place in your head without the help of someone else, you are missing out on one of meditation's greatest benefits. The chance to sit alone in deep,  silent reflection and get intimately connected with yourself, good and bad. And learning how to carve out a safe and sacred space where you can begin to feel relaxed and rejuvenated after dealing with a very draining world or situation.

Ultimately, no matter what type of meditation you are most comfortable with,  you can find value and introspection in it. Your thoughts and experiences are your own, and becoming more self aware can happen with or without a  guided meditation. The best approach is to do what feels best to you, while still working on being able to access a safe and calm state of mind no matter where you’re at or whether or not you have a guided meditation to help you.

Trauma and Meditation: Finding the Peace After the Tragedy

There is an alarmingly high percentage of people who have experienced trauma.  Whether in childhood or in your current life situation,  trauma and grief are constantly associated with a person’s behavior and mental health. When we experience a traumatic event, the stress that our minds experience can completely change the way we interact with others and how we experience the world from then on.

Most forms of trauma physically change the way our brains are wired. The neural pathways in our minds form networks of reactions to specific stimuli. This can cause incredible strain on us as we struggle to live with a “new normal.”

Fortunately,  there is the hope of healing.  No matter how difficult our experiences may be, the neural networks are flexible. We can work to restore our balance and rework the connections our minds have made with the onset of trauma. And in so doing, we can gain control once more over our emotional and mental integrity.

Most forms of trauma benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy,  which is a way to help us to interrupt bad thoughts with good thoughts so that triggers and negative stimuli are not so overwhelming.  Meditation can be a great way to redirect your thoughts and gain a more masterful control over your feelings.

In utilizing meditation,  we can take the time to sit down and take a breath if we find ourselves triggered by an event that we encounter. We can carve out a “happy" place, or more importantly, a safe place in our minds away from the negative thoughts surrounding each reminder of our trauma. Mindfulness meditation is a particularly effective tool in treating PTSD and other problems that can arise with trauma.  It is a way to disconnect ourselves from the bad experiences by focusing on the present moment. In doing so we begin to redirect our brains and allow our neural pathways to form new paths away from the triggering event and toward a deeper calm.

Loving kindness meditation is also a great way to help your mind recover from the pain of trauma and abuse. If you have experienced something that has left you feeling like you are not valuable, loving kindness meditation can help you feel more comfortable with yourself and find compassion for your flaws. This way you can allow yourself to grow in a healthy and honest way.

Trauma and abuse can also leave us very angry. This is another benefit of loving kindness meditation.  This form of meditation can help us to find the capacity to forgive the unforgivable and allow ourselves to let go of past hurts and focus on a life of compassion and regrowth.

No matter what we have experienced,  considering meditation is a great step toward finding strength, peace, and healing. We can learn to forgive the harm we have endured and create a safe space where we can move forward with our lives with confidence and understanding. You can do it!

How Meditation Aids in Restful Sleep

In today’s day and age, insomnia seems to be creeping up on a large majority of people. Insomnia can be defined as a disruptive sleep cycle, whether because of difficulty falling asleep or because it is difficult to stay asleep. Most of the time, insomnia has roots in psychological disturbances, which can make it hard for our brains to shut out our thoughts and focus on getting a good night’s rest. A lot of us tend to experience a lot of sensory input throughout the day, going from one situation to the next without really giving ourselves a chance to process what we’ve experienced.

Those unprocessed thoughts and experiences can leave our minds reeling but are forced to the backburner. The time they are most likely to surface is during our attempts to sleep, because that is the first time during the day that we have allowed ourselves to be still and quiet where our minds are able to be reflective and calm. Sleep disturbances can easily arise because of this, and insomnia is often the result.

However, there is a way to prevent and treat insomnia. With meditation, we allow our bodies the opportunity to process those overwhelming events and give ourselves a chance to reduce stress and find our equilibrium before it attempts to ambush us during the times we should be allowing ourselves to get rested up for the next day.

Meditation is proven to help us reduce stress, which is a huge benefit when you find yourself suffering from insomnia. People who are suffering from anxiety, whether it is a disorder or not, have a tendency to lose sleep or find it difficult to gain restful sleep experiences. With the stress reduction provided from meditation, it can aid us in enjoying a more restful sleep experience.

Meditation can help us to manage anxiety symptoms throughout the day and compartmentalize our thoughts so that they are not overwhelming to us. In learning how to consciously clear our minds, we are providing ourselves with the necessary coping mechanisms we need to let go of the things that are bothering us so we can find some peace in the silence.

Even if we don’t catch ourselves dealing with the thoughts we weren’t able to process during the day as we lay down to sleep at night, they are there and the unspoken stress they cause can linger with us. But if we are able to meditate and focus on ways to better ourselves and improve our lives, then we can lay down at night knowing that things are going to improve. Insomnia is much worse when we find ourselves feeling stuck.

Fortunately, meditations, particularly mantras and mindfulness meditations, along with loving kindness meditations, are a great way of helping us to deal with stress and focus on better things. Even if we don’t know exactly where our stress is coming from. Utilizing meditation as a tool will help us to clarify those things that can cause us stress so we can begin a plan of action. Starting in the morning.

Meditation and Creativity – How One Helps the Other

Meditation is heralded by many as being a ‘cure all’ – a panacea that can prevent all of your woes and help you to find peace and enlightenment.

They’re not wrong per say. Compared with many other strategies, meditation is certainly one of the most effective when it comes to overcoming anxiety and getting a better perspective on things. But unfortunately, nothing is perfect. That includes meditation.

Meditation is all about getting ‘out of your own head’ and focussing. It’s about being in the moment and not reflecting on problems.

But here’s the thing: reflecting on problems is useful. Even a little bit of stress is useful – it’s called eustress.

And the biggest potential casualty when it comes to meditation is creativity and the default mode network. The default mode network is the selection of brain areas that light up when you daydream, or think about your own future. People associate this part of the brain with a) being distracted from what’s happening, and b) being negative.

But the truth? The default mode network is also where many of us come up with our very best ideas – including Albert Einstein. Daydreaming about the future is how we learn more about who we are, and what we want to accomplish.

So, the risk is that we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The good news is that meditation isn’t to blame. The problem is with the way it is sometimes pedalled – by people who claim we should always be in the moment.

The truth is that the brain has many different states and we perform best when we’re able to choose those states and jump between them as needed.

So we need to be ‘in the moment’ when delivering a speech or spending time with friends, but there’s no harm in letting our mind wander when we’re going for a stroll and thinking about writing a great story.

This is where something called ‘productive meditation’ comes in. Suggested by author Cal Newport in his book ‘Deep Work’, this form of meditation means you are focussing on a problem or a creative endavor. Instead of thinking about nothing, you are thinking about something you want to work on.

And in fact, this kind of meditation agrees with what some new research suggests: that we are most creative when we active both the ‘daydreamy’ default mode network and the focussed ‘executive control network’. When you focus on being unfocussed, amazing things happen.

How to Meditate ALL Day for Amazing Results

When we think of meditation, we tend to think of the most common form of the practice – or at least the one we see most commonly depicted. That is of course, the kind synonymous with the image of a sage guru sitting cross legged, hands perched on their knees, with their minds calm, chanting ‘OM’.

While this is one example of a form of meditation, it is far from the only one. Just as beneficial in fact – if not moreso – is practicing focussing the mind during your daily activities.

Because what meditation is really, is nothing more than focus. Meditation is what happens when you choose to focus your mind on something, rather than letting it bounce from one thing to the next. And the result is that you stop feeling so panicked and forget all those unhelpful thoughts that may have been racing through your mind before.

Many of the activities we engage in daily can already be considered as ‘meditative’. A good example is reading a book, or even watching a good film. Have you ever been to an amazing film at the theatre, then been completely disoriented when you exit? Because you aren’t sure what time it should be, or how long you’ve been in there? That’s because you’ve been so transfixed on what you were doing, that everything else fell aside.

The same thing happens when you read a good book. Put it this way: you can’t be engaged in an enthralling read and worrying about what tomorrow might bring. These two activities are mutually exclusive.

Now your objective is to bring that same sense of calm focus into other parts of your life.

Take ironing for example. While you might be ironing while you watch TV, you may also find that at times, you iron as you allow your mind to go blank. You focus purely on the activity itself – the ironing – and everything else seems to fall away.

There’s something about the repetitive motion of moving an iron back and forth that can be perfectly meditative. You just have to let it! So calm your mind and choose to think about nothing else. If you can do this, then you will be able to turn ironing into meditation.

From there, the next step is to try becoming meditative while you’re washing the dishes. Then maybe while you’re walking.