Yes, You Can Meditate Anywhere (No Mountain Top Required)

Ever find yourself in moments where you’d like to quickly refresh both mind and body? In this fast-paced digital age, life can be stressful, distracting, and sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes we just need to slow it all down and get off the gerbil wheel. 

There’s one activity that the Centers for Disease Control has claimed is the fastest growing health trend this year: the practice of meditation. When we hear the word meditation, it might conjure images of someone sitting crossed legged on the top of a mountain. It can certainly be done that way, but we actually meditate just about anywhere at any time. If you’re feeling stressed throughout your day, meditation helps you step away from it all for a little you time.

Meditation is a practice of combining both mind and body in order to reach a balance. We use mindfulness as the main technique to train for better attention and awareness and ultimately achieve a calm and focused state of consciousness. Taking the time to be present and mindful enables us to gain self-awareness, handle stressful situations better, and even expand our imagination. Meditation can help us increase patience and tolerance, and create better habits to live a healthier lifestyle. But how exactly do you meditate?  

There are many different methods of meditation specific to what fits your needs and lifestyle. The most common form of meditation is something we could all say we do without even knowing it; guided meditation. Guided meditation is the process of forming mental images of a more ideal place you’d rather be in order to relieve stress, such as envisioning sitting on a beach with your toes in the sand. Yoga is also a well-known form of meditation. There is also something called mantra meditation which involves repeating a calming word or phrase in order to prevent distracting thoughts.

To learn more about the different styles and health benefits of meditation, visit The Mayo Clinic. Here are ten tips on how to meditate.