Meditation Techniques For Beginners

Meditation is a wonderful tool that can have many different benefits for those of us who practice it regularly. At the most basic level it can simply help you to relax, and to let go of all the stresses, frustrations and tensions that you usually carry around with you. Of course this feels great on its own while you are actually meditating, especially if you are often stressed, but regular practice can also help you to stay more relaxed and be less prone to stress even when you are not meditating, which is a much healthier and more useful state of being.

This enhanced relaxation also leads on to the next benefits that you are likley to see - improved concentration. The more stress you carry around with you the more this distracts you and the more it uses up your minds resources of 'thinking power' - like a computer with a bunch of background applications left running that slow everything down and make the computer less effective at running the main program that you want to use it for.

Meditation also has a powerful effect on your health. Tension and stress can be a major cause of illness and general poor health, so regular meditation to reduce tension and stress can help you to dodge those bullets, but even beyond that it can help you to strengthen the body and it's defences.

And all this is before we even get on to the more specialized aspects such as increased understanding of the world you live in, the cultivation of virtues and so on. That is why I think that everyone should learn some basic meditation techniques to use, regardless of your spiritual or philosophical beliefs and preferences.

1.  Tense and Relax - this is a great relaxation exercise that you can use on its own or as the warm up for another technique. All you need to do is to go through your whole body, tensing and then relaxing each part in turn. Start with your toes, then your whole foot, your ankle, and so on right up to the top of your head.
2. Focus on breathing - this is one of the most commonly practiced meditations. Simply focus your attention on your breathing and try to let go of any other thoughts that arise. Start off by doing this with a natural breathing pattern, then try it again counting your breath so that you count 4 as you inhale, 4 as you exhale, and with a pause of 2 in between at both ends.
3. Abdominal Breathingn - to learn how to do this place a hand on your lower abdmomen. As you breath in try to fill your lungs from the bottom up, and as you do so you should feel your lower abdomen expand. As you then breath out your lower abdomen should draw back in.