Do you find your thoughts all over time? Well, maybe it’s about time you try meditation. This is the intentional tradition of fixing your mind on a particular thought, idea, or item and remaining attentive until you receive the clarity you desire.
This practice needs a few minutes and everyone can practice it regardless of where they are. The good thing with meditating is that you can do it in an environment with few distractions.
Normally, meditation helps you reduce levels of anxiety and help your mind relax. By dedicating a few minutes, you stand to gain lots of benefits from this practice.
The good thing about meditation is that it does not belong to a particular religious group, rather, it’s a practice with global and cultural acceptance.
Types of Meditation
In general, there is no wrong or right way to meditate, the best is always what works for you as a person. Not all methods of meditation will work for you, it is good to settle on the one that you have done analysis and seen the benefits of it.
If you are not aware of the various types of meditation available, read on and get more details on each category.
a) Guided meditation
The first type of meditation is guided meditation. It is also known as visualization. Just as the name insinuates in this mediation some direct you. This form of meditation makes use of all senses and through this, you form mental pictures of things that help you relax.
The best way to find someone to direct you in guided meditation is to search online, listen to music, do yoga, watch videos, and use some apps on meditation.
Some of the benefits of guided meditation are:
- Increases self-consciousness
- Reduces stress and anxiety levels
- Improves your patience levels
- Increases your ability to concentrate and focus
- Your imagination capacity also increases
ii) Mantra Meditation
This type of meditation is more on the repetition of words or phrases when meditating. It greatly helps in focusing and reducing levels of distraction. Overall, you become more aware of your now moment and you concentrate better as a person.
Health benefits of mantra meditation:
- Increasing consciousness and perception
- Reduces tension and pressure
- Helps create a calm environment for the brain
- Increases levels of self-empathy
How to do mantra meditation:
- Get a quiet and comfortable place
- Dedicate time to this exercise
- Focus on your breathing
- Come up with a word or phrase you can repeat c
- Focus your mind on breathing and repeating the words
- Finalize your meditation when your time is up.
iii) Mindfulness Meditation
This type of meditation is more popular in the West. This meditation is good for beginners because you do not need anyone to guide you. Normally, when you are doing mindfulness meditation, you become aware of your senses and feelings at the moment without being judgmental.
A study by Chambers et al. (2008) on mindfulness shows great benefits in terms of reflection.
Some cases of mindfulness meditation are:
- Living in the moment
- Self-acceptance
- Being attentive
- Deep breathing
Untold health benefits of mindfulness meditation are:
- Relieving stress
- Treating heart diseases
- Lowering blood pressure
- Improving your sleep
- Lessens chronic pain
- Boosting your working memory
- Lessens emotional reactivity
iv) Spiritual Meditation
Most religions have their own spiritual meditation and they vary from one to another and they help connect to a higher spiritual power. A study in 2017, spiritual meditation is divine and its main focus is linking a physical being to a higher authority, majorly, spiritual.
The good thing about spiritual meditation is that someone can practice it when working, at home, or walking.
Benefits of spiritual meditation
- Source inner peace
- Reduces pain and stress
- Increase sense of self-awareness
- Helps someone become creative
- Better connection with a spiritual being
- Opens up the spiritual world for someone to see visions
- Improves decision-making process and skills
How to practice spiritual meditation
- Identify a still place
- Become aware of the present moment
- Breath in and out
- Make a prayer
- Reflect on spiritual aspects
v) Movement Meditation
This particular type of mediation involves activities around moving. It is ideal for people who are always in motion. Some of the common types of movement meditation are dancing, running, walking, shaking, and cleaning.
The focus of movement meditation is on the motions made and not what someone does when they are moving the body around.
Benefits of movement meditation
- Reducing swelling in the body
- Building social connections
- Increasing focus and attention to details
- Enriching the brain functionality
- Reducing anxiety and stress levels
- Boosting the immune system by making you fit.
vi) Transcendental meditation
This type of meditation has a close relationship with mantra meditation. In this one, you repeat your own words or phrases in a consistent way over a period of time.
It helps your body have rest and relaxation. The best way to find a meditation mantra is to settle on a word or phrase depending on what you wish to achieve in a person.
Research by My Cleve land Clinic on transcendental meditation shows that the practice roots back to the 1960s and has no relationship with religion or lifestyle in comparison to yoga.
Benefits of transcendental meditation
- Distracts someone from pain
- Manages post-traumatic disorders
- Has the benefit of improving someone’s self-esteem
- Generates inner peace
- Improve the quality of sleep
Health Benefits of Meditation
In general, each type of meditation has its own health benefit. In addition to the above benefits, meditation has a wide range of benefits for each and every person.
I hope these benefits make you consider creating some meditation time for yourself. Below are some of the additional benefits of meditation:
- Helping the body build skills and ideas for managing stressful situations
- Reducing toxic emotions around you
- Helping you become more creative
- Meditation helps manage symptoms of conditions such as cancer, asthma, heart disease, and many more.
- Helps you create a balanced life that is productive
Challenges that come with meditation
Whereas meditation has numerous benefits there are also challenges that come with it. However, acknowledging these challenges and finding a solution early enough is the best way to overcome them and reap maximum benefits.
Being impatient
Patience is a virtue in meditation and lack of it can sabotage your efforts. It is common to feel like you can do another thing or handle another task other than meditating.
When this feeling comes, remind yourself why you took up the initiative and forget the distractions
Lack of sufficient time
Meditation requires consistency and setting time aside for this exercise. When you begin and do not create a meditation schedule you end up not dedicating sufficient time.
Sleep
The other challenge of meditation is the lack of enough sleep. When you do not get enough sleep you are likely to doze off during your meditation time and this way you will end up not achieving your goals.
Key meditation elements
Moving on to meditation elements it is important to understand some of the basic things that identify meditation. Normally, some of these elements cut across while others are different depending on unique case scenarios.
Below are some of the elements that cut across all types of meditation:
i) Focus
To begin with, focus means concentrating on a particular thing or item at a time. Focus is a basic thing in meditation. Normally, when you focus your mind has fewer distractions and your attention goes to only one item.
ii) Breathing
Breathing is the second basic element of meditation. Breathing during meditation brings the aspect of resting, recuperating, and relaxing the body. Across all meditation types, breathing is a key element.
iii) Quietness
A calm environment with zero distractions is the most ideal for meditation. As a beginner in meditation, you are likely to achieve. When meditating you can keep your phone, TV, and radio away. You can identify a quiet place with no noise and fewer people around.
iv) Comfortable place
A relaxed place will yield more results in comparison to where you are struggling to remain comfortable. Whether you choose to walk, dance, run, or ride, make sure you are comfortable when doing your activities.
v) Openness
 A fresh perspective is an important aspect of meditation. This gives room for fresh thoughts and ideas to come across your mind without judging.
Tools for meditation
Every task has its own tools of work and meditation is no exemption. Normally, before you begin meditation, it may look simple and straightforward forward but consistency is challenging. Meditation tools make you comfortable, reduce distractions, and help you maintain focus for a long period of time. Some of the tools you can use for your meditation are:
- Meditation chair
- Meditation cushion
- Singing bowl
- Apps for meditation
- Guided meditation recording
- Crystals
- Incense
- Zen gardens
- Prayer wheel
- Bell among others
In conclusion, meditation requires dedication and commitment and the benefits are many. You can purpose today to start meditating and making a difference in your life.
