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No doubt when you first hear the word 'meditation' a picture of a monk appears in your mind. While monks were certainly big practitioners of this art, meditation is more popular today than you might think.
People from all walks of life use meditation today. Business executives, athletes, stockbrokers and lawyers all incorporate meditation into their lives. Even large corporations such as Google, Target and General Mills advocate the use of meditation to their employees.
Meditation can be used for several reasons. This includes improving your spirituality, decreasing your stress levels and increasing your power of concentration and focus.
The basic concept behind meditation is that it allows you to control your own thoughts, instead of letting others control them for you.
People who regularly practise meditation find that their self discipline improves. In addition scientists are discovering that meditating can help improve your health by lowering your blood pressure and boosting your memory functions.
There are five basic components of meditation:
Mindfulness
How many times in the day do you find your thoughts wandering? Probably dozens of times at least and this wandering process can be totally distracting.
Mindfulness allows you to stop all these thoughts from popping into your head. This is achieved by quietening these thoughts by concentrating on just one thing for about 10 minutes. Many people like to focus on the sounds of a waterfall or birds chirping in the background. Or you could just concentrate on your own breathing by coming aware of each breathe that you take.
Active Meditation
This is where you use physical activity to help sync your mind and body. To perform this type of meditation you can simply walk or take part in a yoga class.
Affirmations
This is one type of meditation that you may have heard of. It is done by repeating a phrase or quote over and over. Select a phrase that holds meaning to you and repeat several times during the day.
Insight Meditation
With this form of meditation you simply focus on one thought or feeling. Choose a topic such as love or anger and then meditate on what this means to you.
Guided Meditation
This type of meditation uses some form of guidance. It could be a person in the same room with you or it can be done by listening to an audio tape. During the process you actually let your thoughts run away with you. This can be a very enjoyable and liberating experience.