Clare Josa | Author And Keynote Speaker
UK's Foremost Imposter Syndrome Expert, International Keynote Speaker & 8x Author
{Bonus article from the 28 Day Meditation Challenge}
The week three meditation in the 28 Day Meditation Challenge includes the ringing of a Tibetan singing bowl – a meditation bell.
People on the course often report how vibrant and almost physical the sound feels.
Here’s a bonus article, to explain what’s going on – and how you can use meditation bells and singing bowls to help with your meditation and mindfulness pracitce. [Read more…] about Meditation Bells: How Can A Sound Feel So Real?
Are you looking for ways to improve your heart health and reduce your risk of heart disease – or perhaps to recover from existing problems? Then here are 3 compelling reasons why meditation should be top of your list of strategies. These are the secrets your heart really wants you to hear about how meditation can help you.
{Bonus article from the 28 Day Meditation Challenge}
1. Meditation cuts your stress levels.According to cardiologist Herbert Benson, MD, any condition caused or worsened by stress, which includes heart disease, can be alleviated through meditation. He’s been researching it for 30 years, so he ought to know!
We have all seen the archetypal stressed executive, keeling over with a heart attack, in the movies. It’s a proven fact that high levels of stress hurt your heart.
The body’s sympathetic nervous system (the ‘fight or flight’ part) kicks out extra stress hormones, including adrenalin and cortisol, whenever we’re stressed. These are designed to increase our heart rate, in an emergency situation. It’s intended to be a temporary measure. But many of us are running on adrenalin, most of the time.
You don’t have to be a city Exec to be an adrenalin junky. If you’re constantly running from one place to the next, scarcely pausing to catch your breath, surviving on stimulants like caffeine and sugar, then your adrenals will be working overtime and your heart health will be suffering.
Fortunately there’s plenty of research out there that shows daily meditation helps regulate the sympathetic nervous system’s stress response. It also helps us retrain our minds to think more calmly, so we don’t need that adrenalin rush to get things done any more.
Regular meditation – even as little as ten minutes a day – helps you feel less stressed, more calm and more relaxed.
Back in 2004, Barnes, Davis, Murzynowski & Treiber discovered that regular meditation has a beneficial impact on your blood pressure and heart rate. Their initial research was with youths, but subsequent studies have found this applies to all of us.
Evidence indicates that psychological stresses, such as anger, anxiety and worry, contribute to the development of heart disease.
The body’s relaxation response, activated by the parasympathetic nervous system, during meditation, helps lower blood pressure and is good for your heart rate. The corresponding reduction in adrenalin and cortisol help you maintain this relaxed, more focussed state, beyond the end of your meditation.
Doctors are so convinced of the benefits of meditation for reducing psychological stress that mindfulness meditation is now being recommended to help patients suffering from anxiety and clinical depression. Recent trials showed it to be as effective as medication, for some people. And all of this reduces the stress on your heart.
Numerous studies (and millions of meditators, over the millennia) have proven that regular meditation helps you feel happier and more at peace.
Researchers at Margaret & H.A. Rey Laboratory in Boston, USA, discovered that there’s more to meditation than just a relaxation response. Their work showed that regular meditation can actually strengthen the heart, improving heart health, over time.
In addition, researchers have found that regular meditation practice can improve your breathing habits, by moving from stress-based upper chest breathing to diaphragm-based belly breathing.
The body is designed to ‘belly breathe’ – just watch a young baby for proof. But, over the years, we learn bad habits that cause most of us to breathe poorly, reducing the oxygen levels in our blood, meaning our heart and lungs have to work harder. Meditation practice encourages the deeper diaphragmatic breathing, which ultimately improves your heart’s health.
A research study by the University of Wisconsin found that regular meditators had a 47% reduction in death rates, heart attacks and strokes, compared with those who didn’t meditate.
Surely that, alone, is a good enough reason to start learning to meditate?
Of course, meditating once won’t sort things out – just like going for a single run or eating a single, healthy meal. Gaining the benefit of meditation requires consistent practice, to develop your skill levels. But it doesn’t have to take long.
Researchers investigating the impact of mindfulness meditation on people suffering from clinical depression found measurable improvement in less than 6 weeks of daily practice.
We have found, through our online courses, that this it can take as little as one week to notice a difference, for many people!
And you don’t have to sit for hours. Even just 10 minutes a day, each day, can start to have an impact. Then, if you’re really enjoying the benefits of regular meditation, you can consider increasing the time.
There’s more to meditation than turning your legs into a pretzel and chanting Om – though you can do that, if you like!
A survey I conducted in December 2011 showed that the number 1 meditation myth was that you had to sit still for hours with an empty mind.
Few of us can even imagine achieving that. And the great news is that you don’t have to.
Ten minutes a day of silent sitting, using the correct techniques, can start to produce a difference. And if sitting still isn’t your thing, mindfulness meditation is something you can do any time, any place.
Here’s a link to one of my favourite mindful breathing meditations – guaranteed to bring you back to the ‘here and now’, feeling happier and less stressed.
If you would like to discover how just 10 minutes a day of meditation could change your life, then you might like to join us on the 28 Day Meditation Challenge.
It guides you, step by step, through the essential skills needed to meditate. It also brings you proven strategies to help you keep yourself motivated and to learn how to handle the most common meditation challenges, finding simple ways of making meditation practice – and its enormous benefits – an integral part of your life.
All this – and more – is possible with a simple technique called ‘anchoring’.
What comes to mind when you think of the smell of freshly baked bread? Or when you hear the sound of the sea? Or when you feel the sun on your skin? Or when you taste a fresh strawberry? Or when you see a sunset?
Chances are that these triggers take you back to memories or change your emotional and psychological state.
We store our memories in all 5 senses. Accessing a memory in one sense brings back the other sensory components of that memory. For a strong memory, it triggers the same chemical reactions in the body as in the original event, taking us back to the emotional, mental and physical feelings of that memory.
How does that work?
Ever heard of “Pavlov’s Dogs”?
Pavlov was a scientist who proved that we can “associate an external trigger with an internal response”. In other words, we can train ourselves to automatically respond in a particular way, when we experience an external stimulus or reminder.
It goes on all around us. Advertising is a strong form of anchoring – adverts provide stimuli (images and sounds) in order to evoke a particular state (emotional response and desire to buy).
Sometimes anchors take us back to unhelpful emotional and mental states: for example, the feeling of “not again!” as your least favourite person approaches you in the office; or seeing an email from the MD…
It is possible to anchor a resourceful emotional or mental state, so you can use it whenever you want to.
That means you can anchor your meditating state – that sense of feeling at peace and relaxed – so that you can take it with you during the day and also return to it, quickly, whenever you next meditate.
Want to know how?
You deliberately create a neurological connection between the state you want to go back to and a stimulus or trigger (usually physical).
Here are 5 steps to anchoring your meditation calm:
You can even set your anchor during your meditation practice. If you notice that you’re feeling particularly relaxed and alert, do step 4 and create your physical anchor. Hold the point for 10-20 seconds, before releasing. Then, when you’ve finished your meditation, do step 5.
Note: your anchor doesn’t have to be a physical trigger. You could use a particular picture, a sound (like a Tibetan singing bowl) or even a smell, like incense or a particular aromatherapy blend. There’s more on this in Day 28 of the 28 Day Meditation Challenge.
[Bonus article from the 28 Day Meditation Challenge]
What we think impacts our emotions and our actions. In other words, our mind and body are inextricably linked. And if you’re not in the mood to meditate, you’re unlikely to get great results just by forcing yourself to do it. That’s where a few secrets from the world of psychology can come in handy.
Think about how you suddenly jump if you see something you’re scared of. Your mind sees the stimulus and produces a rush of adrenalin in your body. Mind affects body.
Similarly, if you’re really physically tired, it can be very difficult to think clearly. In this case, body affects mind.
How you feel affects how you think which affects how you behave.
Test Your Mind-Body Link
To prove how much positive thinking affects your body and mind, try this quick exercise.
What was the difference?
What you were thinking affected your performance.
That applies to any activity we undertake, even meditation. If we expect to find it difficult, we will. If we tell ourselves we’re not in the mood, that’s exactly what we’ll experience. But if we expect to find it easy and to excel at it, we are more likely to succeed.
So if you try to meditate whilst feeling confused, frustrated and fed up, you’re unlikely to feel relaxed and you’re unlikely to enjoy your meditation. But using your mood as an excuse not to meditate isn’t a great idea, either!
Would you like to know how to manage your emotional, mental and physical state, so you can always have the frame of mind that is most appropriate to the task in hand?
Reminder: What’s A ‘State’?
Our state is our “way of being at any one moment” – it comes from our physiology (actions), thoughts and emotions.
The calmer your state, the easier it is to think logically. The more relaxed and day-dreamy the state, the easier it can be to be creative.
Traditionally, we believe that we can’t control our state. How often have you heard (or even used!) the phrase:
“he made me feel bad”
How, exactly?
How did the other person get into your head and force you to feel unpleasant emotions? How did they send you annoyed thoughts? How did they gain control over your entire hormone system, which runs the show on the chemical reactions that are our emotions?
They didn’t…
When we use phrases like “he made me feel bad”, we’re giving our unconscious mind the message that we’re the victim – we’re not in control; we don’t have any choice.
Alas – or perhaps fortunately – that’s not true.
Although we can’t always change our circumstances, we can always choose how to respond.
The fact is that our state is within our control. We can learn to control our mind. We can choose how to respond. So, if someone provokes us, we are still free to choose whether or not to get annoyed.
Similarly, if we’re not feeling in the mood to do something, such as meditate, we can always, always, always choose another mood. We can choose to feel in the mood to meditate. The rest of this bonus article will show you how.
States can be either helpful or unhelpful.
A helpful state is one that empowers us; it makes it easier for us to achieve our outcome.
An unhelpful state is one that holds us back; it makes it harder for us to perform.
Spend a few moments thinking about the states you regularly experience. Which would you say are helpful? Which hold you back?
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My helpful states |
My unhelpful states |
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Now, for each of your ‘helpful’ states, think of a memory – a specific event – that takes you back to feeling that way. Make a list.
Then, if you find yourself in one of your ‘unhelpful’ states, all you need to do is go back to one of the memories from your ‘helpful’ list and it will instantly shift your mood. The memory triggers chemical reactions in your body that impact your emotions. So happy memories can help you feel better, no matter what else is going on in your day.
If we “find” ourselves in a unhelpful state, there are a number of things we can do. If you’d like a ‘quick fix’, here are three really simple things you can do to improve your emotional, mental or physical state:
Prepared to put in a little more effort?
The ‘anchoring’ technique in the previous bonus article can be amazingly effective.
Want to get up and really shake off that unhelpful state? Then watch out for the Day 18 message: How Wiggling Your Butt Can Help You Meditate.
Are You Trying Too Hard?
Who do you believe: those who tell you that meditation should be enormously hard work? Or those who tell you it should be effortless?
Firstly, dump the word ‘should’. It’s one of the most dangerous words in the English language and all it ever does is trigger those old friends of ours: guilt and obligation. Dumping the word ‘should’, in this case, sets you free to experience things for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Then, here’s the answer I give to the initial question, when asked by my students.
The harder you try, the harder it is. The less hard you try, the more you accept, the more you ‘let go & trust’, the easier and more natural it becomes.
Meditation can involve changing habits we have cultivated for a lifetime. We have spent many years practising being busy, thinking three things at once, multi-tasking and doing anything other than sitting still. Meditation and mindfulness can feel like hard work at first, but once you start practising for the odd few minutes during the day, it eventually becomes effortless – like a switch you can flick. Just imagine it!
Remember: meditation is about calming your body, mind and emotions, to reconnect with the ‘truth’ of your current-moment experience of life. It is about accepting your thoughts as thoughts and no longer engaging with the emotional conversation. It’s not about a totally silent mind.
If your monkey mind is playing games, rather than fighting it and feeling annoyed, imagine softening your body, mind and emotions – melt away the tension – stop resisting – accept. Let go of the effort. Just allow yourself to experience the results. Surrender to the fact that a state of meditative awareness is actually our natural state. This whole ‘busy-ness’ thing is learned behaviour – so we can unlearn it!
Yes, we really CAN train our mind to be more still and quiet. And it doesn’t need to be difficult or take years; it does take gentle, consistent effort and CHOICE.
Typical signs that you are trying too hard include a clenched jaw, a furrowed forehead, tense shoulders, upper chest breathing, breathlessness and even holding your breath during meditation. That’s why the first step of each meditation we do is to relax the body and then do certain simple breaths to release tension and relax the mind.
Meditation doesn’t have to be hard work, but it does require consistent effort. Just like learning a sport or a foreign language, you wouldn’t expect results if you’re just popping by once in a while. Dedication – gentle, relaxed dedication – and consistent effort will produce much better results than ‘trying hard’ ever could.
Meditation doesn’t require you to ‘do your best’ or ‘try really hard’. It simply asks you to show up, bring an open mind, practise the techniques, and let them work their magic.
[Bonus article from the 28 Day Meditation Challenge]
One of the most important things you can do when creating a new habit, is to enlist moral support. By telling people what you want to do, it allows them to help you and encourage you.
But have you ever noticed that, sometimes, the hardest place to ask for help is at home? [Read more…] about Six Secrets For Training Your Family To Help You Meditate
I had a fun (not!) reminder this weekend of how it’s best to take action when doors are open, rather than hammering on them, when they’re locked. Yet it’s a habit that so many of us have. Find out what you should – and shouldn’t – be doing, when it feels like those doors are closed.
