Why is meditation such an important part of your wellbeing?

It is hard not to hear about meditations when it comes to wellbeing and taking care of yourself. The information and all the benefits you hear about it are many but it is important to be realistic about it as well. I don’t want to sound negative, meditation is a great tool to handle stress and other stuggles in life, I practice it a lot myself and it really helps me coming back to myself. However, everyone may not feel all of the benefits people write about since everyone is different and experience things differently. So don’t be disappointed or expect that you will feel all of them, you may or may not. As long as you feel it helps you in any way, you should definitely continue your practice.

Here is when you need to start exploring for yourself, what type of meditation you prefer, what benefits you can feel, the benefits may even vary from practice to practice. With that said, meditation is great for the purpose of getting to know yourself better and get a better relationship to yourself, which is usually the main goal for most people except from reducing stress.

Lets dive into the many benefits that you can experience from doing meditation practices.

Clear mind & focus

Your mind is usually racing when you feel overwhelmed, stressed or have a lack of time with a busy schedule. During these times is when you need to meditate the most, to be able to calm your mind and be more clear on what is going on. This is then going to improve your focus on the things you are doing which results in you being more present and actually able to do it in less time then you thought you would.

Inspiration, energy & fun

It is so easy to loose inspiration and doing things you really like when you get caught up in everyday life with routines and never take time to stop and reflect. I was living my life this way a few years ago. Just being busy all the time, with things I had to do like working, often many hours, eat and sleep. I had little time for my hobbies, or thought I had since I was always in my head overthinking. When I finally had my 4 weeks holiday every year, was the only time I felt really inspired and reflected on things in my life. I could let go of my stress for a while and often traveled during these times. I got a new environment for a while which resulted in new ideas and energy when I came back home. I felt great but very soon felt back into my old pattern again. Meditation is a simple way to get this feeling wherever you are and whenever you want. It is so important to have a regular practice of it and not only for a short period of time of the year.

Calm & Less stress

Because your mind gets clearer, your focus improves and you feel more inspired and energised about things, you will automatically feel more calm and less stressed. You shift your focus and thoughts from negative and overthinking to a positive mindset which can see solutions instead of problems.

Time

When you feel more aligned with yourself and in the present moment instead of in your head, you will notice that you actually feel you have more time then you first thought. I have experienced this a lot, I make up a reality in my mind that I don’t have enough time to do this or that. I always need to wait for a better time to do things since I think there won’t be enough in that moment. My procrastination with many things has been huge and then made me frustrated because I felt I hadn’t got anything done. So what was I even using the time for? Overthinking, most of the time, and in my opinion there are so many other productive things you could have done instead of that, right? Something I have heard many times is that if something only takes maximum 10 minutes to do, then do it straight away, don’t procrastinate it.

You live longer

What? How? That was my first thoughts when I heard it.

It doesn’t actually mean you will live until 90 instead of 80 since there are sooo many other factors in life that will affect that, even if this is one of them since it helps with stress and todays stress in society is a big cause of menthal and physical illness. What it means is that you become more present and aware. As simple as that! Many of us today are so stressed and up in our minds that we are just literally walking around like zoombies, looking around us but are not really noticing what is around us. Another thing are our phones, instead of noticing what is around us like the people, environment, nature, town etc, we live our lives through our phones.

Meditation helps us reflect on this, be and stay more present and think of what is really important. If we can increase our presence from 50% to 70-80%, we actually live a little longer since we experience more moments in reality and life. We get a lot more memories, instead of looking back at life and wonder where the time went and what we even did because we can’t remember since we where not paying full attention to it.

What are the different practices of meditation?

Seated meditation

This is the most common form of meditation which you mostly see on the internet. It's about sitting in a comfortable position that works for you, closing down your eyes or keeping them open, letting your thoughts come and go in your mind without reacting on them, just notice them. You are focusing on your breathing during the meditation.

Laying down meditation

Very much the same as the seated meditation but instead laying down. You choose whatever way feels best for you.

Walking meditation

Exactly as it sounds, your are walking during this meditation preferable with your eyes open. The point is to use your 5 sences to help you become present and notice whats around you. If you often feel restless and struggle to sit for a longer time, this is a good practice for you or you can combine it with either a seated or laying down meditation.

Visualisation

This can help you reach specific goals you have set for yourself by imagining how the road to it looks like and how you want them to end. This type of meditation is very common in sports and many athletes are using this technique to perform their best during a competition. The menthal aspect is as important as the physical, if not even more important.

Breathing

Your breath is the main thing you should focus on during your meditation practices, whichever one you choose to do. They say that if you can focus on your breathing, you can focus on anything. It is so simple but still so hard, it takes practice.

Now it's time to go out and start practice! Remember it's when you don't feel that you have enough time to meditate, thats the time when you need it the most. It's during the busy times in life we need to relax every now and then.

It's normal to feel a little bit of resistance as a start if you have never tried it before. Some people may think it's a religion or a cult and only religious people who does it. Which it's not. You are doing this all on your own terms. You decide for how long, what type of practice you want to do, alone or in group, dressed or naked,how you want to dress etc. Haha.

There are no right or wrong when it comes to meditation so don't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't go as planned. The goal is not to have expectations on it, just be. There are no good or bad practices. Just practices.

If your mind still struggle to focus on your breathing and let go, it can be a good idea to take a few minutes after to journal and write down on paper what came up during your meditation session. This will also help you to calm your mind.

Stay present and appreciate life. Thats what meditation is all about.