Meditation:
Meditation can be defined as a set of techniques whose main focus is to increase one’s self-awareness, attention, and concentration and provide mindfulness to the individual.
Meditating on a regular basis is not only beneficial for physical well-being but also for the psychological well-being of an individual. Its major purpose is to remove the negative feelings and thoughts from one’s life and provide the individual with the right mindset and path to work on in order to solve his/her life problems. It helps in calming the then tensed, stressed mind of an individual which on the other hand helps the individual to think in a more meaningful proper way.
Tips that should be noted while meditating
- Breadth: It may happen that while meditating your mind starts to wander on some other thoughts don’t get distracted or don’t be harsh on yourself in order to calm your wandering mind better recognize those feelings and then gradually try to divert your attention back to the sensation of your breathing.
- Emotions: In research, it has been found that in people who do meditation on a regular basis their brain areas size has increased especially the areas of the brain that control one’s emotions, this can, on the other hand, can be made to be the place for positive emotions generation.
- Arms: During the time of meditation one’s body should be in a relaxed state and so the hands and arms and shoulders. The hands should rest on your thighs while meditating.
- Eyes: Closing eyes is subjective from person to person. If one wants to know more about themselves more about their own “self”, more about their internal self, what your body want from you, what is actually going inside your mind, what are the reasons for the negativity in your life, how you can change these situations, if this are the questions that motivated you to start meditating at the very first place then closing your eyes would be the right option for you.
Now on the other hand if you want to connect more with your surroundings, your environment or better to say anything which falls outside your body and want to analyse your surroundings then meditating with open eyes would be more beneficial.
- Legs: Like the eyes part the leg posture is also subjective and depends from person to person. If you wanna do meditation with crossed legs on a cousin or yoga mat then your knees should be below your hips. And indeed this position is said to be more beneficial and ideal for meditating but there are people who have leg problems or some kind of injury in their knees or they are suffering from some kind of disease such as arthritis now in this case sitting crossed leg will not be beneficial but will only increase their problem. Hence these people can sit on a chair with their feet touching the ground and their spine should be straight i.e; they should be sitting in a straight posture and then can do their meditation.
- Time: Many people have this false notion in their mind that they have to meditate for long hours in order to actually obtain the full benefits of meditation but the truth is in meditation “quality matters and not the quantity”. So instead of doing a long duration of meditation with no proper technique better to do 5 to 10 minutes in a day with proper technique and that will do wonders. For a person who has just started meditating and is in a beginner stage for them 5 to 10 minutes is much and this duration can then be increased in later days as you keep mastering the skill of meditation.
Benefits of Meditation
- Helps in seeing things from a new perspective.
- Helps in better and proper management of stressful events and negative thoughts.
- Increases one’s attention.
- Improves concentration, learning capacity, retention power, etc.
- Provides an optimistic way of seeing life.
- Increases one’s patience and tolerance.
- Improves creativity and imaginative skills.
- Provides mindfulness.
- Helps older people feel less lonely.
- Helps in decreasing substance abuse.
- Decreases stress and anxiety levels.
- Meditation can also reverse one’s aging process.
- Provides protection against various mental disorders and reduces the chance of developing a mental disorder.
- Helps in better understanding who we actually are and what we actually want and how to get to the self we want to be like i.e; it helps in self-actualization, self-esteem, self motives, self-awareness, self-knowledge, organization of self-knowledge, and self-schema, etc It.
- Helps in getting better sleep.
- Helps in weight loss.
- Increases one’s energy level.
- Enhances mood in a positive direction.
- Helps in enhancing and appreciating the beauty of life.
- Helps in feeling more connected to oneself and also to the surrounding environment.
- Increases immunity and helps the body in fighting pathogens in a more effective way.
- Helps in improving muscle and joint pains.
- Improves body digestion and metabolism.
- Improves one’s heart rate and breathing.
- Reduces our chance of developing tension-related physical problems like ulcers and headaches etc.
- Improves blood pressure.
Disadvantages of Meditation
Meditation holds a lot of benefits that can prove to be very beneficial for one’s mental and physical well being but it suffers from some disadvantages and cons:
- Meditation is not a magic spell that within some seconds you will start seeing its benefits its a journey to know oneself to know the surroundings and knowing it takes time.
- Meditation like any other skill requires practice and proper technique because without that even regular meditation won’t help much, in short, you won’t be able to open the real benefits of meditation at any time.
- Meditation needs regular practice. This means that on a daily basis it should be practiced instead of thinking of it as a task to be done one should see it as a part of their lifestyle.
- Sometimes some people may require an instructor or teacher for them to teach the skill of meditating.
- Meditation requires you to put some effort into it and without that meditation even won’t put any effort in developing your physical and mental well-being.
- Meditation can sometimes seem to be a time-consuming process with little or no benefits as it requires time to show its benefits.
R.A.I.N Meditation: Meaning and About
RAIN is a form of meditation technique that focuses on four aspects i.e; recognition, acceptance, investigation, and nonidentification or nurture. This method can be used whenever one is in a state of anxiety, frustration, confusion, panic, or restfulness. It provides us with a direct way to work with the ego component of our personality. The term RAIN meditation was introduced by Michele McDonald.
First and foremost one should find a quiet place and relax there and sit comfortably then follow the RAIN steps as described:
R: The letter R stands for the recognition of what’s going on. In other words what we are feeling inside in that particular moment. It’s the recognition of the strong feelings that are taking place inside you and are getting in your way.
A: The second step is to accept those emotions and feelings inside you. You don’t have to immediately work on those feelings and don’t try to fix things at the very moment but instead embrace and welcome those feelings even if they feel negative and uncomfortable to you.
I: The third step is to investigate i.e; now you have to try to know your feelings and ask yourself questions like, “ how is my body reacting to it”, “ how are these feelings affecting my physical and mental well being” etc, but think too much or better to say not dive into the ocean of thoughts, emotions, and feelings.
N: The last step of this technique is to nurture. Now you have identified the feelings and emotions that are making your physical and mental well-being uncomfortable and you know the cause of this feeling now it’s time to nurture your mind and body until the stress inside you does not change into distress. And choose to see the emotion as temporary and not a part of you.
Benefits of RAIN
- It improves motivation.
- It improves self-esteem.
- It provides confidence.
- It helps in fighting various mental disorders.
- It helps in mindfulness.
- It helps in developing our physical and mental well-being.
- Improves our relationship with ourselves and others.
- Boosts mood.
- Provides self-satisfaction.
- Improves communication skills.
Conclusion
Meditation can be one of the best techniques in order to practice mindfulness and achieve good physical and mental well-being. And being mentally and physically fit has its own advantages. At last we can conclude that meditation is not a task to be done regularly but a habit or better to say a part of your lifestyle that can change your full life in a better and positive way.
