Before we can discuss the purpose and importance of meditation, we must first clarify and understand what meditation is, how it works, and the effects it has. That being said, what is meditation? Meditation is a rather simple concept, but one that is complicated to practice at first.

Basically, to meditate one must focus his or her mind on certain thoughts or ideas that will help achieve a sense of calmness and relaxation, along with mental clarity. Like I said, sounds simple, right? Well, not exactly. It may sound pretty easy to just focus on relaxation, but we are constantly surrounded by distractions that may hinder our ability to find that peace within our minds.

Meditation simply for relaxation, however, is not actually about “clearing your mind” or “turn off” your brain for a period of time. In fact, it is actually the opposite. Now, of course there are many different methods and ways to meditate to feel calm, but they all attempt to do one thing: achieve mindfulness.

Okay, so what is mindfulness then? Mindfulness is all about being in the moment and not judging any passing thoughts, but simply letting them come and go without applying any effort. Mindfulness also entails being present and engaged in whatever is happening in the moment.

Meditation, however, is not always about relaxation and mindfulness. Meditation can also be used to aid with sleep, work, homework, creativity, etc. Personally, I find meditation to be a key factor in my accomplishments from day to day. That being said though, meditation is not easy at first. It is a skill that takes lots of practice to master. Though I have been meditating daily and consistently for nearly three months now, I am absolutely not some meditation wizard or whatever.

Three methods I find extremely helpful when trying to meditate are guided meditation, the practice of yoga,and listening to binaural beats or music. Yoga is basically where I began to meditate regularly and it helped me come to the conclusion that meditating at least once a day really impacts my performance with daily tasks.

Though I had experimented with guided meditation before, yoga is really where I discovered its benefits. Guided meditation is exactly what it sounds like. YouTube has plenty of videos that will play sounds or music while a calming voice walks you through the process of unwinding and shifting your focus. There are also many apps, such as Headspace, that are super easy to use and will give you all different kinds of guided talks to help with sleep, relaxation, creativity, happiness, etc.

I won’t lie to you, I was pretty apprehensive, hesitant, and skeptical about yoga at first, but after a very close friend dragged me to a class, I have since been obsessed with yoga. (Thank you!!) Not only does yoga help me mentally, but it also is an excellent workout. Whether it be early in the morning, midday, or at night, I find that yoga really enhances my focus and helps me combat stress.

After attending yoga classes a few times a week for a few months, I realized meditation has so many other uses besides relaxation. This brings me to my final method: listening to binaural beats. Binaural beats are not for everyone. It is important that I say that because some people find them to be very helpful, but they are powerful and can be dangerous if used improperly.

Binaural beats are basically a repetition of sounds that play slightly different frequencies in each of your ears (meaning to fully feel the benefits, you must listen to them with headphones, or you might not be able to hear them at all). The effects of binaural beats and their impact on the way your brain functions are very scientific and require research to understand entirely. Here is a link that explains their use better than I can:

Now that we better understand how meditation works and how I use it, we can finally discuss why I use it. It’s pretty obvious that it helps me relax or focus, but I also use it for self-care. Meditation in yoga is good exercise, increases my flexibility, and makes me feel more in tune with my body. Meditation for relaxation helps me sleep or release stress. Meditation with binaural beats helps me with my school work or personal writing. In fact, while writing this, I am listening to a binaural beat sequence at frequencies that helps me be more focused and creative.

I am aware that this may seem sort of ridiculous to buy into and that it all might be in my head (pun unintended), but I do truly believe that meditation is very important and helps me manage my day. So why do I meditate? As someone who suffers from a few mental health issues, I find meditation to really be useful in dealing with a lot of situations. It is important to have a reason or set a goal or intention of meditating, but it isn’t limited to having a mental illness.

You can meditate for a number of reasons, even if you just think it sounds cool and want to give it a try. I strongly encourage you to attempt meditation, after doing some more research on your own of course. I am not some meditation expert or anything, but I am a subscriber to its benefits and I highly recommend giving it a shot after completing a little more research of the science behind it.

Even if you just want to try it out, search on YouTube a bit and you’ll find tons of videos about yoga, binaural beats or relaxing music, and guided meditation. That being said, happy meditating!