This article outlines the origins of meditation and benefits of meditating. It concludes with a simple meditative exercise.
Meditative Origins
Meditation began as an ancient spiritual practice. It harnesses the natural rhythm of your breath, allowing you to connect with your spirit. You can train the mind to keep an aligned focus. It is interesting to note that the Latin root of the word “breath” means “spirit.”
The Benefits of Meditation
Meditation has been clinically researched in this country and around the world since the late 1960’s. At that time, meditation experienced resurgence throughout the Western World.
Benefits include stimulating rapid relaxation. You relax your body through regulating and slowing your breathing and heartbeat. There are also physiological benefits that have been extensively researched including:
• relieving pain and anxiety
• relieving migraines
• assisting in the recovery from disease
In addition, meditation improves focus and self control.
A Simple Meditation Exercise
As part of this article, I’ve included a short exercise:
Find a quiet room in the house or office where you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes. Discover Meditation in the Three Steps Below
1. Sit in a comfortable position. Make sure you aren’t lounging our slouching. Uncross your arms and feet. This step releases external physical tension and naturally aligns your body, allowing it to stay relaxed.
2. Close your eyes and deepen your breath. Allow your focus to be naturally drawn inward. Align your mind with your body and free yourself from distractions. When your breath becomes its fullest and rhythmic, you become positioned to nurture your entire being with life-giving oxygen. At the same time, you are removing carbon dioxide and other related toxins. These toxins are the sources of tension, stress, and mental blockage.
3. Stay with the feelings you are experiencing. Count to yourself while taking five, full, deep, and easy breaths. Allow your mind to “zone” with the endless flow and rhythm of your breathing. As you relax enjoy all the benefits!
A Few Minutes a Day Meditating Brings Tremendous Benefits of Mind-Body Healing
Get 8 hours of restful sleep in 15 minutes . . . , says Herbert Benson, Pulitzer prize-winning author of the bestseller, The Relaxation Response, about the simple steps of meditating.
He states that 15 minutes of deep relaxation, which is, of course, the foundational results of meditation, produces the equivalent of 8 hours restful sleep on the body and the mind.
Are you and your well-being worth 15 uninterrupted minutes a day?
Will the world come to an end if you take this sacred time for yourself?
Questions Are the Activators of Evolved Choice
How you answer these questions, and act on your answers, may transform your life. The Bible reminds us to “choose life . . . this day”.