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Articles » Health-&-Fitness » Meditation >> View Article
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| The Art Of Meditation |
By:
Carol Bell |
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We intend to show you in this article how meditation can help alleviate pain - in fact you could even get rid of pain by using certain yoga techniques. What we need to assure you is that these are simple techniques which can be learned and practiced by anyone - they don't take up too much time either. Though it is an age old practice, it is very much in use today as well and people from all over the world swear by it. When you meditate, you feel the stress draining out and the calmness and stillness flowing in and this is what makes this technique so wonderful.
Mediation can be performed in various ways: silent meditation, chanting, listening to chants or other soothing music meant for meditation. The focus could be on some object close by or you could focus on the breaths that you take as they go in and out of your body. No matter what the approach used, a quiet environment and a fixed uninterrupted time span will be required. Choose the place, choose the chant or object you want to focus on and then find a comfortable position - not lying down which could have you falling asleep in that relaxed state. The aim of the exercise is to enter a state of 'mindfulness' in which one is aware of all around and at the same time is in a detached mental state from the immediate surroundings as in a trance. However, there are two much deeper states where the mind is able to become calmer still. Though it is Buddhism that comes to mind when we think of meditation, most religions include it as a part of their religious practices in some form or the other. In the Buddhist context, the practice indicates the directing and controlling of the mind inwards, within oneself in the search for enlightenment. This can be practiced in any posture: squatting, standing, walking or lying down, while the sitting or squatting position or 'zazen' is the most widely recommended posture.
There are so many benefits that accrue when you meditate and the physical as well as psychological ones have been documented by Herbert Benson, a Harvard professor in a study. Sessions as short as 20 minutes when done regularly can do a world of good to you including reduced blood pressure, reduced tension in the muscles and healthy metabolic activity. The deeper states will very often bring about mental images like bursts of color and images and maybe even a still, small voice. It has been proved by follow-on studies that meditation also relieves stress, headaches, anxiety, fatigue, migraine, chronic pain and insomnia.
The good news is that with better self awareness, comes a better state of health and well-being for you both in mind as well as body and you find yourself functioning much better that you thought possible. Meditation has been used through the ages as a means to attain better spiritual planes but today it is finding a great use to manage the stress and tensions that abound in the modern world. If you would like a stress free life today, you would do well to consider meditation combined with yoga exercises to make it possible. |
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