Ever wondered how to find a little peace in your modern life? How about trying your hand at the ancient art of meditation? We show you how.
Have you ever had one of those days where you wish time would just stop and allow you to take some time off without feeling guilty? Our lives revolve heavily around work. Once you reach a certain age, you’ll eventually realize that your friends, hobbies, and even relationships are all connected one way or another to your job. Depressing right?
Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it’s healthy to completely step back sometimes and to allow yourself to rest and relax without the threat of a looming deadline hanging over your head. And how might you achieve this sense of enlightenment, you might ask?
READ: Tung Chung Has a Sexy New Steakhouse
We’ve taken it upon ourselves to create a mini-guide to meditation for you. We know you value your time, so we’ll make it snappy and easy to accomplish. Read on to learn more about quick and easy meditation for beginners.
Meditation
One solution would be meditation. Meditation is something many successful people do to achieve better focus, be more productive, and feel more relaxed. It is the practice of mindfulness or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought or activity to train attention and awareness and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally stable state. And no you don’t have to find yourself a cave in the mountains; quick and easy mind-relaxation exercises are perfect for the man on the go.
And don’t be intimidated by how meditation is marketed on social media platforms. Simply put, it is just an exercise of the mind to practice mindfulness. Some of the many advantages of meditating include an improved immune system, better sleep, enhanced memory, greater focus, and significantly lowered stress and anxiety.
Guided or Unguided?
Before we begin, you should first choose between guided or unguided meditation. The two styles differ in terms of who controls the pace of the meditation journey. Guided meditation is when a voice, narrator, coach, or teacher explains how the process of meditation will unfold. For newbies, guided meditation is especially helpful in determining the accuracy of your exercise.
On the other hand, unguided meditation is meditation you do on your own time, on your own terms. You don’t have to follow instructions from anyone. This is usually practiced by people who have mastered the art of meditation and can easily do this independently without being distracted. This practice is also sometimes referred to as silent meditation.
READ: This is Where You Need to Stay Next Time You’re in Hanoi
For beginners and busy modern lads, guided meditation is strongly recommended as it can be easy to feel distracted or lazy when you’re unguided. During the first few days or weeks of your meditation training, you should have someone to hold you accountable, whether it be a significant other, a friend, or a meditation coach. It could even be a voice on an app or YouTube helping you count the seconds until your focus improves.
Step-by-Step Guide to Guided Meditation
Interested in starting your first guided meditation session? Follow the steps below for a hassle-free experience you can do on the go.
Choose a guided meditation video, song, or channel you prefer. It can be as short as five minutes or as long as 30 minutes. But for beginners, it would be best to start with something short. Make sure the voice or background music is calming to you. It would be hard to concentrate on the voice if you’re too busy being annoyed by it. You can try the Headspace, Calm, or Buddhify apps for guided meditation audios or look up videos on YouTube.
READ: Sexy Sound for Your Soul
After choosing your preferred medium for guided meditation, find a nice, cozy spot to meditate in. It doesn’t have to be your bed or somewhere formal. As long as you can sit up straight and stretch when you have to, that’s good enough. Also, consider a quiet place to lessen the distractions around you when you’re trying to focus.
When you’re ready, take a deep breath and center yourself.
Play the audio or video, then follow the instructions as is. It could ask you to do prolonged breathing exercises while calling attention to your mind. You may be asked to observe your breathing or listen to the breaths escaping your mouth. Either way, this exercise is meant to help you practice mindfulness.
Repeat until the video or audio ends.
You’re done! You have successfully meditated. It doesn’t matter if it was five minutes of silence as you tried to adjust to the exercise. You don’t have to perfect this method right away.
READ: IWC Creates Paper Straps
Meditation has many great health benefits, so it wouldn’t hurt to try it out today, especially now that you’re more connected to your work and always busy. Five-minute daily meditations can do wonders for your mental, physical, and emotional health. The hardest part of meditating is maintaining it, so you need to make sure to do it enough times every day to form a habit.
Just say ommmmm.
For more Wellness inspiration click here.
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? FOLLOW ALPHA MEN ASIA ON FACEBOOK, OR INSTAGRAM AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR HONG KONG-CENTRIC NEWSLETTER HERE
