This is the seventh post in the “Improving Your Life in 31 Days” series. For more information, and to view an index of all the posts in this series, please click here to go to the central page.
Today marks the last day of the first week in this 31 day series. I hope you’re following along and starting to see how it can be easy and even enjoyable to create small habits that make big impacts on your daily life as a whole.
If you’ve been following the series, then I’m sure in the past two days you’ve gotten your fill of fitness/exercise habits and routines, so today’s task is going to focus on something much less physically strenuous, and that is meditation.
Where do you stand?
What are your current thoughts about meditation? Have you ever tried it? Perhaps. But maybe you fit into where most people who haven’t tried it fit into, and that’s thinking of meditation as some Buddhist, or Buddhist-like practice that monks and “monk-wannabes” practice to reach some state of “enlightenment”… whatever that is.
Well, I’m not Buddhist and I’m certainly no monk, but I still manage to fit the practice into my day and reap the positive benefits (which I’ll get into shortly). The point I’m trying to make is that meditation doesn’t always have to be what you may have perceived it to be, so you don’t have to be ashamed to try it, if that’s where you currently stand.
The best part is, you can literally set aside just 15 minutes out of your day for meditation (if that’s all the time you have), which makes it very practical for most people to fit it into their busy schedule.
I encourage you to at least try it for a few weeks to see if it contributes to improving your life at all, but for the sake of this series, if you’re following, at least force yourself to at least try it out today so you can see if it’s something you’d like to continue doing on a regular basis.
But if you’re still unsure, then maybe the sheer number of benefits associated with meditation (with literally no side-effects) will convince you to cut 15-30 minutes out of your day.
Some Benefits of Meditation
Notice how I wrote “some”? Well that’s because the list of benefits associated with meditation is so big that it wouldn’t take me listing all of them to get my point across. Besides, I’d probably miss quite a few if I did try to list every single benefit that goes along with this incredibly simple practice.
Remember, to take advantage of the benefits associated with meditation, you have to incorporate it into your schedule regularly (whether it’s everyday, every other day, etc.) for at least 15 minutes per session (though 30 or even 60 is recommended).
Below are the benefits of meditation that I personally found to be the most appealing:
Physical Benefits:
- Help reduce high blood pressure if you suffer from it.
- Enhances the immune system, which means less need for medical care.
- Slows down the aging process (helps you to live longer).
- Improved athletic performance.
- Enhanced strength and energy.
Psychological Benefits:
- Reduces your stress, and helps you manage it better.
- Improved memory and learning abilities (plus clearer, quicker thinking and concentration).
- Promotes emotional stability.
- Helps develop will-power (great for those who suffer from laziness).
- Increase your intelligence faster (interested in becoming smarter?).
- Decrease your perceived “need” to worry.
- Improve your personal and professional relationships.
No matter your age, gender, race, etc. you can take advantage of meditation freely, and improve your life significantly just by setting aside at least 15 minutes a day to do it.
Simple, right? Well, let’s see…
How to Meditate
Okay now that I’ve convinced you to try it out (hopefully anyway), I’ll guide you through the simplest meditation routine that you can modify to meet your personal needs (or leave it be, it’s what I do). If you want, you can also search the internet for other meditation routines and even find “guided” meditation audios that will speak and help guide your thoughts throughout the process.
Simple Meditation Routine
- Find a spot that you can sit upright in a quiet place free of external distractions. You can meditate lying down if you prefer, but I wouldn’t recommend it as you may just end up falling asleep.
- Close your eyes and start off by exhaling very deeply and take some deep breaths. Be sure to focus on breathing with your stomach rather than your chest.
- With your eyes closed still, position your eyes as if you are trying to look right in-between your eye-brows (focused inward and up, not cross-eyed). This will help promote deeper concentration.
- Try to focus on just one thing, and block out any other thoughts that come to mind. In other words, don’t let your mind wander. Your goal is to relax and focus at the same time, but on only one thing at a time. I like to imagine a small flame (such as what you’d find on a candle) because it is a singular object that I find highly relaxing at the same time.
- Eventually, once you get used to this routine, try to focus on nothing at all. This will take time but once your mind becomes more familiar with meditating, you’ll be able to control your thoughts and your mind better, making the whole process easier.
Some Extra Help
When you meditate, the process shifts your brainwaves into a range of frequencies that allows your mind to provide you with all the benefits that I mentioned earlier. However, the problem is, if you’re new to meditation or don’t have much experience, your mind can wander and this “simple” exercise becomes very difficult. This is because your brainwaves aren’t used to going into the proper frequency ranges for meditation just yet.
To guide your brainwave frequencies automatically and effortlessly, I highly recommend using brainwave entrainment. You can find more information on brainwave entrainment, and how to get the free entrainment audios that I’m giving away by visiting my EntrainFAST website.
I wouldn’t pass up brainwave entrainment because it takes some people years to “master” the art of meditation, but with brainwave entrainment, you can reach those brainwave “states” with as much effort as it takes to press the “play” button on your audio player. Plus, I’m giving away the audios for free so why not?
Anyway, whether or not you decide to use brainwave entrainment, I highly encourage you to incorporate meditation into your daily routine because if you do, and if you remain serious about it, I guarantee you will seriously improve your life… whether you want to recognize that the improvements came from your new meditation “habit” or not 
Note: This was the 7th post in the “Improving Your Life in 31 Days” series. To follow this series and to be notified by email everyday that I post a new update, please subscribe to Develop Minds Blog by email.
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Related posts and articles:
Brainwave Entrainment Makes Meditation Easy
7 Effective Habits for Positive Life Change
Creating and Sticking to an Exercise Routine
Improving Your Life in 31 Days
{ 1 comment }
Thanks for your information about how and why do meditate.any can improve him/her life within 31 days if follo all rules. really i m greatful
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