So, this article obviously starts with some song lyrics from "Take That" (apologies to the guys!).
For anyone who's read the blog, or been taught by me, you'll know my teaching style is practical, and we often have pretty laid back and amusing sessions. Although I won't ever be singing the above song in sessions (!) it really only does take a minute for this simple meditation & mindfulness exercise. For those of you claiming to be too busy to meditate.....read on...… The "One Minute Time Out" This is great if you're getting started, or for periods when you feel under so much pressure that you feel as if you can't take time out (revising for exams, trying to hit an important work deadline, etc). Set a timer for one minute, or use a watch with a second hand to time this. During the minute, breathe in, breathe out, and count. If you can breathe in & out through your nose, then aim for that, but if you can't, then try in through the nose, out through the mouth. Don't try to control your breath, just let it flow naturally. So, you'll be silently saying "In, Out, One, In, Out, Two" and so on. At the end of the minute you'll have the number of breaths you took. This can then be used in 2 ways: 1) As a meditation/mindfulness training tool. Aim to repeat the exercise regularly, relaxing your breath, so you can get the number of breaths per minute down, really lengthening and relaxing your breath. I always tell people to aim for a 'long' breath and not a 'deep' breath, so we can try and breathe from where we should. Don't forget to breathe from right under your tummy button as you breathe in, really gently pushing the breath up and through your body (think "ribs, chest, throat, nose"), then the same on the 'out' breath - we start to breathe from our chest or our throat if we're anxious, so getting your breath to come from the right place is a good start! NOTE: I've only known anyone get down to 4 breaths per minute, so do be careful with this one! If you have any breathing difficulties, then please do go steady, and make sure you're happy with the length and duration of each breath - listen to your body. 2) At times of crisis If you feel stressed, or like things are getting out of control, then set a timer and see what your number of breaths per minute is. If you're usually on around 8, for example, but are now on 12 breaths per minute, using your breath to see whether things are calm or not is a great way to check in & be present. We take shorter and quicker breaths usually at times of stress, as the "fight or flight" response starts to kick in. You can then choose to sit quietly and try and get the number of breaths down if you need to (per the above). I've even known people break out of stressful meetings for a minute to do this! Whilst locking yourself in the toilet to do this may not be a great option, if you're really at a crisis point & need a few minutes to calm down, it might feel like something you can do quickly, and makes it easy for you to excuse yourself for a short time, no matter what situation you're in. So, no excuses, as honestly, "It only takes a minute"! With practice, you will get the number of breaths down, and so many of my students have given positive feedback on this one that I just had to share it.
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Often during the winter months, we need something calming and restorative. A really lovely winter meditation is just to light a candle, and for the first few moments, just focus on calming your breath and watching the candle flame as it flickers.
Once you feel you have settled into a relaxed pattern of breathing, just focus on following a pattern, where you say (either out loud or silently) the word "breathe", then take a long, relaxed breath in, then as you breathe out, say the word "calm". If you're saying this out loud, try and use the full extent of your out breath to really elongate the word "calm", for a relaxing & restorative session, whilst watching the candle flame (but do have the candle far enough away so that you don't extinguish it with your lovely long out breath!) So, guided meditation is cheating, right? Wrong! Often when people start to try meditation, they think they should sit in silence, focusing on their breath, and worrying whether they are meditating correctly. This really isn't the case.
When starting out, and even when you've been meditating for a long time, a guiding voice can be really useful to keep you on track, help you deal with particular issues, or just act as some focus for your meditation session. These are called "guided meditations", since you have someone either talking to you in class, or as an audio track, so you can listen and move through your meditation with their support. I often get asked by my students, "Can you recommend some guided meditations that don't have a really grating, annoying voice or audio track?!" - clearly not the desired effect when you're trying to focus or relax, depending on the sort of session you intend to have. So, here are some of my recommendations: UCLA Mindfulness Centre Guided Meditations can be found at: http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations These are all different lengths, focusing on the breath, doing a "body scan" where you check in with each part of you, and so on. I've found all of these really great, and use them often myself. "Zen of the day" - a free smartphone app (might be android only though) - this has some free guided meditations, a timer, and lovely inspirational quotes! "Take a break" - another free smartphone app (look for the icon of a lady's head in black and purple!), this has 2 short guided meditations aimed at helping you deal with anxiety and stress. Very soothing. Calm.com - not one that I use, but this website has had positive feedback from many of my students, and many of the meditations on here are free ones. Anandi, the sleep guru. I attended one of her lectures at the Mindful Living Show last year - if you visit her website, you can subscribe to emails that give you some really relaxing guided meditations. The Honest Guys - if you'd just like some soothing music to meditate with, you could do a lot worse than these guys, who post music on You Tube - so just go on the internet, put "The Honest Guys" into You Tube Music, and see what you think! As ever, all of this is really subjective, and what one person thinks is great, someone else may not enjoy. However, since this is an often asked question, I really hope you'll find something for you in the above list. Keep Meditating! MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS
There are a wealth of different types of meditation exercises you can choose from – our classes help you to find what suits you, and will take you through exercises to help with various conditions. Some of these meditations might be focusing on your breath, on an object, or a “guided” meditation, where your teacher will be talking throughout, encouraging you to focus on particular thoughts and issues. Almost all of our sessions incorporate meditation and mindfulness elements, bringing us to our next topic. WHAT IS MINDFULNESS? Given the huge amount of books published on the subject, we could offer a long explanation of this! The short explanation is best given by the founder of modern mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who states: “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non judgmentally”. So, true “mindfulness” meditation is simply sitting with how you feel, right here, right now – not dwelling on the past, or looking ahead and thinking “what if”. It encourages us to live more freely, to move away from negative or destructive thought patterns, and to be more aware of what is happening in our lives, moment by moment. As well as more mindful styles of meditation, our sessions also encourage people to think more about practical mindfulness, and how taking a more mindful approach to everyday life can transform things for the better, for ourselves and others. Mindfulness for business
Having looked in my earlier blog post at how mindfulness might benefit your wider business, you might then be thinking, “How might this benefit me personally at work?” The key points are: Mindfulness Leaves Us Better Equipped To Deal With Stress Since work can often be a huge trigger for stress, mindfulness and meditation are a really positive and effective way to help deal with this. Whilst this won’t be a “magic bullet” to remove all stress from your life, being able to manage stress more effectively, and react to perceived sources of stress more appropriately, are two of the key benefits. This should leave you more able to try and face a day’s work with calmness and presence, even if you don’t feel that your day is a particularly calm one! Mindfulness Leaves Us Better Able To Deal With Criticism Not an easy one, since none us are ever thrilled to receive criticism about our work. However, if we can deal with this mindfully and reflectively, and to know when this might well be warranted, or indeed when it is not, this again helps in tackling work in a more effective way. Mindfulness Makes You A Better Leader We all know that in some organisations, you don’t have to be a manager to be a “leader”. However, whether you have a formal job title, or whether you are someone in the company who inspires others to do better, a “leader” will be someone who has focus, who listens, and who encourages their colleagues not to panic in the face of adversity. We have these qualities in all of us, and they can be further developed with mindfulness and meditation. The most basic way to describe meditation is that we aim to help you enter into a state of relaxed awareness - not sleep, but if you get so relaxed that you nod off a little, we won't judge you!
THE “RELAXATION RESPONSE” - HOW MEDITATION HELPS US This phrase was coined by Dr. Herbert Benson, professor, author, cardiologist, and founder of Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute. The response is defined as your own ability to encourage your body to release chemicals and brain signals that make your muscles and organs slow down and increase blood flow to the brain. In his book The Relaxation Response, Dr. Benson describes the scientific benefits of relaxation, explaining that regular practice of the Relaxation Response can be an effective treatment for a wide range of stress-related disorders. Dr Benson has been given credit for helping to demystify meditation and bring it into the mainstream, as a result of simply referring to the “Relaxation Response”. His medical studies in the 1960’s and 1970’s helped to show that meditation promotes better health, especially in people with hypertension – and that you didn’t need to have any significant meditation experience to gain this benefit. His studies brought into popular awareness the realisation that people who meditate regularly can enjoy lower stress levels, increased wellbeing, and were able to lower their resting heart rate and blood pressure levels, simply through meditation. The Relaxation Response is the opposite reaction to the “fight or flight” response, so it counters the effects on our bodies of stress. Our bodies go into “fight or flight” when we believe we are under excessive pressure; our sympathetic nervous system creates changes in our bodies, such as increased blood pressure, heart rate and breathing rate, and so on – all the things that happen when our body thinks we are trying to fight off or flee from a stressful or apparently “dangerous” situation. The “fight or flight” response can cause muscle tension, headaches, stomach upsets, a feeling of a racing heartbeat, and shallow, quickened breath. It also makes our bodies release stress hormones, which can be harmful if secreted often, and can contribute to medical conditions such as heart disease, adrenal fatigue, and so on. The Relaxation Response aims to bring our bodies back to their pre-stress levels, helping us to enter a state of deep relaxation, which triggers our bodies to help us heal. Research has shown that relaxation exercises such as meditation can help any health problem that is made worse by chronic stress, such as fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal problems, insomnia, high blood pressure (hypertension) anxiety disorders, and so on. So, come and join us at Modern Meditation for the "Relaxation Response"! You may have seen articles on how companies such as Facebook and Google are embracing meditation and mindfulness training for their staff, but wondered how this might benefit your business. There are those in the corporate world who dismiss the apparent popularity of what they might view as “McMindfulness” - so bulk packaging of a mindfulness “product” - but if done well, with an experienced teacher, mindfulness can effect large changes on a personal level, offering benefits at work and home. Some of the key points are: Mindfulness Spreads We’ve all had one of those frantic days, where just spending time with someone in the office who you know has a calm outlook, is enough to make you feel more calm and more at ease about the work issues you have to deal with. In the same way that it only takes one frantic person in a workplace to spread panic and unsettle people, the more calm and mindful you can encourage your staff to be, the more this will spread. Mindfulness Improves Focus As more offices are open plan, this is a huge help. Mindfulness can help us “tune out” of what’s going on around us, and focus single-mindedly on the one task in front of us. It is effectively the opposite of multi-tasking; encouraging everyone to do one thing well, rather than attempt to do several things at once, and badly. Mindfulness Makes You A Better Listener We’ve probably all had those meetings at work. You know, where you get called in to discuss something, and the person you’re meeting with then spends time also taking calls, checking their emails, etc. You don’t then feel that anything gets resolved, or that you’ve been truly listened to. A more mindful approach makes those in the workplace feel valued and respected, and can result in more productive meetings/conferences. Relationships with customers The same goes for meetings with customers/clients; if your mind is jumping to the next thing you have to do, they won’t feel they’re getting your full attention – mainly because they’re not! You may also miss things like changes in their tone or manner, which might otherwise alert you to potential issues. Meditation and mindfulness increase our ability to focus, thereby making us better listeners, and more able to respond appropriately. Contact us for more information on corporate teaching; for more details, see the corporate page of the website, and the contact page - let us help your company take the first step to doing business more mindfully! Whether young or old, we still all feel under stress when we have to take an exam.
As we approach the end of the school and university year, it doesn’t matter whether you’re taking your first set of formal exams, or have done this many times before, it is still all too easy for that sense of butterflies in the stomach to start when you turn over the test paper! So, here are some quick and mindful tips from Modern Meditation to help you through exam stress.
“In, out, pause”. You can either sit and meditate for a while, eyes closed, doing this, or just take some time in the moments before you enter the exam room to calm yourself with this. Use it to take a short break from your revision too! As you breathe in, just silently say the word “in” - as you breathe out, say to yourself “out”, and then silently say “pause” and just hold for a moment before you take your next breath. Try and do this gently, without looking to control your breath, safe and certain in the knowledge that the next breath will come naturally. Your breath should slow and relax, along with the rest of your body. Let me tell you the story of George and the bike.
The traditional story is of George and the dragon, I know, but bear with me...... Often, its hard to persuade people that mindfulness is a real concept, that we can use practically in everyday life, it isn't just the time we spend in meditation. Those who come to my classes know I have a practical mindset, and like to encourage mindfulness to be something we use in everyday life. A great example cropped up recently........ One of my work colleagues left the office, with a couple of us, at the end of the day. He found his quite expensive bike, in the public bike rack, with a great big lock on it, and a mobile telephone number to call. His worry, as was ours, was that he was going to be faced with someone asking him for money to unlock his bike, so we waited whilst he called the number. We could hear him chatting, and then giving us a "thumbs up" to be on our way. Going into the office the next day, we wondered what had happened. Turns out that George, who had left his mobile number, is also a keen cyclist. Our work colleague had padlocked his bike in the morning to....nothing! George, locking his bike nearby, had noticed this, and since he had a spare lock, had put it on someone else's bike to stop it being stolen. George could easily not have noticed this in his rush to get to work, or decided not to do anything helpful. He chose to be mindfully aware of his surroundings, and in doing so, to help others. So, wherever you are George, you have an office of people who think you are a "top bloke", and a mindfulness based meditation teacher, who is using you as a great example of mindfulness in action! Mindfulness based meditation is a way of connecting with yourself.
We lead busy lives, and don’t always focus on what we are doing; for example, have you ever found yourself eating a chocolate bar, then realising you’ve got to the end of it without even really noticing? Often, we are “not present”; we fail to notice good things in our lives, we fail to listen to our bodies, or we overwhelm ourselves with feelings of stress, anxiety, worry and self-criticism. Meditation won’t take away life’s pressures, but it can help you to respond in a calmer manner, helping heart, head and body. It helps us to gain clarity, insight and understanding. Practising mindfulness allows us to be fully present in our life and work, and helps to improve our quality of life. Sometimes, we talk about the “A B C” of mindfulness:
The benefits of mindfulness include helping you to:
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