Why to start meditation during lock-down.

Meditation has been practised for 1000s of years. But its become quite trendy in the last few years. And I think it's for good reason, the general population are seeing meditation not just as a spiritual or hippy thing but something everyone can benefit from. Highly successful people who meditate; Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, Jeff Weiner CEO of LinkedIn, Steve Jobs, Arnie, Clint Eastwood, Russell Brand, Bill Gates the list goes on. What may have started as a tool for spritual enlightenment has been to have significant scientific benefits on the human brain.

Photo taken from Tess Callahan on Twitter

Benefits

Meditation is proven to improve sleep and reduce stress so some really good reasons to start meditating in this lock-down. It also increases focus. With all the distractions when you're trying to work from home or homeschool the kids (or do both simultaneously) focus and less stress is definitely needed!!

Have you ever meditated? If not why not? From my conversations with people the reason they haven't is often because they don't think they can "switch their brains off" But switching your brain off completely is impossible, and not actually necessary. Like with anything meditation takes practice but doing it for just 5-10 mins a day for a week, would get you feeling like you can do it. Another reason people have told me they can't meditate is because they don't have time. But like I mentioned doing it for just 5-10 minutes a day is beneficial.

How to get started

Youtube has loads of free meditations to get you started, there's also lots of places live streaming meditations on their Facebook and Instagram. But I would highly recommend the Insight Timer app. My friend introduced me to this a little while ago, because it tracks your progress so you can see how many times you've meditated, for how long and also how many consecutive days.

Whether you use an app or youtube you can get plain meditation music or a guided meditation where someone talks you through. When I first started meditating a few years ago I found the guided meditations really good for keeping my focus throughout. Listen to a few before you start to choose a good one, you don't want one where the persons voice is really annoying!

You will see there's ones for everything; morning meditations, deep sleep, reduce anxiety, gratitude, healing, stress, relaxation. Choose one that suits you and your mindset.

Then set up your space; find somewhere that's quiet, difficult in lock-down when everyone's in the damn house!! Maybe doing it at night time when everyone's in bed would work. If you want to light candles or incense do, I like it when my room is warm,or sometimes doing it in the garden is perfect.

I would suggest using headphones as it helps you shut off.

Start with a 10 min one and then if you can do longer do it next time or when you're ready.

I challenge you to meditate for just 10 minutes a day for a week, and you will definitely feel better for it.

Let me know how you get on, and I can give you any further tips. Happy meditating y'all, Peace Out.