Life brings us challenges every day. When we get overwhelmed by luck of expression our feelings, or obstacles slow down processing them, we sometimes get depressed.
But the helping tools are available. Meditation – one of them.
WHY MEDITATE?
The goal of meditation – simply to be present. Just remember: we can’t change the past, we can only loosely plot our future.
So, the first quick fix of any mood swing – to notice something positive in current moment, now, and switch your attention.
BENEFITS
- lower blood pressure
- improved blood circulation
- lower heart rate
- less anxiety
- lower blood cortisol levels
- more feelings of well-being
- less stress
- deeper relaxation
TECHNIQUES
There are many meditation techniques, but we’ll discuss the basic 3 of them.
FREE OBSERVING
You sit in comfortable place, slowly breathing and just observing your thoughts, the sensations of your body. This free observation cultivates the habit to stop, to slow down. Practicing regularly helps to pause in life situation before reacting, e.g. to make a responsible choice, be happier!
FOCUSING
We start like in free observing meditation with slow breathing, but now we choose what we focus on: a breath, a particular thought, a word, a picture, a sound, a color, a part of body,…
Concentrating on one of the object, disregarding all others, helps improve brain focus.
MINDFULNESS
We go ahead similar to observing meditation, but now we going to notice our emotions and give them ‘labels’. Not involving or judging, staying in neutral state, in balance. This way we separate ourselves from these emotions.
Two UCLA studies (international.ucla.edu) showed “that simply labeling emotion promotes detachment, assigning names to negative emotions turns down the intensity of activity in the amygdala an almond-sized sector of the brain that acts like an alarm system…, and more activity in the areas that calm down emotional response, known as the prefrontal cortex”.
Also we can’t enough underline the healthy result of walking meditation and moving meditation ( ta-chi and simple dance).
GETTING SMARTER
The findings suggest that meditation can change the brain’s structure — perhaps because certain brain region used more often in the process of meditation, and therefore grow!
Sources:
Holistic Keys 