Meditation is one of the techniques used in stress management. A person who is riddled with problems often find it hard to focus; which sometimes leads to more challenges cropping up due to their errors. Meditation techniques helps a person achieve a calm state of mind without having to resort to drugs or relaxation tools and implements. Every step to meditation is done in the mind.
Keep in mind that meditation is not a one shot deal. It is nearly impossible to attain a calm state of mind in just a matter of minutes, especially if it's your first time at it. It is essential that you keep on practicing meditation until you have conditioned your mind to instantly reach the state just by thinking it.
Here are some steps for a beginner to start with meditation as their Stress Management strategy.
Step 1: Find A Quiet Corner To Start Your Meditation
Distraction is a hindrance to those who are still starting out with meditation. When you close your eyes, your sense of hearing will be twice as good so it is quite possible to hear almost anything in your surroundings that will make it hard for you to concentrate.
For beginners, it is important to start out in a quiet place in your home where noise is non-existent. Close your windows and lock your door. If possible, you can tell everyone in your home to minimize their noise so that you won't get distracted.
Step 2: Ready Your Position
It is advisable for beginners to avoid lying down when practicing meditation. The aim here is not to sleep, and it is a guarantee that you will immediately fall off to sleep if your mind reaches a relaxed state. To stop this from happening, you can start your meditation in a lotus position or you can find a chair you can sit on. Make sure that your back is straight and your hands are relaxed on the armrest or on your lap.
Step 3: Begin Your Meditation With Proper Breathing
A good way to start meditation is to do the proper breathing exercise. You inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. This way, you can come up with a rhythm that you can easily focus on. Also, the amount of oxygen in your body will be enough to keep you relaxed. Keep practicing your breathing until you can do it easily without having to think about it.
Step 4: Focus On Your Mind
While you are busy with your breathing, you will achieve a state wherein your mind will start throwing images at you. These are mostly in random, events of the day, future plans, problems and worries, fears and so on. It will be hard to ignore these thoughts and you are not supposed to ignore them. The gist here is to focus on these thoughts without really paying any attention to it.
This might sound hard but a here is a simple example to understand the concept. You know that you have furniture at home, you can see them clearly with your eyes but you are not really concentrating on it. Focusing on the furniture will usually make you think of its color, its material, how it looks in that part of your home, and more. You need to be able to look at these random thoughts in a detached state, seeing them clearly in your head but not focusing your attention on it.
There will come a time that these random thoughts will stop and you will observe that you are already in a blank space in your mind. This is the state you want to achieve during meditation. This is the place where you can think about your problems and focus on it till you can find a resolution for it. With this, you have successfully mastered the basics of meditation for your stress management program.
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