Many people find the hectic nature of the digital age to be too much, insisting that it’s impossible to get some rest these days and escape the digital noise for good. In reality, however, escaping from the frantic nature of modern life and releasing yourself from digital anxiety simply takes preparation, training, and repetition. As you’ll soon discover, meditation and other mindfulness practices can deliver you a serene feeling while helping you unmoor yourself from a noisy, hectic work life.
Here’s how to meditate properly in order to calm your mind, and why mindfulness is rapidly growing in popularity across the country because of the positive results it delivers.
Everyone is embracing mindfulness
If you’re thinking about meditating to calm your mind but find yourself hesitant to embrace the practice, be assured that everyone is embracing mindfulness at a rapid pace, with corporations and social groups alike finding ways to improve themselves through the power of meditation. Once upon a time, meditation and mindfulness practices were largely shunned, but thanks to the impressive work of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, many in the West became deeply convinced that impressive mindfulness practices could help them live stress-free lives while thinking more clearly.
According to the Center for Disease Control, mindfulness practices generate serious results for those who rely upon them. That’s why businesses across the nation have been embracing meditation at a breakneck pace in recent years, with the amount of people reporting yoga practice having doubled from 2002 to 2012. In recent years, that number has doubtlessly ticked upwards as more people joined the mindful revolution in pursuit of a more peaceful, serene, and productive lifestyle that enabled them to release their negative energy.
Despite the important impact of mindfulness on our economy and broader society, however, many newcomers to the practice of meditation find themselves totally out of their depth when it comes to relaxing. We live frantic, digitally-dominated lives that seldom enable us to stop and smell the flowers, so it should be of little surprise that many struggle to meditate successfully. What too few of these people understand is that meditation takes time and practice like just about everything else, and you can’t expect immediate results unless you do proper planning.
The first thing you’ll want to do is lessen your screen time. The more time you spend staring at your smartphone or computer screen, the harder it will be for you to succeed a mindfulness practices. You should take some time to review some easy ways to reduce the overall screen time in your life, which you’ll soon discover does wonder for your health, especially when it comes to your eyes.
Finding your inner yogi
To become a true master of meditation, you need to understand what separates the gurus from the wannabes. Oftentimes, amateurs try to meditate in low, crowded areas where they can turn mindfulness and meditation practices into insurance groups exercise. You should understand that proper meditation requires that you spend some time by yourself, however, so finding your inner yogi may necessitate locating a nearby area that’s quiet and restive for you to meditate in.
After you’ve secured a suitable location for your meditation, you can begin the real work. Get comfortable and sit up straight, championing proper posture without locking yourself up and feeling too tight. Throughout this entire process, you should focus on slow, consistent breathing and relaxing, meditative thoughts on things that you enjoy. Before meditation, you should have properly hydrate yourself and used the restroom so that you don’t need to interrupt yourself for any reason.
Meditating to calm your mind is also easier with good brain food, which can improve your overall mood while enabling your mind to think more clearly on a daily basis. As the CDC has highlighted, coping with stress often entails eating junk food, so be sure that you’re including fruits and veggies in your diet if you’re feeling burned out lately. Meditating is only one step in the process of living a mindful life, and you’ll find it difficult to meditate to calm your mind if you’re hungry or suffering from nutritional problems thanks to an unhealthy diet.
Besides meditative breathing in a quiet, relaxing place, you should also try to bolster your concentration. Good meditation necessitates that you clear your mind in order to better focus on the more important things in life. Try to sustain awareness about everything you’re doing physically; when breathing in and out, note the power of your breath, and be aware of the shape and position of your body even when relaxing in a seated position. Soon, you’ll find concentration easier than ever before. As always, it’s important to remember that meditation takes time and commitment, so do it plenty before ruling it out entirely. Before long, you’ll be meditating calmly to soothe your mind.