Simple Meditative Practices to Help You Relax 

by Demi

Looking for Simple Meditative Practices to Help You Relax?

Meditation has become a popular supplement to traditional medicine. And for a good reason too. It’s a personal practice that provides an effective means to train your mind and has numerous benefits to the body.

These benefits range from reducing stress symptoms to improving your body’s immunity to diseases and providing an effective relaxation response. Meditation also helps lower blood pressure, slow respiration rate, reduce anxiety, lower blood cortisol levels and improve blood circulation, to name a few.

Although you can do meditation in as little as five minutes, there are many techniques to choose from. If you’ve never tried out meditating, you might get lost trying to figure out what works best, which can be intimidating. So, to make your meditation journey easy, we’re providing you with some standard meditative practices that are best for newbies. And they’re easy to learn too.

 

  • Mindfulness

As one of the simplest and most common meditation practices, mindfulness doesn’t require any unique technique. However, it works better when you practice it daily. To practice, all you have to do is find a quiet space to sit or lie comfortably and begin to focus your attention on inhaling and exhaling gently. You can do this for about 10-20 minutes daily. This type of meditation allows you to be fully focused and aware of what you’re doing without being overwhelmed by your thoughts and feelings or what is happening around you. The primary aim of this technique is to rest your mind while improving your focus and memory. It’s one of the top Meditative Practices to Help You Relax.

  • Mantra Meditation

Mantra meditation involves repeating words or sentences, known as a mantra, as a point of focus to hone awareness. The mantra could be one word like love or healing. Or a phrase like which can be said aloud or hummed quietly. Many cultures are known for using mantras such as Aham Prema, which means “I am love,” but the Buddhists are the most well-known for using them. You can devise your meditation chant if you’re trying out the mantra technique. You can also link your mantra with your breath to give your mind two targets to focus on. You can say “SO” when you inhale and “HUM” when you exhale to practice this technique. But sure, you sit in a quiet place and try to center yourself while repeating your chant.

  • Breath Awareness Meditation

The simple act of breathing or taking deep breaths always positively affects us. Deep breathing is a form of meditation that helps relax our nervous system, reduce anxiety, and improve heart health. Breath awareness meditation involves paying attention to how our breath comes in and out of our bodies, using breathing exercises as the object of focus. There are five types of breath awareness meditation, which are all suited to help you achieve the same results. The first is Diaphragm breathing (Kundalini), a controlled breathing technique that allows energy to move in your body from the bottom of your lungs.

Next is Alternate nostril breathing, which is also a form of controlled breathing that involves breathing through one nostril at a time alternately while using one hand to close the other. Then, we have “Breathing until the breath is soft.” And this is meditative breathing that involves observing the breath and uniting it with the mind until the breath is quiet.   There is also the Shamatha which means breathing as is. This common meditative breathing practice is often used by new meditators and involves resetting the breath till it brings you back to the present. Finally, there is Intermittent Breath Retention which involves pausing your breath for a short time while intermittently exhaling and inhaling. Apart from these types, a simple breathing technique includes breathing in through your nose for 4 seconds, holding your breath for about 8 seconds, then exhaling through your mouth for 8 seconds. You can repeat this cycle as many times as possible. Taking deep breaths remains one of the best simple meditative practices to help You relax.

  • Focus Meditation

When we find it hard to concentrate, we’re told to focus all our attention on an object or a spot. By doing this, we zero in on the minute details of the thing, examining it thoroughly, so much that we don’t see anything else. Little did we know that this was a very effective form of meditation and relaxation. Focus meditation involves focusing on an object, sound, or sensation to stay in the present and enhance self-awareness. To practice this technique, you need to find a quiet spot free from distractions, pick a target you can focus on, sit in a good position keeping your back straight, relax your body by breathing deeply through your stomach, and then shift your concentration to your focus point.

  • Mindful Walking Meditation

This type of meditation combines the physical state of walking with the mindfulness of meditation. This meditation allows you to center yourself by focusing on your mind and body while pacing around from one point to another in a quiet place. You can walk at any speed you like and determine the length of your sessions. Walking meditation focuses on your body’s physical movements and mental clarity. It also helps to relax and calm the mind and is perfect for people who find it hard to sit still for regular meditation practice.

 

AUTHOR’S BIO – 

Naomi Oseni is an irreverent freelance writer who covers lifestyle and tech-related topics. When she isn’t using her words to help people live a stress-free life, she’s serving as an event assistant with Tix Africa.

Contact Naomi for content-related gigs and projects via email – naomioshoke@gmail.com

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