Five Best Mindful Meditation Practices to Boost Mental Health
Meditation is a fundamental building block of success for entrepreneurs, elite athletes, comedians, and more for thousands of years. It’s what pushes people to rise above the “norm” and attain a high status that others marvel at.
This simple but largely overlooked habit is making a rebound in America today, as Americans’ mental health has been in steady decline in recent years. Mindful meditation stands to benefit people now more than ever. With the technological world we live in, taking a break from the screen is crucial to your mental health.
Benefits of Meditation
Meditation works by allowing you to be mindful and aware, stabilizing thoughts and emotions in a world full of stimulation and instant gratification.
Benefits to meditation include:
Improved sleep
Higher awareness
Increased creativity
Increase in kindness
Longer attention span
Improved outlook on life
Reduced negative thoughts
Stress and pain management
Reduced anxiety and depression
Different meditation techniques offer different benefits, but they all have something to offer. If you’re looking to start meditating but don’t know how to start, start here. Below you’ll find five mindful meditation techniques that will dramatically improve your mental health.
1. Focusing on the Breath
Focusing on the breath is the most basic form of meditation, but it’s also the most effective. To get started, find a comfortable position.
You can be sitting in a chair in your dining room.
You could be sitting down cross-legged on your bed.
You can be laying down on a blanket in the park.
You can even be walking along the beach with your toes in the sand.
It doesn’t even matter if your eyes are open or closed.
Take a few deep breaths and become aware of the sensation of breathing. Find something to focus on as you continue to breathe. Perhaps you focus on the rise and fall of your chest, or the sound of your rhythmic breath. Another popular option is to focus on the rush of air tickling the end of your nose.
Whatever you decide, focus on that and keep your attention on it. Be mindful of the breath and don’t force it- just watch it come and go naturally.
It’s safe to say that within 30 seconds, you’re likely to be side-tracked by thoughts or emotions. That’s OK. The essence of meditation is to focus on the breath, eventually become distracted, realize you’ve been distracted, then come back to focusing on your breath.
Most beginners find 10 minutes of meditation a day to be an easy habit to maintain. To build a good habit, it’s helpful to find a guided meditation video such as this:
2. Be Aware of Your Surroundings
Of all the meditation styles, this one is perhaps the most engaging and mentally stimulating. After taking a few seconds to focus on your breath, expand your awareness to your immediate surroundings.
If you’re in your room, become aware of the lights on the walls or the birds singing outside your window.
If you’re in a chair, become aware of the sensation of sitting, with the chair holding up your weight.
If you’re on a walk, be mindful of the gravel, dirt or concrete crunching underneath your feet.
Don’t focus on just one aspect of your senses, but become immersed in all of them all at once. Be like a sponge and absorb all the sensory information floating, vibrating, and permeating you and the space around you.
As with all meditation practices, your mind is going to drift off, and eventually you’ll be thinking about what you’re having for dinner tonight.
Again, this is perfectly fine. There’s no reason to have negative thoughts at yourself for becoming distracted. These thoughts are also an appearance in this space. Just watch where the thought goes and come back to being aware of your surroundings. You know your mind will eventually get side-tracked, and that’s why you meditate- to train your mind.
3. Sending and Receiving Love
This meditation technique has given me very positive results. This practice goes by the name ‘metta’, also known as loving-kindness meditation.
Love for Others
The purpose of this practice is to spread love and kindness to others. It can be flexible to your liking, but the basics are this: bring to mind someone that’s easy for you to love. This can be anyone, but likely it’ll be a friend or family member.
Once you have this person in mind, start “sending” love to them in a telepathic way. Sending love and kindness can be done in any fashion you prefer, but it’s easy to begin with prayer or through repeated messages such as “May you be happy” and “May you be free from suffering.”
Love for Yourself
After about five minutes, direct the love you’ve been sending outward, inward. Love yourself.
This meditation allows you to openly feel compassion and love. Negative emotions build up and clog your emotional capacity for loving the world around you, especially if you aren’t grateful for life already.
Release all tension and love yourself like you would if you were a small child.
4. Look for Who's Looking
This is the most advanced mindful meditation practice from this list, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it.
To start, pay attention to your breath. Then, quickly look for the person who’s looking through your eyes. Can you pinpoint the seat of attention? Try and find the sensation in your body where consciousness comes from.
This meditation should be done in a quick manner- it’s not something that takes time to build up to.
The basic concept of this practice is to realize there’s no center to your conscious attention. You’ve been taught consciousness comes from the brain, but where is it exactly? Can you feel it or see it? Where is your awareness specifically emanating from? Soon you realize the only thing that really exists is consciousness and its contents. Simply rest in the newfound space that’s created when you look for who’s looking.
This space you cultivate is space that you can evaluate your thoughts in. Most people aren’t aware of where their thinking occurs; they act and react to outside stimuli without insight or evaluation of their present thoughts. This practice allows you to set aside your knee-jerk reactions and observe them objectively.
Instead of reacting on emotional whims, you can make decisions based on clear, rational thinking.
5. Meditation While Walking/Driving
Meditation doesn’t have to take place in a quiet room by yourself. Mindful meditation should be employed in everyday life while you do everyday activities. One of the best ways to meditate is while you’re on the move, whether you’re on foot or behind the wheel.
Behind the Wheel
“Meditating behind the wheel? That doesn’t sound very safe.”
Although it should go without saying, you must meditate with your eyes open when you’re moving!
The way to meditate while driving is to be hyper-aware of everything going on around you. Take note of the cars in front and behind you,. Notice how fast they’re going. Be aware of the rapidly approaching sports car swerving in and out of lanes on the highway. Notice that an old lady just started to cross the street three blocks ahead, and that you’ll need to slow down.
As you become more aware of your surroundings, your anxiety levels vanish. You feel more natural behind the wheel. When you feel natural, you’re more confident and in control of your vehicle- which is good for you and everyone else!
On a Walk
A walk in nature surrounded by trees and small streams is unparalleled for moving meditation, but taking a walk through the city can be just as insightful.
Similar to when you’re driving, you want to become aware of everything going on around you. What are you sensing? Do you hear squirrels scurrying throughout the trees? Or do you hear airplanes flying overhead? Do you see a beautiful arrangement of light dancing between the leaves of the swaying trees, or do you see a throng of people mingling on a busy street corner?
No matter where you are or what you’re doing, it’s easy to apply the principles of meditation in your everyday life.
Conclusion
Mental health is a huge and important topic as technology takes over our lives more and more every day. As mindful meditation becomes a part of your life, calming sensations wash over you as your awareness and confidence becomes an integral part of life.
Mindful meditation has a few different techniques to it, and practicing different kinds will give you different insights. Set aside 10 minutes and meditate by:
Focusing on the breath
Focusing on awareness
Sending and receiving love
Looking for who’s looking
Going for a walk or a drive
P.S. To make meditation a daily habit, download the meditation app by Sam Harris called Waking Up. It’s the best guided meditation app I’ve used by far, and I highly recommend it.
