I meditate every day and have done so for the last 5 years. Mediation is recognised by ancient wisdom and by modern science as a hugely beneficial practice. My daily practice has immensely helped me in my resilience, creativity, and ability to focus. Meditation has quite simply helped me achieve more in life, and it has also benefited my family, friends, and colleagues by making me a more accessible and amiable person.
Here are my top tips for successful meditation.
- Meditate in a single ten-minute session each day
- Meditate at the same time each day, in a place where you are unlikely to be disturbed
- Use one of the many free guided meditations widely available on the internet and YouTube
- If you find yourself falling asleep during your meditation, it means one thing, you are not getting enough sleep, and you need to address this
- Do not wait for a crisis in your life to begin your meditation practice. Begin now and build up your routine to enhance your resilience, creativity, concentration and amiability
- Action conquers fear. Start today
- The way to get started is to quit talking and begin meditating
My must-read book on meditation is Andy Puddicombe’s The Headspace Guide to… Mindfulness & Meditation: 10 minutes can make all the difference. The Headspace app is also terrific, and there is even a Netflix series from Headspace on how to start a daily practice.
For the more mystical minded, Deepak Chopra has free guided daily mediations on his YouTube channel. The Chopra Well.
Meditation is a tool and an experience for observing the mind, and it has given me some realisation into how ridiculous and random my thought process can be. I now understand that I cannot control the thoughts that run amok in my mind, but I can control how I relate to this noise. My thoughts are just thoughts, my mind replaying all the data I have experienced in a somewhat incoherent and often unhelpful way.
My advice is to start meditating today; you might be surprised by the results.