In this meditation primer, you will learn about the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of meditation. In simple words understand what, why, and how about meditation, learning meditation, and more. Beginners find it particularly useful as it helps them reduce stress, relax, and become healthier and more effective.
Meditation Primer – Holistic Health Benefits
There are many connotations to the word meditation for beginners. In routine conversation anything involved from the process, the final destination, or the journey itself is referred to as meditation.
An encounter with a meditative experience may make us aware of a pleasant or unpleasant feeling in some cases. It is like cleaning our house, which involves the scattering of dust and germs before everything is set in order.
Meditation is more than just an experience. It leads us to Holistic health that includes physical, emotional, Intellectual, and spiritual health.
1. Physical Health Benefits of Meditation Practice
You can learn more about the research-based health benefits of meditation related to:
- Stress, Anxiety, and Depression
- High Blood Pressure
- Pain
- Insomnia and Sleep Quality
- Substance Use Disorder
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Cancer
- Weight Control and Eating Behavior
- Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Meditation practice for Spiritual seekers may be a pivot around which their life revolves.
2. Mental Health Benefits of Meditation Practice
Meditation practice does make the mind very calm. Beyond the calming experience subtle thoughts or insights start arising that give direction to our lives. Once we experience such insights, we want to continue with our practice with improved consistency.
Awareness Precedes Change
With awareness of oneself, we come closer to understanding our nature. With a better understanding of our own nature, we are able to be still from within even when there is a lot of turbulence in our external environment.
It can be a very effective practice for our self-improvement journey and personality transformation.
3. Spiritual Health Benefits of Meditation Practice
Spirituality thought processes try to explain to us that Happiness is our essential nature. However, most of the time we, our attention is outward, seeking happiness from the outside world. Through spiritual learning and meditation, when we focus our attention inwards, we find peace and tranquility within.
As our self-awareness grows, we seem to develop control over our happiness. As happier beings, our search for happiness in the external world becomes lesser. We start understanding that happiness is within and not outside.
The more and more we grow in our meditation practice, the happier and happier we are. We start experiencing that happiness is the essential nature of human beings.
Begin Your Meditation Practice – What, Why, How
What is Meditation?
For most beginners, any practice that brings the body and mind together is relaxing and is considered meditative. It is a state of flow, where the person loses sight of everything else. It could be absorption in one’s hobbies or work. It could also be a period of no thought.
The experience of mental relaxation, mind absorption, and no thoughts are all experiences that help reset our minds. Any such activity that leads to peace and tranquility in our minds is thus a contemporary form of meditation.
These contemporary thought processes and spiritual practices co-exist in the world around us.
Why should I meditate?
One reason we have seen is that a practice that makes us calmer seems meditative for us. We like to do it more often.
A person may approach meditation from one of the many expectations. For a technique for some relaxation, to knowing something deeply, to knowing that after which everything else becomes known.
As long as our chosen meditation practice is helping you to be a happier being, we are on the right path.
Why should I not meditate?
It is sometimes considered a remedy for all ills. Please note it is not suitable for a mentally disturbed person. It is neither a direct means to make money nor success in a career, profession, or business. It can only help indirectly to improve the psychological conditioning of the mind, thereby improving its effectiveness.
Like physical exercise strengthens the body, learning strengthens mental functions, meditative practices strengthen the spiritual personality. A wrong physical posture or exercise can lead to injury, similarly, incorrect meditation can create wrong notions, false identification, and delusion of personality.
How should I meditate?
We are not vouching for any one technique or Guru. There are a plethora of techniques and beliefs. One should not follow anything blindly.
Be open to learning and choose what helps you become a slightly better human being.
WhensShould I meditate?
Consistency is very important to develop any habit. Choosing a time when you are least distracted and can be consistent will aid your meditation practice.
What are some of the methods of meditation practice?
- Breathing Exercises
- Breath Awareness
- Mindfulness Exercises
- Mantra Meditation with /without rosary beads
How to Learn Meditation Practice?
We can learn mediation through various sources.
- Books
- YouTube Videos
- Podcasts
- Live Classes
- Online Courses
- Guided Meditations
- Apps
- Retreats
Why is a healthy lifestyle important for meditation practice?
One of the important things to understand is to have a healthy and ethical lifestyle. Initial thoughts in meditation come from your most recent experiences. If your actions are not in line with the needs of your body mind and spirit, there will be disturbances. Meditation alone is not a cure for an unhealthy or unethical lifestyle.
Basic physical fitness is required to maintain a steady posture. When the body is steady, the mind becomes steady, and vice-versa. Still, some level of body flexibility and strength is required for world duties and meditation practice as well.
Moral and selfless actions bring purity to the heart. Constant cravings, anxiety, fear, insecurity, and other negative tendencies have to be overcome to meditate effectively. To learn to live a noble life, reading and reflecting on value-based living are important.
Can I Start Meditating Now?
One need not have to get into deep spirituality to get the benefits of meditation. Like we exercise our physical body, we can do some exercise for our minds. Any form of meditative exercise that can help the mind relax is a good starting point.
We can get started with any useful self-awareness exercise that works for us.
With practice, we can improve our self-awareness thereby enabling us to make better decisions.