How and why meditate?
BRAIN AND MEDITATION
What if there was a mental exercise you could do that would increase the size of your brain, make your thinking more efficient, reduce your anxiety levels, increase your productivity, and help your body stay younger longer? With these kinds of claims, if it were a product, we would all be buying it, but because it’s an activity, not many people are willing to try it.
Meditation isn’t new, but we’re starting to use new scientific techniques like fMRI to help us look deep into the brain while you’re meditating, and what we’re seeing is pretty amazing.
The mind treats the thoughts and concepts it visualizes as real. As a result, reaching a state of inner calm through a little concentration and a little controlled breathing affects the immune system and genes that have an impact on both the quality of life we can enjoy and how long we actually live.
The reason the brain can achieve such incredible improvements in attention, productivity, memory, and overall performance lies in the way information flows through it. Neurons in the brain are apparently constantly firing, but much of that firing is random noise. By sending a signal inside our heads that has to go from “A” to “B”, we are also creating a lot of useless, random noise.
We only perceive something, learn something new, remember an event, or perform some action when there is information flowing through the connections in the brain that we can actually act on. Meditation optimizes the way the brain handles information, making it generally more efficient, and even contributes to an increase in gray matter in the frontal lobes, where all higher brain functions take place.
So the best way to look at meditation is as a form of exercise for the brain, allowing you to significantly improve your daily performance, just as physical exercise optimizes and improves the way the body works.
TWO WAYS TO MEDITATE
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be sitting in the lotus position under a tree to meditate. You can sit on your favorite sofa or chair, or anywhere you find comfortable. Nor do you need to spend hours and hours. In fact, you will almost certainly find it difficult to meditate for even 10 minutes at first.
Whenever you’re ready to give it a try, now you need to know how to do it. There are two basic meditation techniques. One requires you to focus on nothing (which is really hard to do), empty your mind of all distractions, and allow your thoughts to run wild. It is popularly known as the no-mind technique. The other asks you to focus on one particular thought to the exclusion of all others. This is also known as mindfulness meditation or focused attention.
Both forms of meditation will require you to focus on your breathing. By becoming aware of how your lungs work and how each breath enters your body, the rhythm of your breath, and the sensation it produces, you begin to see a thought process that you can control, but that’s just the mental scaffolding required to build the mind. much more focused mental practice of thinking about nothing (if you choose to use the empty mind form of meditation) or thinking about something.
PREPARATION
To help you in your task, it is important to make some preparations:
- Wear comfortable clothes
- Sit somewhere where you are calm.
- Sit in a place where you feel comfortable
- Make sure the environment is neither too cold nor too hot
- Use a timer (stopwatch, phone app, or alarm clock)
- Don’t worry too much about the time
The timer is just an aid to help you not worry about the amount of time elapsed, in the early stages. It also creates clear start and end boundaries for your meditation. Initially set it to ten or fifteen minutes. Once you’ve done all of that, you can get started. The first question that those who are new to meditation ask is whether their eyes should be open or closed. It doesn’t really matter, but for beginners it’s always easier if they’re closed because it makes focusing easier. Experienced meditators can switch their state of mind between meditating and participating normally in daily life, even with their eyes open.
INSTRUCTIONS TO MEDITATE
Now, start to breathe evenly. Take deep breaths in through your nose, and then slowly let them out through your mouth. Do not rush. Let your body flow at an easy pace to breathe in and out without forcing it. If you have decided to try the no-mind technique, the next step is probably the most difficult: close your eyes and empty your mind.
The moment someone tells you to clear your mind, it becomes almost impossible to obey. Thoughts run spontaneously in their dozens and sometimes hundreds through the mind. The trick here is not to resist. Let the thoughts flow and discard them. Focus instead on your breathing. Without pushing your mind, let it hold your breath in and out of your very center. As thoughts come, they will usually also go, until all you have inside your head is a feeling of darkness and peace. This is the stage of no-mind. You are slightly aware of everything, but because nothing in particular catches your attention beyond your breathing, you are also not aware of anything.
If you decided to try focused attention while meditating, your task, at least at first, will be easier. Mindfulness meditation asks you to focus on a particular thought or idea. It could be “world peace,” for example. Or the thought that “the color blue is so relaxing”, or your favorite mantra (if you have one). If you don’t have a mantra but would like to use one, choose a concise phrase like “Float in the Dark” or “Peace and Harmony.” You hold that in your mind and say it over and over again, following the rhythm of your breathing.
The brain is a wild and undisciplined instrument and it will try to distract you. It is important to acknowledge the thoughts that arise and then dismiss them, returning to the thought you are focusing on to the exclusion of everything else.
BENEFITS OF MEDITATION
It doesn’t really matter which form of meditation you choose. Either one is perfectly fine. Here is a list of some of the results you can expect:
- improved memory
- a feeling of peace
- A feeling of calm energy, as if your brain has reset
- Improved productivity and the ability to prioritize things.
- A better sense of alertness
- A general feeling of well-being that will also positively affect your health.
- Reduced stress levels
If we are very focused on the physical fitness of the body, it is correct that we can focus on the mind with the same level of physical fitness.