"Meditation for those who think they can't meditate"
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The first thing is the mindset towards meditation. There's a specific image that people have in their heads.
The sitting upright, cross legged on the floor image with absolutely no thoughts in your head is what people think meditation is.
It is meditation, but it's pretty advanced, & not good for beginners.
Number one, to meditate upright, u need perfect posture, which isn't going to be possible for the average person.
Ppl who do sports or some other athletic activity could sit like this, but not the layman
Secondly, meditation is a practice to learn to control your brain.
You're not going to be able to control your brain from the get go, which is why we have many techniques that exist when you're learning to meditate.
Which is what we're going to get into in this thread
1. BODY
Firstly, to meditate, we do need to have perfect posture.
This is because the first step to learning to meditate is breathing exercises, and those are not possible to perfect without perfect posture (not being hunched in any way).
So, does this mean that we have to sit upright? NO.
We can achieve this effect by lying down. There are actually all these ways that you can lie down.
Which variation works best for you highly depends on your specific breathing pattern, & any issues with breathing u may have
You'll know which one works best for you once you spend a few minutes meditating in these poses. You can judge your own comfort level, and your body instinctively knows.
2) BREATHING.
If you're meditating, you want to be relaxed, which means that for this scenario, diaphragmatic breathing is the best option.
When you breath in, your stomach should rise, and it should fall when you breath out.
There should be no tension in the stomach.
The inverse of this (what you shouldn't do, abdominal breathing) is not moving the stomach, but moving the ribcage.
This means that there is tension in your stomach, and we want total relaxation.
There are some techniques for breathing, depending on what you want to achieve.
Longer inhalations give you more focus, but more stress.
Longer exhalations give you less focus, but more relaxation.
A pause between breaths is also useful for relaxation and awareness.
3) MIND.
We don't need an empty mind, but we also don't want a mind that is flitting from one place to another.
Which is why we tend to use the breathing as a way to focus. The simple thing to do is to count your breaths, but another thing you can do
is count for your inhalations and exhalations. Count to 4 for an inhalation, count to 5 in between, then count to 8 for an exhalation.
This is a simple breathing exercise for relaxation, and it's also great for falling asleep.
Another thing you can do is a body scan. this means to basically systematically focus on each muscle, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes.
This is good to create a deeper awareness of your body.
4) Things to know.
- You will feel bodily discomfort while meditating. Itching, pain, the uncontrollable urge to move.
If you can ignore it, it's for the best, but it might not be easy for beginners to resist.
If you do move for this, it's okay, because
- You will constantly keep failing. Being distracted is human, & it's just going to happen.
Whenever you get distracted and realize that you're distracted, just move back to your breathing/body scan, whatever.
This is part of the learning process, so don't get too frustrated.
- It's okay if you get frustrated. This is a frustrating endevour. Just keep up at it.
Try not being judgemental, but if it happens, there is no need to dwell on it.
Just move back to the original thing that you were doing. No time for self pity, it's just focus on yourself.
- You might fall asleep. This is okay.
Sometimes, meditation makes your body aware that it's sleepy, and the relaxation makes you fall asleep.
That's okay, because your body probably needed that, and the sleep you got was probably really good.
- You might feel tired for days in the beginning.
It's a process, and becoming aware of yourself means becoming aware of the random pain in your body, the sleepiness, the sheer exhaustion that you've had.
This is a phase, and it'll get over with regular practice
- You might feel emotionally fragile after starting to meditate.
This is also okay, and it's a phase. We repress a lot, and meditation brings all of that out to get rid of it. Again, the important thing is to keep at it.
- Regular exercise helps a lot with meditation.
It builds awareness of your body, and exercise helps you to fix any issues that you might notice.
Plus, building a strong core can help you progress into sitting upright for meditation, which brings more awareness to your mind.
- In fact, it's good to do a few stretches beforehand to get your body and mind warmed up and more relaxed.
- Do as much as you can. If that's only 2 minutes or even just 30 seconds, it's okay.
You'll keep improving. Just make sure to do it regularly, and you'll improve for sure.
- For more poses to meditate in, look up "Restorative Yoga Asanas". This is a good resource for now
Thanks for reading. If you find this thread valuable follow me (@wise_chimp) for more content like this. And retweet the first tweet to share with others:👇
"10 Helpful Psychological Hacks that hit different"
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1. How to Give Criticism Without Sounding Like a Jerk?!
Use the sandwich technique. Start by giving positive feedback, then the criticism, and then some positive feedback again!
2. How to get ppl to say Yes to what you want?!
If someone initially says no or "I'm not interested," follow up by asking,
"But would you consider XYZ?" or "Would you be willing to try XYZ?"
This kind of language increases the likelihood that the person will answer positively
"Habits that you need to change as soon as possible"
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1. Sleeping late.
Try to sleep by 11pm daily and wake up early. Minimize lights around you while you sleep to get the best quality sleep.
2. Touching your face.
Dirty fingers. Prevents acne.
3. Smoking.
Smoking releases stress for an hour or so, but long-lasting effect causes diseases. The dirty smoke you blow out will also affect your face and its skin.
4. Neck posture.
Don’t look down on your phone too much. Instead, bring it up to eye level as much as you can.
People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level. This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration
2. Sleep Deprivation
Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate the death of brain cells