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60 Second Meditation

Too much stress? You need a simple stress meditation. Of course, learning to meditate might intimidate you, and it’s tough to find the time for daily meditation. A solution to both problems is a meditation you can learn right now, that will take a minute to do each day.

An Easy Stress Busting Meditation

Breathe through your nose and you’ll notice how your abdomen extends. Nose-breathing causes the diaphragm to pull air to the bottom of your lungs. This delivers a good dose of oxygen into your bloodstream and brain, and it also tends to relax you. Breathing through your nose is healthier, and it’s the basis of this one-minute meditation.

Here’s how you do it; close your eyes, sigh, and let the tension go out of your muscles. It may help to tense your muscles up first and then release that tension. Let go of your thoughts as much as possible and take four or five slow, deep breaths through your nose. Pay close attention to the rate and depth of your breathing.

Can Meditation Be This Easy?

The short answer is yes. No, you’re not likely to get you into a deep meditative state with this simple stress meditation. However, you will get benefits, including a clearer mind and a reduction in stress.

It helps to develop a “trigger” for your meditation. For example, do your four breaths when you get into the car, or right after lunch each day. These triggers are places or times that remind you, so your meditation becomes a habit.

You can say this isn’t “real” meditation, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the relaxation you’ll get from this technique. If you want, you can always pursue deeper meditation later. Meanwhile, remember that not everything has to be

Many people do not meditate because they think that they can’t fit it into their hectic daily schedule. What these people do not realize is that some forms of meditation do not require any extra time during your day. Here are a couple of ways to meditate on the go:

1. Walking Meditation – Walking meditation can be done any time you are walking as long as there are not too many people or other obstacles that will distract your attention. The concept behind walking meditation is that you should focus on the feeling in your legs as you walk, the sounds of things around you, and the rate of your breathing. The object is basically to clear your mind of all thoughts except for those basic thoughts connected to walking and your five senses. Exercise caution when practicing walking meditations in areas with a lot of vehicle traffic since it would be easy to zone out. Always pay attention to incoming traffic on the streets that you cross.

2. Downtime Meditation – Various forms of meditation (such as breathing meditation and awareness meditation) can be practiced for short periods of time during the day when you have a break from mental or physical responsibility. Examples of these times include waiting for food at a restaurant, being on hold during a phone call, riding (not driving) from place to place, in an elevator, and countless others. Simply spend a minute or two focusing on your breath. Be aware of all of the sights, sounds, smells, and anything else you find interesting around you. Doing this for short periods all day long will add up and help you to remain more relaxed and productive.

3. Waking Up/Falling Asleep – Most people experience a frequent inability to fall asleep or wake up easily the next day. It is not uncommon for people to lay in bed for an hour before falling asleep or remain half asleep in bed after their alarm goes off In the morning. Meditation during these times can be a useful tool for orienting your body and mind. Meditating as you try to go to sleep will help you relax, stimulating the release of the sleep promoting neurotransmitter melatonin. Meditating when you wake up provides a strong mental foundation for the rest of your day. By starting the day organized, relaxed, and deeply aware of the things around you you are preparing yourself to be productive and to manage stress effectively.

Experiment with these meditation techniques to find out which ones work best for you. There are nearly unlimited ways that you can come up with to meditate during your every day activities. Just remember that meditation is the art of looking deeply into things and devoting all of your concentration to something. There are no rules or limits to what you can concentrate on, when you can do it, or how you do it. Be creative and find as many ways as possible to stimulate your mind.

Many people are reluctant to accept the idea of meditation because they associate the term with a specific religious practice. Is meditation a religious practice? Well, it is and it isn’t. Meditation is a deeply personal experience and what you get out of it depends heavily on what you are trying to get out of it.

Meditation can be compared to a automobile or similar vehicle. The vehicle has the ability to take you down many roads leading to many places, but you ultimately decide where you will go using it. Meditation can lead to relaxation, increased concentration, and a deeper connection with any item or thought that you choose to meditate on. Many religions use varying forms of meditation in order to contemplate the items or concepts that are important to their individual tradition.

Many eastern religions (such as Buddhism and Hinduism) encourage meditating in order to free the mind of preconceived notions about reality. Other religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism encourage meditation through prayer. During this form of meditation many people devote their full concentration to their respective god or important aspects of their religious faith.

Non-religious people may choose to meditate for a variety of reasons. Anyone can take the time to look deeply into the world around them in order to realize the beauty and complexity of every day items and situations. This eventually leads to a greater understanding of the self, of others, and of reality as a whole.

When western scientists first began studying the personal effects of meditating in the 1970s they noticed that heart rate, perspiration, and other signs of emphasis decreased as the meditating person relaxed. Scientists, like Richard Davidson, PhD. (University of Badger State), have been considering the long-term effects of meditating on the body and the brain ever since.

In 1992 Davidson received an invitation from the 14th Dalai Lama to come to northern Republic of India and sketch the brains of Buddhist monks, the most dedicated practitioners of meditation in the world. Davidson traveled to Bharat with laptop computers, generators, and EEG recording equipment, initiating an ongoing project that would last for years. Now monks travel to his WI lab in order to collect the data that they need. While in a magnetic imaging machine the monks watch disturbing visual images as EEGs record their responses to understand how they regulate aroused reactions.

Any activeness, including meditating, will create new pathways and strengthen certain areas of the mind. “This fits into the whole neuroscience literature of expertise,” says Stephen Kosslyn, a Harvard neuroscientist, in a New York Times article, “taxi drivers deliberate for their spatial memory and concert musicians for their sense of pitch. If you do something, anything, even play Ping-Pong, for 20 years, eight hours a Day, there’s going to be something in your head that’s different from someone WHO didn’t do that. It’s just got to be.”

This means that every time you meditate you are creating new pathways and strengthening connections within your brain. The more often you meditate the easier it will be to access these newly created connections in your brain, and eventually your practice will lead to a heightened sense of peace and relaxation during your everyday activities.

person meditating outside

Does it really matter where you meditate? I think it can. For some of us, being outside makes for not just a different meditation experience, but a more profound one. There are some good reasons for this.

Perhaps meditating in a quiet room with no sounds and nothing to distract is the easiest way, especially for beginners. It’s hard enough to quiet your mind without constant input from your surroundings. On the other hand, life is constant input, so if you want the peacefulness that comes from meditation to enter your life beyond your practice, perhaps learning to meditate despite surrounding sounds and movement is just what you need.

Meditating Outdoors

There’s a high bank on a river where I lived years ago. It was a five-minute walk from the house. There’s a level grassy spot at the top, looking down on the water fifty feet below. That is where I would go to sit. Often there was a breeze I could feel on my skin and hear in the surrounding trees. I also heard the water as it strained through some dead trees near the river bank. I smelled the dirt around me, and the odor of fish coming up from the water.

Meditating there wasn’t only pleasurable because of the environment, but also different from meditating in the silence of my home. There was more of a sense of experiencing the world without thought, without over-analyzing. Why? Perhaps simply because there was more to experience. There were the sounds, which included birds, and the occasional splashing of some animal in the river. There were things to smell and the feel of the grass.

I usually close my eyes when I meditate, because I am a very visually-oriented person, and find it easier to meditate this way. When I finished my meditation by the river, I would open my eyes, of course, but what I saw was always different from what was there when I started. Of course it was the same, but I was seeing it differently, as if for the first time. While difficult to explain, this is easy to recognize if you have had the experience.

It’s wonderful to look around as if seeing for the first time. You are seeing without preconception. I might see a deer on the opposite bank of the river, but the thought “deer” wouldn’t cross my mind, meaning it wouldn’t cloud my vision with any ideas about what a deer is or should be. The sounds and sensations were also “new.” I think this more direct experience of life is a profound demonstration of how much we normally “live” through our thoughts, somewhat detached from reality.

If you haven’t already tried it, why not get outside for your next meditation? Sit on a hill or in front of a garden, or try standing in front of a lake or pond when you meditate. The view will be wonderful when you open your eyes. There is nothing quite like meditating outdoors.