More and more people are now beginning to appreciate the amazing power of meditation. No longer does the average Joe or Josephine view meditation as being some kind of black magic – it’s now understood as a highly scientific and practical tool that anyone can and should use for better brain health. But how do you start? It’s still a daunting and somewhat abstract concept so to help you overcome that notion, here’s how to start meditation in 3 easy steps.
Find a Quiet Place
Meditation can be done anywhere, but it’s certainly easier when you are free from distractions. And that’s especially true for beginners. So find a quiet spot, and if you want to make this a regular practice, try to make it somewhere that you will be able to come to often. Then sit down however is comfortable but don’t lie down. You risk falling asleep if you do!
Set Some Time
The next step is to set yourself some time. You can do this by setting a timer – which means you won’t need to keep checking your watch or worry about overshooting and missing some appointment. If you’re starting out for the first time, then ten minutes is more than enough. But in all honesty, you can even get benefit from just five minutes. This is what many people don’t realize when they make excuses for not starting. We all should be able to find five minutes of quiet in our day. If you cannot, then the issue is more deep routed than perhaps you realized and you need to find ten minutes!
Focus
Finally, the next step is to focus. That means focussing on something like breathing or perhaps repeating a word or phrase. You can also try focussing on something in the environment around you. A popular practice for instance is to focus on a single flame. Then there’s the option to focus on emptying your thoughts, or perhaps to focus on reflecting on those thoughts in a dispassionate manner. Whatever the case, all you are trying to do is to take conscious control over your attention and to direct it towards something that is non-stressful, which will help you to recover a little energy and mood. That’s all there is to meditation and it’s really rather simple.
If you’re still struggling, then at this point you may wish to consider using a guided meditation – like something from Aura, Insight Timer, Mindbliss, or Headspace. These guided meditations talk you through a script that will help to direct your attention for you.