Meditation is an ancient practice. It has been used for thousands of years to help people develop a sense of calm, stability and awareness in their day to day lives.
While meditation has been, and still is a tool used in many different philosophies and religions, it does not require the practitioner to follow any specific doctrine. It is simply a tool that is used to develop heightened awareness and lower stress.
In our modern world today we’re surrounded by distraction, TV, phones, adverts, computers and radio. All of these things are competing for our attention and trying to tell us what to buy, what to think, what to fear, and how to live.
It can become overwhelming.
Mediation is a practice that calms this chaotic surface and lets us see clearly in a world that so easily makes life confusing.
Here are 5 types of meditation that can help you find tranquillity in chaos, and clam in confusion.
1. LOVING KINDNESS MEDITATION
This is also called Metta meditation. The purpose of this meditation is to develop a heightened affinity towards love, kindness, gratitude and compassion. This attitude will spread to oneself, strangers, and even enemies.
The practice is centred around deep breathing. While in meditation you will focus on a target which could be a friend, a family member, yourself, the world, or an enemy, and send them messages of loving kindness.
The messages are repeated over and over until you feel more compassionate and loving towards your focused target.
These messages can include wishing them good fortune, health, achievement and peace of mind. It can also include thoughts of drawing out pain from them and absorbing it yourself, to help lessen their suffering.
Benefits of this kind of meditation include:
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Anger towards the world, the self and others
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Selfishness
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Conflict between yourself and people
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Jealousy and resentment
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Bitterness
2. BODY SCANNING
This meditation is sometimes called progressive relaxation. The purpose of this kind of meditation is to scan the body from head to toe to find regions of tightness, stress, tension, discomfort, and release these feelings to achieve relaxation.
The meditation begins with the breath. Once you are relaxed you start at the very top of the head and imagine yourself slowly scanning down (like a barcode scanner). At each new body part you try and notice how it feels, and if there is any tension present. If you find it, simply release and relax before moving on to the next area of the body.
This meditation promoted tension release and feelings of relaxation. We often hold stress in our muscles and it stays there until we consciously release it. The slow relaxation of this meditation also helps people fall asleep.
3. MINDFULNESS MEDITATION:
This meditation practice is probably the most common and has its focus on awareness of the present moment, surroundings and mental state.
The purpose with mindfulness meditation is to set your awareness on what can be observed now, in the present moment.
Being present means that during mindfulness meditation we do not dwell on the past or fear the future, we are just aware of our surroundings, whether that be the sounds around us, the feeling of the body, or the breath.
It’s important to note that during this awareness we should make an effort not to judge what we observe, but to be indifferent. This means that we may hear an annoying sound or thought, however it is what it is, the thing that makes it annoying is our judgement.
A benefit of this type of meditation is that we can practice it anywhere. Whether we’re at work, on our commute, at home, waiting in line, we can always focus our awareness on the sounds, feelings and senses of our surroundings.
Mindfulness meditation is the most common form of practice, as such, it has had the most amount of research. Some of the benefits are:
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Improvement in memory
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Improvement in focus
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Less stress
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Less anxiety
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Better sleep
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More stable mood
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Lower blood pressure
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Lower cortisol
4. BREATH MEDITATION
Breath meditation is a subset of mindfulness meditation. It encourages the practitioner to set a singular focus on the experience of breathing, often counting on the inhalation and the exhalation.
The benefit of this meditation is that we will always have our breath to focus on, so we can practice wherever we choose. As we focus on the breathing, take focus from the mental chatter and thoughts that normally rush through our minds and cause us to become distracted, confused, chaotic or anxious.
5. TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION
This type of meditation is similar to breath meditation. The practitioner is seated while focusing on their breathing, however they go one step further and attempt to raise their awareness above its normal state.
During this type of meditation the practitioner may simply focus on the breath, or repeat a string of words, or mantra.
Over the course of the meditation the practitioner will experience heightened levels of mindfulness and awareness, eventually attaining a mental state in which thoughts and distractions cannot enter.
THE GOAL OF MEDITATION:
Ultimately the goal of your meditation is up to you. We all have different causes of stress, different lives, thoughts, schedules and responsibilities. Meditation is a practice that can be moulded to fit you. There is no right or wrong way of doing it.
Whichever method you choose to use, the practice is simply a way for us to live better, less stressed, and more aware lives.
Enjoy!
