Our brain is trained the way our society runs, a hundred miles a minute. While running from activity to study sessions to taking as many Honors and AP classes as possible, we hardly ever get the chance to sit down and relax as people as we are always “Keeping up with the Jones’s”. However, finding time to relax is not as daunting as it seems, and can be done in a matter of minutes with meditation.
Meditation, or the art of complete stress and optimal relaxation is one of the best and safest therapies known to date, considering it is non-pharmacologic and can be achieved anywhere, and any time. During meditation, you are put in sort of a deep “trance," of which your mind is completely clear and effortless and stress starts to melt away.
Meditation can be achieved by diaphragmatic breathing, also known as abdominal breathing or “tummy” breathing. You breathe in slowly through your nose and while focusing on your “breath," you achieve the goal of truly feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.
Aside from the amazing feeling you get from meditation, it can also be used for medicinal purposes. Meditation can be used to help with medical ailments including high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and pain. The ideology is that the deep breathing will bring awareness to yourself, and help manage stress. Stress is prominent in everybody’s lives, so you do not necessarily have to have an illness to work on meditation! In fact, even if you do not have an illness and practice meditation daily, you are ahead of the ballgame and will already know what to do in the event of an incredibly stressful situation like an illness.
So, now what? You have heard all about this incredible way of relieving pain with using your breath, so how do I do it?
Meditation is actually quite simple, all it takes is to sit comfortably and allow your body to purely embrace the feeling of using itself as a medicine. Place your hand below your naval and breathe in through your nose while keeping your shoulders in place (so you use you diaphragm instead of your chest). Examples of meditation include guided imagery, yoga, tai chi, mindfulness, and mantra meditation. All of these things are different types of meditation, despite the fact that some of them involve movement, the one thing they still have in common is the ability to breathe and focus on the breath rather than whats going on around you.
For the first time experiencing a meditative state, you will probably be confused as to why this works. Yes, it can be slow and boring in the beginning, but after doing meditation a few sessions, its weird how you actually start to crave it. The human body craves the desire to be completely relaxed and tranquil, an experience that cannot be given by any other mean.
So next time you are flipping through the TV, looking for something to watch, flip off the remote and meditate. I guarantee it will be the best show your body will ever see.
