Knowing how to mediate effectively is very important if you wish to achieve good results from your practice. Being able to flow with the knowledge and put it into practice easily is also important. Hence the reason that this simple and also comprehensive guide is here for you, to make it easy for you to achieve good results with your meditations with ease.
With meditation being one of the core techniques for personal development, and personal growth. Being able to meditate with ease, is thus highly worth your while.
Meditating Effectively Is About More Than Just Technique.
When you balance everything in the right way it generates something very special, from that it becomes very easy for you to steadily go deeper with your meditation practice in a sustainable way. Thus enabling you to achieve more from it in terms of the various benefits both health-wise and those that help you achieve success in different areas of your life.
Realistically there are two sets of things that combine to make your practice enjoyable and effective and they form a very close link with one another. Within this guide the two sets of things are shared in sections:
Basic Technique
Background Factors
The core factors these relate to and which make meditating easy for you are these:
Focus
Comfort
When you have focus it is easy to keep on doing something. When you are comfortable it is easy to maintain focus and continue doing something. So keeping these things in mind and doing something that helps you to maintain them to the best of your ability is a key thing. When under stress focus can be challenging, though as MedLine Plus states "Meditation involves focusing your attention to help you feel more relaxed", the more you feel comfortable the easier you can focus, the more you focus the less you will feel stressed. Practice makes this far easier too.
Basic Meditative Technique: The Core Points Of How To Meditate
When you first start out, or if you have previously found developing a consistent practice a challenge, keep things simple. A couple of simple techniques that can really help are these; the candle meditation and the breathing meditation. There are of course a variety of meditation techniques, these are just two really simple and enjoyable ones for you to start and begin practising with.
Free Form Is Another Option
When you practice free form you can effectively do as you wish, allow your mind to wander freely, which is similar to the Soto style of Zen meditating, or create a focus entirely of your own. You are basically creating your own style and fitting it to your own preferences, something which is totally OK to do and in many ways is encouraged if you find it difficult to match any particular style of form to yourself.
Tips On Breathing in Free Form
The main point is to maintain a comfortable action as you breathe. With that in mind again there are options. You can practice with deep breathing, or just keep it slow and steady. The later option provides an easy way to maintain something comfortable, with deeper breathing monitor the feel of your lungs and chest, expanding only to a point that feels good. If you feel laboured when you breathe you are stressing yourself, ease back and flow with the ease you will achieve more for it.
Keeping It Simple And Regular Helps You To Build A Good Practice With Ease
By taking time to become calm and meditate on a regular basis you will find it much easier to build up an effective practice. Whilst taking time every so often is still a good thing, by taking time on a daily basis, even if only for a few minutes, you can deepen the effects and cultivate a deeper ability too. If possible take 5 minutes a couple of times a day at first, or more often as you wish. Then at a pace that is right for you build up the length of your meditative sessions, continuing to practice once or twice a day and gaining ever greater benefits from doing so.
Tips On The Best Times To Meditate
First thing in the morning, literally when you have just woken up is an incredibly good time. Practising at this time helps you set yourself up for a really good day, feeling clear and ready to accept joyful experiences.
Likewise just before you go to sleep is a great time too. Releasing off stress from the day and becoming calm at this time helps you settle yourself into a good state ready for quality rest and sleep.
After work and during break-times are very good. By taking quiet time and going within, shutting off and clearing your mind helps you to release stress and refresh yourself. Thus enabling you to continue on in a clearer more joyful manner, improving your interactions with others and raising your ability to focus effectively and achieve higher levels of success with whatever you are doing.
Background Factors For Meditation
Whilst there are a large variety of different styles that can be adopted there are certain things that run as common to most forms. Whether you choose to use one of the various forms covered through various books or how to guides, choose to follow your own path, or even go totally free form having these core things in mind as a basis for your practice will help you achieve more from it. You can vary them as time progresses and you refine your experience, in the beginning they will help though.
The Basics
Comfort is very important. In part because your ability to focus your mind depends on your level of comfort. When you feel good and at ease then you can focus with greater ease and also hold that focus for longer.
The are of course a variety of ways in which comfort is achieved, the ambient temperature, whether you are seated or lying down, plus what you are sitting or lying on, the level of background noise, whether there are interruptions or you have a peaceful place to be. Plus a variety of other factors based on your own individual preferences including light and colour.
Warmth
One of the key points is ambient temperature. When it is too cool the body and mind begin to shut down and focus becomes challenging. Too hot and discomfort is present in various ways. So being somewhere warm, or at a temperature that is comfortable for you, is in many ways ideal. Blankets and warm clothing can help in winter, whilst fans and loose light clothing can help in summer.
Body Position And Surfaces
Whilst some people are incredibly happy in a variety of different meditation positions most people need a little time to get used to the different posture required of sitting cross legged or in lotus position. Getting into a full lotus position requires practice and a degree of flexibility, for most people this is rather challenging.
Likewise sitting on a rock can be a little harsh for some, even Buddhist monks often have simple cushions on which they sit to meditate. Whilst a deep cushioned sofa may seem a little off for some people it depends on the individual as to the surface that is used and how hard or soft it is.
When first starting to practice you can do so in pretty much any position you wish to. For some more advanced techniques certain seated styles are recommended, and lying down is used for others. The big point if you are going to lie down is that you remain awake. Basically if you wish to sit on a cushion cross legged, relax back into a sofa or an armchair, or lie down, you can. The most important thing is that you are comfortable enough to maintain your meditative focus.
Sound
Whilst being somewhere totally quiet is an image many people have for meditative environment sometimes it is less than practical. Living in a city comes with various background sounds unless you live very high up and have good sound insulation. Likewise living in the countryside comes with certain sounds too, be they birds, livestock or from other things.
Having a place where you can ideally shut off from those sounds and keep a clear focus is the ideal. If you are unable to close doors and windows to seal sounds off completely then the use of meditation music can be good. Through the use of gentle relaxing music you can to a certain degree mask over other sounds and generate a deeper and more immersive experience.
Headphones or earphones can also help to seal you away from distractions, just ensure that your environment is safe enough if you wish to use them. For example if you are travelling, just be mindful of things and save the deeper meditative exercises for home or another safe place.
You can find great Meditation Music and guided audio via the SurgingLife store.
Practising With Ease
These things, both the techniques and the background factors, are just the basics. What they give you is an opportunity to practice with ease, which when done on a consistent basis yields the opportunity to progress into deeper things and achieve greater results in terms of the benefits of meditation.
A further resource that can aid you in developing your practice is the selection of meditation videos available here. They offer you an opportunity for different visual scenes to focus on all of which are based on nature and the beauty present within the natural world.
The Main Tips On How To Meditate Effectively
First off keep it simple, this in turn helps you to create a practice which is enjoyable and thus be more inclined to spend time cultivating and practising. Which brings us to the next point, regular practice, even if only for a few minutes at a time at first and even if only once a day, practising on a regular basis helps you to deepen your ability and also brings you more of the wonderful benefits of meditating.
Follow these tips and flow with ease through the rest of the suggestions given on how to meditate effectively and you will find yourself building and developing a practice which will bring you ever greater results and enhance your ability to achieve joyful living with ever greater ease. For an even more fundamental outline for starters go to the beginners how to meditate guide where you can find more help on how to do meditation with ease from the start.