Meditation, the act of clearing your mind for a prolonged period of time, has many benefits. It’s a great way to improve your focus, wellbeing, and productivity. It can also be pretty daunting, especially if you’re completely new to the whole concept. This guide will show you why you should meditate and how to start the habit!
Benefits of meditation
You’ve probably heard that meditation is super beneficial, but what are the actual, tangible benefits?
Focus
Meditation can increase your attention span by improving your ability to focus. This is because when meditating, you’re focusing all your attention on one thing. As you practice this more, you become better at staying focused on the task at hand. You’re essentially working your brain like a muscle. And, like a muscle, your brain will become stronger and more able to ignore distractions.
Wellbeing
Meditating can improve your wellbeing by reducing stress. When meditating, you feel more calm and peaceful because your mind isn’t rushing a hundred miles an hour. It also improves your ability to control your reaction to stress by diverting your attention from stressors to something else. This way, if you’re feeling stressed, you’re more able to ignore your stressors since you’ve trained your ability to stay focused on a certain thing.
How to start meditating
Here is some advice to help you get started with your new meditation habit.
Starting small
Like with any habit, don’t set yourself too high expectations, or you’ll never achieve them. Instead, start off with a small daily goal. I recommend starting by meditating for 5 minutes a day. It’s enough to get you into the zone, while it’s not so long that you’ll be overwhelmed. As you go on and become better at meditating, you can increase the time you spend meditating as feels comfortable.
Types of meditation
A great way to get started with meditation is through guided meditation. If don’t know how to get started or find your attention drifting often, then guided meditation is for you. This is a form of meditation where you listen to an audiotrack telling you what to focus on. Apps like headspace are useful for this. If you’re already into meditation or just find the sound of someone else’s voice distracting, then there’s no need to do guided meditation: here’s some information on other types of meditation that can be helpful.
Make it a habit
Ideally, you should try to meditate everyday to reap all the possible benefits. Create a habit tracker and log when you meditate. Try your best not to miss more than two days in a row, since this will throw you off your goal. It’s also a good idea to reward yourself for milestones, like meditating everyday for a week straight.
