How to Practice Body Mindfulness Meditation

Body mindfulness is one of the forty Buddhist meditations. It is a meditation designed both for investigation of the body and its nature, as well as being a basis for concentration building. This meditation is excellent for people who have an anatomical, medical or health interest in the body––familiarity with the body helps in building concentration.

On the other hand, it's often hardest for people who are the most sensitive towards the body, either in regards to its appearance, or because they are uneasy with the body's biological processes. In spite of this dislike, it's recommended that such persons try this style of meditation because they're likely to get the greatest rewards from it. Of course, starting gently and building up experience will help ease newcomers into it. Here's how to start the meditation and develop it further.

Method 1 of 3: Preparation

1.Select a quiet, comfortable place to meditate. Choose an appropriate time when you feel able to meditate, free from distractions. Select a posture comfortable for you––for this meditation, all postures are suitable. (The How to do mindful meditation page describes the four main postures in a little more detail to help you choose one that is practical for you.) Ensure your head and torso are positioned to allow for ease of breathing and awareness. Having a stiff posture will cause discomfort and a too-soft posture will encourage sleepiness.

2.Relax any tension. Spend a few moments developing awareness of what you are doing, such as sitting, breathing and relaxing. Spending a few minutes this way allows the mind to build more focus and awareness as it examines the body for tension. Allowing the body to relax also lets your mind become calm and quietened.

• Give yourself a few minutes for this to occur and let go of distractions, agendas and other subjects of thought.

Method 2 of 3: Meditation Practice

10 tips ... that will improve your golf game

Five local professionals and PGA-certified instructors tell you how to become a better player

Not every player gets to practice before every round with his teacher hovering behind him, watching his swing, checking for malfunctions, making sure everything is working just right. Just those on the PGA Tour.

And not every player has the luxury of going for a lesson or visiting an instructor on a periodic basis, usually because the cost can be prohibitive.

So, how do you become a better player? What is it that you need to know to improve your game and lower your scores, which is the desire of every player who has ever teed a ball, hoisted a club and tried like heck to make the ball go high, straight and, yes, especially long?

Well, short of having a certified PGA teaching professional on your payroll, or taking one to the golf course every time you play, the Post-Gazette has asked five local professionals and PGA-certified instructors to provide a list of the top 10 tips a player should know and work on to become a better player.

Consider it the PG's version of Harvey Penick's "Little Red Book," a compilation of teachings, lessons and musings designed to help players understand the work, preparation and execution that is required to lower scores and make golf a more enjoyable game. Or just less frustrating.

The participating professionals are John Aber, head professional at Allegheny Country Club; Eric Johnson, director of instruction at Oakmont Country Club; Kevin Shields, teaching professional at Rolling Hills CC; Sean Parees, teaching professional at Quicksilver GC and Robert Morris University Island Sports Center; and Jim Cichra, director of instruction at the Robert Morris University Island Sports Center.

The tips are designed for players of all skill level, but primarily are geared toward the average player. And, with the average score in this country over 100, there are plenty of players in search of lessons to improve their game. 

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Everything You Need to Know About Zen Meditation

The art of Zen meditation is a simple one. You don't need any prior experience. The meditation is the experience. You don't need to have read any books about it. The wisdom you receive from a Zen practice is original. It comes from the quiet space in your soul.

You don't even need to know what Zen means. It's not mystical or rare or even necessarily spiritual. It's the simplest and most natural thing in the world.

Zen meditation is not a religious thing. Atheists practice and benefit from it in the same way Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims do.

Zen meditation has nothing to do with where you live or where you're from. You can be anywhere in the world and benefit from it. Peace of mind is not geographically specific.

I believe even animals practice Zen. I have seen cats, monkeys, lizards, dogs, and many other animals behaving as though they were meditating. Not just staring intently at food bowls, but genuinely looking like they were actively seeking the quiet spaces within themselves.

I urge you to give it a try. Sit comfortably in a chair. Gently close your eyes. Bring your attention to the breath moving effortlessly in and out of your body. Feel how it ebbs and flows, like water lapping at the shore of the ocean.

If other thoughts come into your mind, simply acknowledge them and bring your attention back to your breath and how your body feels. Pain, pleasure, comfort, discomfort; just feel them. Experience these sensations without judgement about whether the sensations are good or bad.

Zen allows you to be aware of how your actions affect the world around you. This allows you to be more productive. A cluttered mind is like a cluttered desk. Makes it hard to be fully productive. Meditation clears clutter from your mind. 

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Meditation Techniques for Concentration

Meditation is mainly done for the purpose of relaxation of mind and for gaining good concentration as well. Your level of concentration is sure to be improved if meditation is done on a regular basis.

In the beginning you may feel distracted. But it is very necessary that you have a good focus so that you improve. There are many meditation techniques for concentration that can be implemented.

Focusing on a particular object is very essential to develop concentration. This has to be done for a certain time. Depending on this the techniques for concentration can be mainly divided into 3 types. They are Zazen, which is mainly breathing concentration, Vipassana, which is also known as concentrate to sensations and Tratak, which is also known as concentrate to candle flame.

Zazen

This is a very renowned Buddhist practice of developing concentration and an effective meditation technique.

This technique of meditation is known to be the best for beginners. This helps in focusing on breathing while you count.

The seating posture for this purpose should be such that your spine is erect when you do this form of meditation.

Vipassana

This technique of meditation is also the best for beginners. The physical sensations of body are focus when you do this.

It is known to have enlightened many people when compared to any other technique of meditation. It helps in keeping your mind very cool and you can also control your mind in a very easily.

Tratak

This is known to be a wonderful technique of meditation that helps in providing you with the desired results. It helps you to keeping your mind focused and also greatly assists in enhancing memory as well.

In this technique, candle flame is focused and concentrated. It helps you to come out of distractive thoughts. 

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Meditation and Breathing Exercises to Reduce Stress

How you react to stress determines how it will affect you. Too much stress can be bad for your heart. Learn how to manage your stress with deep breathing and meditation exercises.

Stress can be hard to avoid, but don’t worry if you can’t avoid stress completely—you don’t have to.stress is a normal physical and psychological to both positive and negative situations. Stress itself isn’t necessarily unhealthy—but your reaction to it can be.

How Does Stress Affect Your Heart?

When stress becomes constant and chronic, it can cause an increase in heart rate and blood pressure that may damage the artery walls, the American Heart Association (AHA) reports. Stress that’s left unchecked may contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.

In particular, research has shown that those with “Type A” traits—such as often feeling rushed, irritated, impatient, or angry—have an increased likelihood of developing heart disease. Emotions like anger and hostility cause your body to release stress hormones into your blood. This causes an increase in your heart rate and blood pressure, which makes your heart work harder.

Managing Your Stress Levels

Although the exact link between heart disease and stress is unclear, it’s smart to take steps now to get your stress levels under control. It may be tempting to ask your doctor for medicine to manage stress, but lifestyle changes such as stress management techniques are a much better long-term strategy to lower your stress level.

One of the best ways to help you relax and manage stress is through deep breathing exercises, including meditation. It takes a little practice to make a habit of breathing exercises, but anyone can learn them. You can use them at home or in the office—or anywhere that you need some relief. Try these exercises, recommended by the AHA and Mayo Clinic, to help reduce stress:

Deep Breathing

The Anatomy of a Zen Habit

This post, The Anatomy of a Zen Habit will explain why we have made Zen Habits, (the website) part of our lives and the whys and hows of habit breaking and making.

Through his website and books, Leo Babauta has shown us that a regular person can do extraordinary things. As a husband and father of 6, Babauta quit smoking, lost weight, ran a marathon, adopted a vegetarian diet, turned his blog into a business, tripled his income and quit his job, and through all of that taught us how to do it too.

Zen Habits has more than 210,000 subscribers and even more readers. There is no doubt that Leo worked hard, especially at first to grow his blog. He worked a full time job, while writing morning, noon and night and then some. Even so, there is more to the success of Zen Habits than luck and hard work.

Top 5 Reasons (in my opinion) for Leo Babauta’s Success

1. Leo is relatable.

2. He writes good stuff.

3. He keeps learning and sharing his secrets.

4. The information he provides is helpful & honest.

5. He’s a good guy.

In order to really break down the anatomy of a Zen habit, I went straight to the source. Leo was kind enough to answer a few questions to help break down the importance of Zen, habits and procrastination.

What does Zen even mean?

Leo: It means different things to every person. For me it is simply a way to learn to be present, to live in the moment. That’s a very simple thing, but it turns out it changes everything.

Why are we so attracted to developing better habits?

Leo: There is an optimist in most of us, who despite evidence of failed attempts throughout our lives, believes we can become better. This optimist wants us to be the best version of ourselves that we can possibly become. 

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Tips For Successful Meditation That Can Make You Happier

Meditation actually can make physical changes to your brain wiring and increase function. Using meditation as part of your daily routine will help to reorganize your thinking

A routine involving meditation may be one of the most effective ways to keep your life in balance. Meditation is a proven way of lowering stress, reducing anxiety, relieving depression, and increasing health. Meditation has been shown to improve cognitive functioning, heart health, defense mechanisms functioning, and digestion.

As a matter of fact, meditation can be quite simple should you follow a few tried and true strategies for successful meditation. Each time you meditate you will learn something new about yourself.

Wear Comfortable Clothing

You will need to wear something that is not binding and won’t be distracting. Loose fitting clothes that will permit your body to move and breathe freely are preferred. Loose fitting organic cotton works perfectly.

Find Quiet

Meditation brings energy into us. So it’s necessary thing for meditation to get it done in pin drop silence. Just turn of the all gadgets even your mobile too. Turn off radio, TV, Laptop etc.They might interrupt you during meditation.

Sit Comfortably

In comparison with what many believe meditation isn’t about sitting in an uncomfortable position for some time. Sit comfortably but try the recommended positions, like the lotus, since they are designed to minimize body ache and optimize what you can do to breathe correctly.

Loosen Up

Its little weird to relax, you can scrunch up your hands for your ears and then slowly allow them to fall down. Sometime it helps to help you stress less magically. You are able to relax your body by loosen your cheeks, mouth, arms and shoulders.

Focus on Your Breathing

The important thing to any meditation practice is concentrating on the breath. Controlled breathing stabilizes blood pressure level and increases oxygen flow, thereby increasing alertness. Stay silent and concentrate. 

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How To Fight Depression With Meditation?

Depression is a mental state in which you experience intense feeling of grief, desolation, helplessness and low sense of worth. However sharp and empathetic you are, the situation takes a toll on you, step by step. It makes you suffer from acute anger and hopelessness, and eventually pushes you towards several stress-related disorders. Though, there are several ways such as psychotherapy, medications etc. to deal with depression, studies have found that meditation is the most effective way to heal this. Read further to know more about meditation for depression and its benefits.

What Is Meditation For Depression?

Meditation which is aimed to treat depression is known as ‘Depression Meditation’. It is a practice of focusing on breath which eventually leads to relaxation of the body and mind. This meditation can be easily understood with the help of following set of steps:

• Sit in a straight yet comfortable posture.
• Then, focus on your breathing by counting the number of inhales and exhales silently. It’s a gentle process and not a forceful one.
• You can increase your focus gradually and carry on as long as you feel comfortable. The relaxation attained can elevate your mood and provide great relief.

Usually, Depression Meditation can be practiced in one of the two following ways:

• General Meditation Techniques
• Specific Meditation Techniques

Here is a brief detail of these two types of meditation techniques:

1. General Mediation Techniques:

It starts with entering in a meditative state before your mood declines severely. Depression can cause frequent mood swings depending on its severity. For meditating, you need to wait until your mood lifts just enough to engage in normal activities and you become responsive both physically and mentally.

Focusing is the prime idea of such meditation practices. You should find a silent place with least distraction factors. Drawing curtains, putting ‘DND’ on the door, wearing earplugs or listening to a soothing music can prove to be effective. 

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What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate (And How it Benefits You)

What is Meditation?

There are different ways to meditate, and since it’s such a personal practice there are probably more than any of us know about. There are a couple that are usually focused on heavily in scientific research, though. These are focused-attention, or mindful meditation, which is where you focus on one specific thing—it could be your breathing, a sensation in your body or a particular object outside of you. The point of this type of meditation is to focus strongly on one point and continually bring your attention back to that focal point when it wanders.

The other type of meditation that’s often used in research is open-monitoring meditation. This is where you pay attention to all of the things happening around you—you simply notice everything without reacting.

What Happens in Your Brain When You Meditate

This is where things get really interesting. Using modern technology like fMRI scans, scientists have developed a more thorough understanding of what’s taking place in our brains when we meditate. The overall difference is that our brains stop processing information as actively as they normally would. We start to show a decrease in beta waves, which indicate that our brains are processing information, even after a single 20-minute meditation session if we’ve never tried it before.

In the image below you can see how the beta waves (shown in bright colors on the left) are dramatically reduced during meditation (on the right).

Below is the best explanation I found of what happens in each part of the brain during meditation:

Frontal lobe

This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During meditation, the frontal cortex tends to go offline.

Parietal lobe

This part of the brain processes sensory information about the surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in the parietal lobe slows down.

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How to Make the Most of Your Life: 50 Wise Tips

Life is precious.

But how to make the most of your life?

Here are fifty wise tips by readers on how to make the most of your time on earth.

1. It starts with being present and in the moment. Really appreciating the ‘small’ things in life – the smell of the morning, the feel of flannelette sheets, the warmth of a hug, the gift of a smile. And gratitude.

2. Follow your passion and you can create a life you can be proud of. The formula is really simple: find what makes you useful and happy.

3. Speak for those who have no voice. Make a difference in someone else’s life.

4. Help others, love fully, judge less, and take care of your body and your mind

5. Help your family and make sure they are okay.

6. Heal, if you need to be healed, forgive if you need to forgive, learn to love if that is your lesson.

7. Strive for a healthier, more purposeful life to get to the bones of existence.

8. Listen, breathe, and seek for the answers to who you are and what you are meant to do, as they are unique to all of us.

9. Face and accept pain and hurt, and to act in spite of fear.

10. Discover who we truly are – and live that life.

11. Use your own sense of self to look at others without judgment, see them with clear eyes and exercise compassion.

12. Remember to be present in each moment, see what beautiful thing is here now, no matter how small.

13. Take the time to really look carefully and contemplate.

14. Stay in the present and know we are where we aresupposed to be.

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Zen Meditation Techniques for Men

Meditation is among the most preached of relaxation methods,

often recommended for getting rid of our anxieties and alleviating pain or suffering. However, meditation isn't the simplest of things to practice or gain perfection over, since it requires maintaining absolute focus. Yes, the benefits are immense with greater concentration, lesser anxiety and an overall feeling of wellness. Zen Meditation works upon the principle of gaining enlightenment which essentially means you are elevated to a level where your mind is free from the usual clutter of disturbing ideas. When you are in the Zen Meditation state, you are passing into a state of self-reflection & introspection that helps to create a mind and body synergy.

The difficulties of mastering the art of Zen meditation often makes people quit this rather helpful lifestyle habit. The objective of this article is to help you gain a certain degree of control over Zen Meditation. These tips are easy to understand and follow:

• Set aside a specific time during which you plan to meditate. Just like your body follows a sleeping regimen, your mind will gradually become accustomed to the idea of meditating or concentrating, every day.

• Before trying to focus your mind, try to slow your breathing pattern. Unless, the breathing in under control, you won’t be able to concentrate. Unless, a slower breathing pattern is adopted, your muscles won’t be able to relax. This is the only way to regulate your circulation also so that you don’t sweat too much or feel thirsty and irritated.

• It is better to do some basic stretching before you get seated for your meditation. This helps to loosen the tendons and muscles. This aids better circulation of blood. These factors help to be seated in the same position without feeling bodily pain or discomfort.

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