5 Minutes A Day Keeps The Stress Away
May 14, 2009 by Erin Hill
In my previous post, I talked about the benefits of meditation for stressed out moms, like myself. Now, I know many moms out there are saying, “Great! One more thing to add to my to-do-list!”
But, you only need 5 minutes of meditation a day to gain benefits.
Or, if you’re really pressed for time, you can focus on your breath while driving the kids to and from school, football practice, Girl Scout meetings, etc.
Meditation is about learning how to focus in the present moment to reduce stress. Why does being in the present reduce stress? It keeps you from worrying about the past and how that horrible person cut in front of you at the store, or from worrying about the future and how you’re going to get your son to stop sticking rocks up his nose.
There are two types of meditations that I use: silent meditation and guided meditation. I’ll go into both briefly, but, please try both, to see what works best for you. Keep in mind there are TONS of different ways to meditate, so this is just the beginning if you really like it.
Silent Meditation
Silent meditation is just as it sounds: silent. Which means no kids should be screaming in the background. For me, the best time to do this is just before bed. A lot of people meditate in the morning, though, so do what works for you.
- Get comfortable. You can sit cross-legged, with your legs stretched in front of you, or in a chair. Some people would say not to lie down while meditating, but I say, do whatever you’re most comfortable with.
- Close your eyes. This helps to maintain focus on the breath. Once you’re a pro, you can perform meditation with your eyes open.
- Breathe deeply. Breathe through your nose. To ensure you’re breathing deeply, make sure you can feel your stomach expand with each breath.
- Focus on your breath. This seems to be the hardest part, because thoughts seem to continually pop up. So if you have problems with this, you can mentally think, “in” on the in breath, and “out” on the out breath. You can also mentally count the in breath as “one”, and the out breath as “two”. You will still have thoughts pop up, so just acknowledge them and bring your attention back to your breath.
- Open your eyes once you feel relaxed and centered.
Guided Meditation
I use silent meditation much more than guided meditation. I seem to be able to relax more deeply since I don’t have to visualize or follow along. But I think guided meditations are great for beginners as they can just let go and let someone else help them relax.
Below is nice guided meditation I found. You can find guided meditation CD’s on Amazon as well. Make sure you listen to a snippet, as you want to make sure the person’s voice is soothing.
And don’t worry about doing everything perfectly. As long as you feel better after meditating, and get that warm, tingly, inner-peacey feeling, then it’s working.
photo credit: Drab Makyo
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