22 – Meditation

Take a deep breath and relax, how easy does that seem? With hectic work schedules and other things going on in our lives, we don’t seem to unwind often. When it came to switching my mind off, I found that it was pretty damn hard.

I’m quite known for being relaxed generally but my brain is constantly busy, so busy it keeps me up at night sometimes but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Lately there has been many things going on at the same time so I felt like stepping back a bit and just switching off, so I attended my first meditation class.

The class started and the instructor told us to close our eyes and get rid of any thoughts. Naturally I started thinking about how I should not be thinking.
“Ok, not thinking… not thinking…. does me thinking about not thinking count as thinking?… ”

Next, take a deep breath.
“Ok, breathing deeply, now what? What is this meant to feel like? Are these breaths making me more relaxed?”

She told us to think of a happy place.
“Beach…? Or maybe food, yes, food… or…?”

The first thing that came to my mind was a beach because that’s the stereotypical thing to think of but is that my happy place? I don’t actually know yet and I guess that’s a part of what brought me to try meditation. Further into the session I did get into it more and was able to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere.

People go on about the scientific facts surrounding meditation. I’m no scientist but without me even being able to meditate properly as it was my first time, I already felt more relaxed. I can definitely tell that if you are able to meditate properly and regularly, you could benefit from it and here are the 5 main reasons why:

1. It lowers stress. Filtering out any negativity or whatever is causing you stress, even for a little while, helps.
2. You learn to have better control over your own brain when you’re focused and aware of your own emotions/moods which could help you even when you’re not meditating.
3. It makes you more spiritual and you get to know yourself better. It means that you decide to observe yourself, your behaviour, your thoughts and your emotions.
4. It can spark your imagination and creativity.
5. Saving the best for last, it can help you sleep better.

I definitely recommend people to try it and for those who live in London, you can attend free meditation classes. An organisation called Innerspace offer encouraging classes and I was excited to discover that they also offer short classes which can be taken during lunchtime in the city. If you’re having a bad day at work, you know where to find them! http://www.innerspace.org.uk/#

Otherwise you can do it on your own, just take a little time off your day for yourself and that’s all that is required. Here is an example video that you can use as a guide and there are plenty more.

I would love to one day visit a retreat in somewhere like Thailand for a week, purely for this purpose.