Meditation has been a part of many cultures around the world for thousands and thousands of years, potentially more so today than ever before. The practice originated in India but has since spread all over the world, most dramatically in Western culture.
To some, meditation is a way of life. To others, it’s a mysterious and spiritualist thing that only a few people can master. Whichever bracket you fall under, here are seven secrets about meditation that you might find surprising.
You Only Have to Meditate for Minutes
Of course, if you’re practising to run a marathon and you train twice a week or five times a week, you’ll get better results training five times a week. However, you’ll still be able to run it just practising twice a week; it will just take longer.
This is the same principle as meditation. You’re more than welcome to meditate for eight hours a day if can and would like to but even meditating as little as five minutes a day can change your life for the better.
You Are Genuinely Focusing on Your Breath
There are many misconceptions out there that meditation is a crazy mindset game where you’ll clear your mind of all thoughts and feelings to be left with just inner peace. However, this is far from the truth.
Meditation is all about focusing on an anchor, most commonly the breath. This is so you can improve your level of focus while quieting the mind of thoughts from the past or future. All that matters is the present.
You’ll be Shocked at How Your Mind Wanders
Until you started meditation, it’s impossible to tell how often your mind wanders on a minute by minute basis. Especially when you’re first starting your practice, you’ll find that your mind quickly wanders onto thoughts of the day, memories and other random trains of thought.
That’s because our brains are hard-wired to do so. Even if your mind wanders three times during a five-minute meditation, apply that over the whole day, and it’s clear to see that many of us are not living with our minds in the present moment.
Meditation is Available for Everybody
When it comes to meditation, the practice isn’t just limited to spiritualists and Buddhist monks. Meditation costs nothing, and you can practice anytime, anywhere, and by anybody.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female, any age, any race and it doesn’t matter whether you would consider yourself a spiritual person or not, you can meditate and benefit from it.
You Can Meditate How You Like
There’s a common misconception that everybody has to meditate in an upright and seated position to be meditating properly. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Meditating in an upright position may be uncomfortable and off-putting to some people, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Of course, you can meditate sitting down while being cross-legged, but you can also stand up, sit in a chair, lay on the floor, lay in your bed or even sitting in a car or on public transport. It’s completely up to you.
You’re Only Re-Learning What You Already Know
As a child, even as a baby, you won’t have stress, anxiety, depression and a mind that’s constantly thinking about the past or to the future. To a child, their mind is always focused on the present moment. That’s because they haven’t started school or started to become conditioned with thinking and planning for the future, as what happens to most people in this world.
This proves that we’re able to have present minds from a young age and so, through meditation, we’re only re-learning how to put our minds back into that mindset, not trying to learn something completely different.
Listening to Your Body
How often do you actually sit, take a step back and listen to your body?
Through meditation, you’re giving yourself the time of day to listen to your body, rather than focusing your mind on external things.
In short, this will allows you to proactively address the problems that your body and mind have so you can be happier, healthy and more present and aware.
