Why Meditate?

Meditation can be used to purge anger, overcome prejudice, reduce tension, increase sensitivity, and resolve conflicts. Extensive research conducted on the use of meditation demonstrates its effectiveness in reducing stress and promoting health in your personal life. In as little as three minutes, stress can be switched from "overdrive" to "off." Short meditations often extend to 10 or 20 minutes once you realize how good it feels to experience total relaxation.

There are many different types of meditation, but virtually all forms take you to the same place. Two types of meditation are widely practiced:

1. Mindfulness (or Zen) meditation - Mindfulness is an activity you can practice any time, anywhere. In this method, you use meditation as a way to work with the forces in your life to understand and find meaning in them. The goal is to put yourself in a meditative state while working or doing any action. Once you begin to feel more confident in your ability to handle the situations you encounter, you make better choices.

2. Transcendental meditation or TM - TM requires you to repeat a mantra for 20 minutes, twice daily, while sitting quietly in a chair with your eyes closed. This technique’s effectiveness in reducing anxiety and improving creativity and innovation is well-documented by scientific studies.

Meditation assumes that the mind manufactures stress because it lacks information necessary to solve problems it detects. You can use meditation to gain perspective and control of the mind. When you encounter a stressful situation, you accept that you can’t control your reaction and then it is no longer stressful. Meditation provides you with a centering technique that allows you to free yourself from stereotypical responses. Problems become smaller as you become more centered and focused. It becomes easier to gain perspective and see how you would like to influence the outcome of a situation. You can then exercise that influence consciously, with a goal and a plan. You can grasp the problem much more quickly and solve it much more creatively.

Meditation requires discipline. While you can see glimpses of meditation’s benefits very quickly, it is consistent long-term practice that produces lasting transformation. You must place a priority on it because the benefits of regular meditation far outweigh the costs. It reduces stress, improves health, creates emotional stability, and increases concentration. Possibly the most important thing you gain, however, is patience. And I think we could all agree that patience is a virtue!

In my own experience, I have found meditation necessary for maintaining that state of mind that allows me to rise above the situation as it appears. Disciplined meditation has helped me create an automatic response to anxiety as it arises, allowing me to move through it quickly. It feels more natural to flow with problems to arrive at a solution than to force a resolution that may not be in anyone’s best interests. With meditation, I can see the opportunity in whatever presents itself.

Source: MysticalPlanet.com's Why? newsletter; written by Gala Gorman