Meditation made easy: 5 practices to try daily
What's the story
Meditation can improve mental clarity, alleviate stress, and promote holistic well-being.
If you're a beginner at meditation, starting with simple techniques can make the whole process easier and less daunting.
Here's a list of five simple meditation practices that you can easily incorporate into your daily lives.
Each method will help you focus your minds and find inner peace without prior experience or knowledge.
Breathing
Focused breathing technique
One of the simplest forms of meditation is focused breathing.
Here, you can simply sit comfortably and focus on your breath flowing in and out of your body.
This practice calms the mind by directing attention away from distracting thoughts.
Beginners can start with just five minutes a day, gradually extending the duration as they get comfortable with staying focused.
Body awareness
Body scan meditation
Body scan meditation encourages you to be aware of what you feel in your body.
Practitioners lie down or sit comfortably and then mentally scan each part of their body from head to toe.
They notice any tension or discomfort without judgment.
This technique promotes relaxation and helps you be more attuned to your physical state. It makes an excellent choice for stress relief.
Walking meditation
Mindfulness walking
Essentially, mindfulness walking marries movement with meditation by concentrating on every step while on a walk.
Practitioners observe how their feet press against the ground and sense the rhythm of their steps, mindful of their surroundings but not getting distracted by them.
This one's particularly ideal for those who have a hard time sitting still but still wish to benefit from mindfulness.
Visualization
Guided visualization practice
Guided visualization means listening to recorded instructions that take you through imagined scenarios aimed at inducing relaxation, or achieving certain goals such as reducing anxiety or boosting creativity.
As a beginner, you can find several free resources online providing guided visualizations for different purposes, making this an easy way to try meditation out.
Compassionate focus
Loving-kindness meditation
Loving-kindness meditation works by developing feelings of compassion towards yourself and others through silent repetition of phrases like "May I be happy" or "May you be safe."
The practice promotes positive emotions such as empathy and kindness, while diminishing negative emotions like anger or resentment over time when done regularly, even if for short durations in the beginning.