One of the things that we have to contend with as a result of life in modern times is stress. Most of us suffer from stress for one reason or another. As a result, it has a very large impact on our bodies, emotions and minds.

When you are feeling stress or are worn out by from a rough day it is best to just relax.

A very large percentage of the population will choose to watch television for their relaxation. This is not recommended by experts. Watching TV does not create a relaxing atmosphere. It just delivers a huge amount of commercials, sounds and pictures. So what is a good way to achieve relaxation? If there are hundreds of ways to become stressed, there must also be many ways to relax.

Recent research has shown that heart disease is sometimes a result of anger and irritability. And these are primarily linked to mental stress. If we allow too much stress in our lives, this can lead to or cause a heart attack. The management of your anger and attitude is a major factor of heart health. Managing your relaxation can help reduce stress.

Along with lowering blood pressure and reducing the possibility of a stroke or a heart attack, one needs to reduce stress because it produces hormones that will suppress the immune system. This will increase the possibility of disease. (Some say that illness is just that, the absence of relaxation or dis-ease). By relaxing, you give the immune system assistance in recovering and help it to function properly.

Here are a number of ways to reduce increase your relaxation and reduce stress.

1. Transcendental meditation: Research has recently shown that this may be a way to reduce artery blockage, a major cause for heart attack and stroke. The practice of transcendental meditation is done by repeating soothing sounds while meditating. This will help achieve total relaxation. The research indicated that those that practiced transcendental meditation reduced the thickness of their arterial wall as compared to those who didn’t practice this form of relaxation.

2. Acupuncture: Another way to reduce high blood pressure, acupuncture initiats many body functions in the brain to release chemical compounds known as endorphins. These chemicals help relax muscles, reduce panic, ease pain, and help with anxiety.

3. Yoga: Known to produce effects similar to acupuncture, yoga is a good tool for relaxation. One study subjected participants to many minutes of mental stress. They were then they were exposed to various relaxation techniques. These included listening to nature sounds or classical music. The subjects who did Yoga had their blood pressure return to normal faster than the others.

4. Breathing: This is one of the easiest methods to use for relaxation. This influences almost every area of the body. It can affect our thought processes, our mood swings, and our physiology. If you will simply focus on your breathing, and block out other thoughts, you will soon be able to begin to relax.

5. Exercise: It is said that “to change emotion, use a motion”. A good way to reduce irritation is to perform about 30 minutes of solid exercise. This can include anything from simple walking to strenuous exercise and will normally settle things down.

6. Massage: A great way to get focused relaxation, is to get a massage from a professional massage therapist. These individuals are trained to help relax the body.

I have mentioned just a few of the many ways to relax. Basically, anything that will allow you to slow down and reduce stress will be good for your heart and your health.

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It has been well documented that learning meditation techniques can reduce the pain associated with chronic and acute conditions. The body has a naturally inclined method of response to pain, as does the mind. With the strong connection to the mind, the body, and the spirit that pain can interrupt, learning meditation is a viable practice for pain management.

Learning meditation doesn’t mean that you become a mystical healer and cure some of the most painful conditions with just your mind, but why limit your possibilities? You can take the process of learning meditation to extend your connection with your body and develop a stronger connection with your spirit, which is healthy no matter how you look at it.

Our body has interesting reactions to pain, the fear of pain, and the fear of loss that can come with pain. Pain can manifest itself any time, any place, sometimes without warning. Illness is one of the most frightening aspects of life we can deal with and learning meditation can help ease the emotional responses that trigger other physical responses.

On a smaller scale you body can react to all kind of pain with this same visceral reaction. Meditation can help you tune into those reactions, calm them, and help the muscles surrounding the pain loosen and relax some. This will automatically help your pain relax a bit.

Some people can get so good at tuning into their body through meditation that they can feel the smallest of adjustments and know immediately whether it was the right one to make. They can feel vertebrates move back and forth, ligaments stretch, and some say they can even feel their bones heal.

It might not be the easiest journey, but those things that are truly worth it are rarely easy or simple. It takes a certain amount of self intuitive behavior to learn how to live ultimately healthy. This is what learning meditation can help you do.

Guided meditation is a form of meditation where you are assisted via the course of your meditations. These may be short or long, and are usually listened to via your web browser, or downloaded for you to enjoy whenever and wherever you want.

There are many characteristics to guided meditation. First and foremost, the guided meditation forces you to keep up your concentration on what you are listening to as you are meditating. This is extremely useful for those who tend to have their attentions wander. Through the use of someone speaking to you and the partnership of soothing music, guided meditation is one of the simpler forms of meditation to master. As many people find success at this form of meditation, it has grown in popularity.

The second characteristic of guided meditation, and perhaps the most consequential, is that this form of meditation gives you the foundation you need to meditate on your own. Regardless of whether you download your guided meditation as a track to be listened to via headphones or by speaker, or whether you have a teacher guiding you, these sorts of meditations give you what you require to learn how to meditate properly. It guides your thoughts and allows you to concentrate on what you are trying to master.

Guided meditation may be utilised in practically any form of meditation. It is a common teaching tool, and is exceedingly pliable. You can arrange with your teacher to cover sure elements of your self that you wish to improve, or you may select between numerous already recorded meditations that fit your requires. The most commonly targeted meditations are obtainable for download.

If the thought of listening to someone speak bothers you, you can choose to use guided meditation as a memory exercise. Many of the guided meditations are accessible as text that you may memorize, then concentrate on. You may then turn the guided meditation into a mantra that you may utilize whenever you meditate.

When you are selecting which guided meditations to work with, you should keep your goals clearly in mind. Meditation is a powerful tool, and you wish to make sure that you are focusing on the correct sorts of meditation. For example, if you wish to become a more compassionate person, you should focus on guided meditations relating to compassion, the healing of yourself and others, also as sympathy. These will aid you achieve your goals of becoming more compassionate.

You almost certainly are familiar with the practice of meditation, but do you know exactly what it involves? The term meditation is frequently used to describe an individual’s state of deep focus on an object or thought. Attention is turned inward to the spirit.

Meditation techniques are said to be of Vedic Hinduism origins and are customarily practiced in the eastern religions. But western society has now embraced this practice eagerly.

Most people have a specific goal when they decide to begin engaging in meditation. Some make use of it to help focus their awareness on God; others use it for personal development. Many people discover that it helps them attain a calm mind and improved health. There are even individuals who expect that when they start to meditate, they are going to be enlightened.

Or perhaps you believe that meditation is simply something you should do for your health, similar to a fitness program or diet. Everyone who tries a new activity will have some thought of what they would like to accomplish. But unless you know precisely what it is you hope to achieve, you’re not likely to stay with a meditation habit for any length of time.

If you don’t have clear goals, it can be hard to figure out where to begin. You might also become more easily disappointed if your results fall short of your expectations. The best thing to do is to start by identifying what you would like to attain from practicing meditation. Find out as much as you can about the best means by which to reach that goal. After that, just make a start.

As a concept, meditation is a simple practice. It’s actually only sitting comfortably and focusing on just one thought. In actual fact, this is much more difficult than it seems. However your mind is always jumping from one thought to another, even if you might not know it. This makes it hard to concentrate on only one thing at a time.

It’s more effective, therefore, to start out slowly. Begin by practicing your breathing. This is the secret to meditation. Settle yourself in a relaxed position, then breathe in and out deeply and steadily for several moments. Steady breathing helps you become more focused, a necessary skill for a successful meditation experience.

If you find your attention drifting to other matters while you’re meditating, just pull your thoughts back and focus on your breathing once more. Meditation is all about concentrating. If you become aware that you’ve gone off course, simply guide yourself gently back to the proper mental state. Don’t get discouraged; learning to meditate takes time, so keep on practicing.

Meditation can help you attain peace of mind. There are so many stresses we deal with every day at home, work and in society, that it’s vital for you to have a few peaceful minutes each day.

It’s not in any way necessary to take on an uncomfortable or difficult position when you’re meditating. There are one or two guidelines, though, that help you make the most of your meditation session. For instance, most forms of meditation call for the spine to be straight and the posture to be erect. The reason for this is that when you sit erect it promotes the circulation of your spiritual energy. This is believed to be your life energy or force.

Even though a straight back is almost universal in the different approaches to meditation, some forms of the practice such as spiritual meditation utilize a variety of postures. Here’s a look at a few of the different postures.

1. Seated position. The person sits erect while keeping the back straight. Spine and head are aligned and straight. The thighs are parallel to the floor. Hands are placed comfortably on the knees or chair arms.

2. Cross legged posture. This is one of the most popular positions, and includes the lotus position.

3. Kneeling posture. The person is positioned with both knees resting on the floor. The buttocks rest on the heels and toes, which are placed side by side. The hands are placed on the thighs.

4. Lying down posture. In yoga this is referred to as savasna; it’s also known as the corpse position. The individual lies flat on the floor with the legs straight and relaxed. This position isn’t used often because it copies the innate position of sleep. A person might doze off at times. This is more useful for stress reduction rather than as a meditation method.

As well as the postures, there are a number of actions or gestures that might form part of the meditation experience. Included in these are hand motions which are termed Mudras. A theological meaning is at the root of these gestures. Founded on the yogic school of thought, they might affect the consciousness. A typical example is the placement of hands in Buddhist meditation. With the thumbs touching, the right hand is positioned on top of the left hand.

Integrating assorted repetitive actions like chanting, deep breathing or humming also assists in bringing on a state of meditation. Some people practice walking meditation. Typically, the eyes are closed or partially closed during meditation. However, Soto Zen practitioners perform their meditation with their eyes wide open in front of a wall.

For thousands of years, meditation has been practiced by countless people for its many advantages. Incorporating meditation into your everyday life could make a huge difference in your mindset and attitude. To gain the benefits of meditation, follow the training of the type of meditation you have decided to practice. Remember that acceptance and persistence are necessary in order to have success. This could be of help at times when you find difficulty in meditating, and it will also improve your concentration in daily life.

Focusing on your breath is one of the more simple ways to meditate. Meditation itself is the only real way to fully relax the active thoughts which take place in your mind every day. You don’t have to follow any complex rules to meditate, switch off and achieve a mind that is in a state of peace.

Focusing on your breath and breathing is a meditation technique which can be mastered by anyone. Breathing is an involuntary action, so it is always there, it is rhythmic and this falls nicely in line with the theories on meditation. If you have ever been to an exercise or yoga class, or listened to guided meditation recordings, the lesson always starts by asking you to take a deep, or a few deep breaths.

Deep breathing is useful for relaxation even if you are not about to start meditating. We have all heard the words “take a breather”, so taking a few deep breaths before any situation helps to calm you.

When the breath is the focal point it can be used to release the stresses and anxieties which trouble us. So start by inhaling through the nostrils or mouth and on the exhale, imaging that all your stress, worry and anxiety is being released with the breath and out through the soles of the feet, finger tips or top of the head. Imagine that all the tensions and toxins in your body are being flushed away in that exhale.

Training your breath to be the focus of your attention can be accomplished by shallow and controlled breathing, Imagine at the same time that there is a feather on your chin or nose and you are not supposed to disturb it. The more focus you have on your breath, the more easily you will be able to find a meditative state.

You need to take whatever time you can out of your day and practice these breathing exercises whenever you have to opportunity. There are no fixed rules, do it when you go to bed at night or when you wake in the morning or both. Whatever makes you feel better!

We have grown up in a culture that has actually encouraged us to always be active in body and mind. We tend to constantly keep our minds working in overdrive and thinking all the time, using our energy resources continuously without allowing ourselves to re energise by having some “no thought” time. To clear our head as it were.

Recall back to how many times a simple thought has entered your mind, which has led you to another thought and then another thought etc, until your mind has created a scenario that hasn’t even happened yet. Sometimes this scenario may have a happy ending, other times we may have unnecessarily upset ourselves. Our ego and mind love to play with our thoughts to see what they can create. Nine times out of ten it is our imagination that is running wild creating unrealistic situations and “what if” or “if only” scenarios. These take us out of the present moment.

So how do we manage this egoic mind? Start by developing the skill of meditation. Meditation is a learned process of calming the mind and not becoming attached to the dramas and thought streams it wants to create.
It is a process of concentrating on the breath and being the observer of our thoughts, rather than becoming attached to those thoughts and allowing them to anger or upset us.

It is common for people to say “they haven’t got the time to spend meditating” or “why would I waste time sitting and not doing anything, when I achieve so much more by staying active?”

I find this very puzzling. Is it any wonder that people are suffering ill health, anxiety and stress related disorders in the western countries? simply because they feel that they need to be constantly doing or thinking about something. Not taking some time to simply sit, relax, breathe and unwind has been proven to have detrimental effects on our health.

If you are one of those people, please acknowledge that aspect of yourself. It’s never too late to learn meditation. There are a variety of meditation techniques available. You just need to find one that suits you and spend some time practising.
Think of it as part of your daily health plan. Even 10-20 minutes per day is all you need to get started. Give yourself time to practice and persevere. You will definitely feel better for having incorporated some meditation into your daily routine.

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Good health !!

Marita Reynolds. © Copyright 2009