Meditation Month
Did you know that May is Meditation month? So it’s a good time to get in touch with your body, mind and soul with some quality meditating.
But what is it? Well, it’s where you use a technique, such as mindfulness, or focusing on a particular object, thought, or activity. This achieves a clear mind and an emotionally calm and stable state. For example, Ted Hughes (British Poet and Writer) used fishing to meditate. He said, “Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self”.
There are also other ways to meditate. I publish a free monthly guided meditation where I encourage you to use visualisation to go on a journey with me.
Benefits
Meditation brings you to a state of tranquillity and so the benefits of it are numerous – from stress management, self-awareness, boosting creativity and imagination, to increasing self-confidence. According to a University of California, Los Angeles study, consistent meditation can help improve neural processing. This can help you with decision making and judgment.
Meditation also calms the respiratory system and so lowers the heart rate, oxygen consumption and breathing frequency. It also reduces the release of stress hormones, Lactic acid and the sympathetic nervous system activity which is associated with the fight-or-flight response. It will, as a result, reduces blood pressure.
History
Although popular today, meditation has been around for centuries. The earliest known mention of it was the Chinese philosopher Laozi around the 4th century. It was common in the eastern hemisphere for many centuries but it wasn’t until the early 18th century that is reached Europe. It was then that some of the eastern techniques were translated into various European languages. Despite this it was largely seen as something for the elites and intellectuals. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that meditation became more widely adopted, especially in the US and Europe. It is now estimated that around 200 to 500 million people in the world practice meditation regularly.
Each month I provide a new guided mediation on various subjects. I usually do them on the first Wednesday of the month and post it on my You Tube channel a day or so later. They are free and easy to access. If you would like more information, then contact me.
Add a Comment