Learn how to meditate

What is meditation ?

Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings. You’re learning to observe them without judgment. And eventually, you may start to better understand them as well. Learning to meditate is like learning any other skill. Think of it like exercising a muscle that you’ve never really worked out before. It takes consistent practice to get comfortable. And it’s usually easier if you have a teacher. We’ve got you covered there.

Benifits of meditation !

There are dozens of scientifically proven benifits of meditation. Studies confirm the experience of millions of practitioners: meditation will keep you healthy, help prevent multiple diseases, make you emotionally well, and improve your performance in basically any task, physical or mental.

Some of the benefits come as soon as with 8 weeks of daily practice; other benefits take longer to mature, and will depend on your intensity of practice.

Meditation is good for several things, and it’s different things to different people.  However, it is usually one of these three things that drive people to practice:

• Specific benefit: improving your health, wellbeing, performance, focus.
• Growth: emotional healing, self-knowledge, self-discipline, letting go.
• Spirituality: connecting with God, inner peace, and other spiritual goals.

Whatever drives you to meditate, that is good. You will get the benefits you seek, in the proportion of your consistency and commitment to building this habit. But the wider you cast your net, the more fish you will get — so I would encourage you to practice not only for one particular reason, but for the sake of the practice itself.

Your motivation may also evolve by time, as the practice starts to unfold in your life.

Should you practice meditation ?

Unless you have some sort of serious medical conditions, you can practice meditation. If so, consult your doctor or psychologist.

How to start ?

There are dozens of meditation techniques, so it can take some time until you find the one that works best for you.

The approach I recommend is to experiment with different meditation techniques for a short period of time each (say one week), and to journal your experiences. After some time, you will be better able to choose the meditation technique that suits you the most.

To learn the different meditation techniques, see the following articles:

• Tratak Meditation Guide
• 
  
• [If you are curious, the techniques I myself practice daily are Mantra and Trataka.]

Meditation Tips

Here are some general guidelines on the practice:

• Posture: you can meditate seated on a cushion or on a chair. The essential thing about posture is that the spine is absolutely erect, from the lower back to the neck, and ideally not leaning on anything.
• Time: the best time to meditate is first thing in the morning, so you don’t skip it, and the impact on your day is stronger—but any time that works for you is fine!
• Place: a spot where you can sit uninterrupted. Ideally a place that is quiet, clean and tidy, in order to create a better influence on the mind.
• Length: you can start with as little as 5minutes, and increase 1 or 2 minutes per week, until you arrive 20min sessions and beyond.

Here are 6 other tips to make sure your practice is optimal. They are not mandatory, but they make your meditation go easier:

• Your body should not be exhausted. So ideally not right after heavy exercise.
• Your mind should be awake. So not good when you are sleepy or tired.
• Your belly should not be full. Wait 2~3 hours after heavy meals.
• Put your phone on airplane mode during your practice.
• Relax your body with deep breathing exercises before meditation.
• If you are meditating at home, wear clothes that are comfortable and loose.

Once you choose your technique, the next step is to work on building the meditation habit (section below), and having a better understanding of the process of meditation.

How to Start a Daily Meditation Practice?

However, building a meditation habit, especially if your motivation for the practice is not so strong yet, can be challenging. It requires a dose of self-discipline. Meditation needs to be practiced daily, if you want to really benefit from it. Otherwise, the effects will be more short-lived and superficial

This process can be greatly facilitated by following this seven steps system:

1. Discover your true values
2. Link meditation to your values (how will it help them?)
3. Commit to a time, place and practice
4. Setup a trigger and a reward
5. Be accountable to others or to yourself (with a journal)
6. Have the right attitude (no expectations + a Never Zero commitment)
7. Hang out with meditators, online or offline (optional)

To learn how to follow these steps by yourself, and how to deal with the obstacles that normally come up, check out my Meditation for Beginners post.