Meditation – “Just Do it”
Approximate average reading time is 8 minutes.
Doctors have known for a very long time that how we think, feel, and act impacts our physical health. For example, when we are stressed or anxious our bodies will react with heightened heart rates and blood pressure, muscles tighten, our breath quickens. What doctors are beginning to realize is just how impactful our mental and emotional state is to our longer-term health and our longevity. This is one type of mind-body connection.
Pick up a wellness book, and you’ll quickly be able to identify several ways to reconnect or strengthen the mind-body connection, including therapeutic massage, meditation, affirmations, visualization techniques, yoga or tai chi exercise to name a few. Let’s start with meditation!
Meditation is one of the best ways to bring a state of inner calm to your mind and body. It seems so simple: sit or lay down, close your eyes, and clear your mind. Simple enough; but it takes some practice, and it needs to be done with at least some regularity to do it well enough so that you truly achieve a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. Harvard studies have proven that with regular practice, you are training your brain to process stress differently which results in reduced anxiety and depression.
What’s more, there are no rules about what time of day is best. It’s more about carving out the time to do it and making it part of your routine. It doesn’t need to be an hour. Take whatever time you can set aside and follow Nike’s rule: “just do it.” Start by turning off your phone or computer and finding a quiet place to sit or lie down. Your vertebrae should be straight and your knees lower than your heart. Relax your body and close your eyes. Focus your breath. Breathe in gently all the way down to the bottom of your lungs (a.k.a., breathing from the belly) for the count of 5 and then exhale through the mouth in a steady stream of air for a count of 5. Nothing forced. Repeat the breathing exercise at least three or four times and allow yourself to settle into the moment.
Your mind may wander to activities of the day and that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. Focus, instead, on your breathing. Do you remember Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind? “Fiddle dee dee,” “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” “tomorrow is another day?” Be Scarlett. Give yourself permission to think about whatever it is later. You will find as you learn to focus your breathing that you are able to clear the swirling thoughts more and more readily from your mind.
I offer a visualization technique that I stumbled across recently that you may find helpful. The idea is to retreat to a soothing place that you create in your mind as a way of disconnecting from the day. Full attribution for the “guided visit to a country house” belongs to Mark Evans, author of Mind, Body, Spirit published by Barnes & Nobel Books in 2006:
A Guided Visit to a Country House by Mark Evans
Imagine that you are visiting a beautiful country house … a really beautiful old stately home with magnificent sweeping lawns on a warm, sunny, summer’s afternoon. You are standing on the staircase that leads to an entrance hall, one of those wide ceremonial types of staircases. As you look down across the entrance hall you can just glimpse, through the open doors opposite, a gravel drive, and the sunlight on the gravel. It is a beautiful afternoon, and there is no one around to trouble or bother you as you stand alone on that staircase.
Now you are moving down the last ten steps to the hallway, relaxing more and more with each step down.
10 Taking one step down, relaxing and letting go …
9 Taking another step down, feeling at ease …
8 Becoming more relaxed, letting go even more …
7 Just drifting deeper … and deeper … and even deeper down still …
6 Becoming calmer … and calmer … even calmer still …
5 Continuing to relax, continuing to let go and feeling good …
4 Relaxing even more … letting go even more …
3 Sinking deeper … drifting even further into this welcoming relaxed state …
2 Enjoying those good feelings, all those feelings of inner peace and relaxation …
1 Nearly all the way down now, feeling very good … beautifully relaxed and 0.
You are wandering across the hallway now, towards the open doors and the gardens beyond, soaking up the atmosphere of peace and permanence in that lovely old building. You wander out through the doors and down the stone steps outside and find yourself standing on the gravel drive outside, a wide gravel drive that leads down to the entrance gates.
As you stand there you notice the lush green lawns, so flat and well clipped … and there are shrubs and trees, different shades of green and brown against a clear, blue sky … and you can feel the warmth of the sun on your head and shoulders as you enjoy this beautiful summer’s afternoon in this lovely old garden. There are flowerbeds with their splashes of color so carefully arranged and neatly tended. And, there’s no one else about. Nobody needing anything, nobody wanting anything and nobody expecting anything from you, so you can enjoy the peace and serenity and solitude of the afternoon in this beautiful garden that’s been so well looked after for so many, many years.
A little way down on the righthand side of the driveway, you notice an ornamental fishpond. You decide to wander down and have a look at those fish. Sometimes they seem almost to disappear behind the reeds and shadows, but they always reappear with their scales catching the sunlight red, gold, silver or black. And as you watch those fish, your mind becomes even more deeply relaxed.
As I read through Mark Evans’ meditation exercise, I could feel myself becoming calmer. I knew immediately I wanted to visit the garden space in my mind and that I would find peace in it. As you become more practiced with meditation, you will find that by focusing on your breathing you can disconnect without it.
You can do this. The positive impact that meditation can make to your emotional wellbeing—a greater sense of calm, peace, and balance is so worth it. You will find that you are better able to relax and cope with the stresses of everyday life. You will find the tensions that once seemed to burden you disappearing. You’ll experience it in your mind, body, and spirit. One more time for emphasis, “just do it.”
