Meditation is a great way to calm your mind and your thoughts that will help you improve your focus and your emotional management long term.
Pt 1: What can meditation help you with?
- Managing intrusive thoughts
- Preventing overthinking/spiralling
- Managing your emotions
- Maintaining a calm composure throughout the day
- Managing stress levels
- Calming your emotions to find clarity
- Emotional resilience and patience
- Clearing your head to help with decision making
- Increased success with focus and concentration
Pt 2: How to meditate
Meditation also doesn’t have to be a major commitment at all!
Take out 10-15 minutes of your day to meditate (you can set a timer) and follow these steps:
1. Find a quiet and comfortable place with no distractions. (You can turn off the lights to help minimalize your distractions and help calm you.)
2. You can sit or lay down for this – whatever you do make sure you’re comfortable. (If you notice you tend to drift off to sleep when you lay down, try to sit up to meditate instead)
3. After being completely comfortable, slowly relax all parts of your body. (An easy way to do this is to start with your toes. Conciouslessly relax your toes before moving up to the rest of your foot, then your ankles, then your calves, knees, thighs etc. Keep moving all the way up and consciously relax all the muscles as you go. When you get to your face make sure to relax your eyebrows and your forehead as you tend to hold a lot of tension there without knowing)
3. Take long, deep and slow breaths and bring your attention to your breathing. (Notice the way the air feels going through your nostrils, down your windpipe and into your lungs. Notice the rise and the fall of your chest and the way the air feels when you exhale)
4. If your thoughts wander during your meditation – release them and redirect your focus to your breathing. (One great way to overcome wandering thoughts is to imagine yourself sitting somewhere where you feel completely relaxed. For example, sitting on a beach right in front of the waves. Every time you have a lingering thought, imagine that thought being dropped into the water and being pulled into the ocean by the waves to disappear into the horizon.)
Pt 3: The final take
The key is to focus on nothing but your breathing. For these 10-15 minutes your sole purpose is to breathe and that is it. Over time it gets easier to redirect your thoughts and stop them from lingering all together and you might even find yourself wanting to extend those 10 minutes into 20 or 30.
By incorporating the practice of meditation into your daily routine, you’ll very quickly see success in multiple areas of your mind. Besides, a controlled and calm mind creates a controlled and calm life.
Check out our article on 3 super easy steps to transform into the person you want to be!
