While meditation is not a new concept, when the Mayo Clinic advises people to meditate as it can increase both emotional well-being as well as overall health, it’s time to try it.
As for benefits, in an article on its website, the Mayo Clinic points to the following emotional benefits:
- Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
- Building skills to manage your stress
- Increasing self-awareness
- Focusing on the present
- Reducing negative emotions
- Increasing imagination and creativity
- Increasing patience and tolerance
They also note that research has suggested that meditation can manage symptoms of conditions such as:
- Anxiety
- Asthma
- Cancer
- Chronic pain
- Depression
- Heart disease
- High blood pressure
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Sleep problems
- Tension headaches
Let's Try It
Learning how to meditate is not that hard, you just have to have patience. Here are a couple of methods that have worked for me. The first I’ll call the white light cleanse. Sitting in a room that is filled with music designed for meditation (ask Alexa for a station) just imagine a white light that comes from above your head and picture it moving through your body and cleaning out the stress. You can follow it as it goes through your body and concentrating on that movement helps to eliminate the constant chatter that goes on in your head.
Another method I use is to listen to a tape that helps to guide you through the process. I find that by listening to a soothing voice (Deepak Chopra is my favorite) I can focus on what I’m supposed to be doing rather than making to-do lists in my head.
And as you leave the Thanksgiving table, won’t everyone admire you as you say you’re heading to another room to meditate?
