In order to listen to our body we need to silence our thoughts.
Before going with the 5 tips to improve the practice of meditation, I would like you to see this video by Matthieu Ricard in which he talks about meditation and how we can incorporate it into our daily lives.
The video begins with a short didactic that leaves us with an excellent moral that contains what is the essence of meditation:
It has been proven that a tired mind, entangled in its own thoughts, tends to overeat and drink. When our mind is not rested, the amygdala is activated in our brain 60% more than usual, so the brain is constantly reacting to any stimulus as if it were a real threat. In addition, the fact of being nervous, faced with so much negative thinking, pushes us to free ourselves by eating and using substances that immediately take us out of that state of anxiety.
Practice meditation. It is fundamental. Once it is enjoyed, it can no longer be abandoned, and the benefits are immediate. "
Dalai Lama
Not quieting our mind can lead to health problems.
With meditation practice CAN lower our level of anxiety and feel satisfied with ourselves.
Meditation is training attention. It is being attentive to what is happening within us, as well as a way to focus thought and attention on those things that we are doing at a given moment. Meditation helps us stay centered, regardless of what is happening, but it is not to help us avoid feeling pain or discomfort, but to experience and accept what is happening at that moment and move on to the next situation calmly and clearly.
Sitting and observing what happens inside us is something that nobody taught us and that may even seem like a strange thing, but in reality It is a practice that helps us to see how our day to day is full of mental conversations that go on without stopping, most of them unnecessary because they do not lead us to any action or clarification of any kind.
When you sit down to meditate, you realize the amount of stimuli that appear in your attention: tiredness, sleepiness, physical sensations, doubts in thought, incessant comments, etc. But instead of fighting against all these stimuli, what we do is become aware of their presence, and we let them be. Distractions will always be present but with the practice of meditation we will learn to let them go.
This awareness of distractions is the first step when starting to practice.
Here is 5 tips to improve your meditation practice:
1. Give yourself time during the day to practice meditation. When it suits you best, spend the minutes you decide to cultivate a space that is for you. By generating that space, you show respect for the practice and prepare your mind to do it.
2. Meditate in a place where you feel comfortable. A place of calm and silence. It can be anywhere, but try to make it a space where you will not be distracted.
3. Give yourself time to realize how you feel after doing the practice. Notice your physical changes and your calmer breathing. You can feel how you were before the practice and how you feel afterwards, you can even realize some state that you had before and that after the practice you do not have.
Realizing in your day to day how the practice is affecting you, if you are calmer, or if the feeling of stress that you perceive is less, can motivate you to continue practicing.
4. During practice focus on yourself, not thinking about work or your problems. Take that moment for yourself and to listen to what is inside of you beyond your mental comments.
5. Breathing is very important in the practice of meditation. By momentarily placing our attention on our breathing, the focus shifts and we automatically place ourselves in the present moment.
The breathing it is also an ideal tool to calm the mind. Once you feel comfortable with mindfulness on your breathing, meditation becomes much easier and more enjoyable.
When you develop the ability to place yourself in a state of full attention you can bring this state to all the moments of your daily life, and with this give you the option to give elaborate responses to situations rather than reacting automatically to them.
Article written by Álvaro Gómez. More information about Álvaro here