Top 5 Meditation Techniques

After a tiring day of doing some responsibilities and work, you would, of course, feel some pain somewhere in your body. Probably your back, head, or along your shoulders and hips. You might also feel stressed because you have been overworking yourself, and sleep won’t probably help you relieve those stress at all! Maybe trying some meditation would help you relieve stress, and everyone needs to meditate from time to time. Meditation can help us bring a sense of calm and balance that might even benefit our emotional well-being aside from our mental well-being. 

‍Meditation gives us a lot of benefits, such as (1) Helping us reduce stress, (2) it helps us to be productive, (3) It helps us to stay focused on what we do, (4) It improves our relationship with other people, and lastly meditation regulates our everyday mood! To begin with meditation, you should also know the different techniques to know which is suitable for you. Here are some different meditation techniques that might help you choose what can be applicable for you:

1. Spiritual Meditation

Believe it or not; Spiritual Meditation is already a common meditation for almost everyone worldwide. Spiritual meditation can be a form of prayer by using your whole body. According to JustDisciple, the difference between prayer and meditation is that prayer makes your requests known to God and is open to him. Meditation lets you be known to God and listen to what He says. Spiritual Meditation involves silence while reflecting, praying the rosary, reading the bible, or just resting in your comfortable position, being aware that you are doing some spiritual meditation.

2. Yoga Meditation 

Another common or well-known meditation is yoga, which involves different positions and breathing exercises. Yoga can also be known as an ancient spiritual exercise since this can be traced back 5,000 years ago in Northern India. According to yogigo, Yoga meditation has eight limbs which are the following:

• Yama
• Niyama
• Asana
• Pranayama
• Pratyahara
• Dharana
• Dhyana
• Samadhi-Spiritual Absorption

According to Samsara, the most known Yoga are the Hatha/Asana and Vinyasa Yoga, commonly used in gyms or homes. When it comes to beginning Yoga, you can use some Free and Freemium apps from the App Store if you want to begin comfortably in your own home. Starting at a nearby gym with Yoga exercises is not a problem as this will also help you meditate and interact with other people creating a new circle of friends for you!

3. Loving-Kindness Meditation

This meditation is also known as Metta Meditation, and it is a type of meditation where the main goal is to practice being kind to others and yourself! Metta Meditation is a traditional Buddhist practice. Metta meditation’s goal is to develop more positive emotions towards your surroundings, such as:

• Joy
• Trust
• Love
• Gratitude
• Happiness
• Appreciation, and;
• Compassion

Loving-Kindness Meditation is also composed of words of affirmation! An example of some of the words of affirmation from the verywellmind site is: ‘May I be safe’ and ‘May I be healthy. There are a lot of them here in the verywellmind site, and here is the link for a step by step guide on how to do the loving-kindness meditation with audios and words of affirmation included:

https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/loving_kindness_meditation

4. Transcendental Meditation

According to WebMD, Transcendental Meditation is a technique to avoid unnecessary or distracting thoughts to promote relaxed awareness. When it comes to difference between other meditations, Transcendental meditation doesn’t require focus or forced mental concentration. This type of meditation also involves mantra or repeating words to remain calm and relaxed while sitting down with your eyes closed. Here are the links for a step by step guide on how to do Transcendental Meditation and its benefits for a person’s well-being:

https://www.medicinenet.com/how_do_you_do_transcendental_meditation/article.htm
https://www.byrdie.com/transcendental-meditation-5112916

5. Chanting Meditation

Chanting Meditation, also known as Mantra Meditation, originated from Buddhism. According to HealthLine, the word mantra is a Sanskrit term, with “man” meaning “mind” and “tra” meaning “release,” you can say that Chanting Meditation aims to release what’s in the person’s mind when they’re having a hard time concentrating. This type of meditation also has some benefits like increased awareness, reduced stress, a greater sense of calm, increased self-compassion, and a more positive outlook. To begin with, chanting meditation, here are some step by step links about it for beginners:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbVh43mTHF4
https://www.healthline.com/health/mantra-meditation
https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/mantra-meditation/

Key Takeaway:

Learning new things can benefit us, even the people surrounding us. Another benefit that we can do is influence the people around us and help them discover things as we had done to ourselves. Being able to rest also gives us the benefit to focus on the essential things that we need to finish, and we shouldn’t feel any guilt when it comes to taking care of ourselves.,