Transcript for:
Exploring Meditation Techniques and Benefits

do you struggle with your emotional state do you procrastinate a lot do you have a hard time focusing for long periods of time are you hella confused on how everyone else seems to be so disciplined and you just can't seem to do it well I hate to break it to you but meditation is the simplest solution to all of those problems and I know I know what you're thinking you're probably like me a couple of years back everyone's telling you to meditate it's yet another thing on your to-do list that you must do in order to be a good healthy human being right and it can seem exhausting and it's hard and you don't know how to do it and it's boring and it's long I fully understand because I used to feel the exact same way so before you run away I am about to explain and break it down like no one has before so now you actually start meditation and stick to it by understanding which type of meditation is right for you and how to overcome all of the common obstacles we experienced when trying to start this process as always here are the video chapters and all of my socials my Instagram my Tick Tock and my podcasts are linked Below in the description so make sure you check it out throughout this video there are going to be a few Clips overlaid throughout the advice where I can show you a visual demonstration of how to actually do meditation correctly and stick to it and right before we jump into this video I wanted to mention that this video has kindly been sponsored by headspace headspace is a meditation app that's super easy to use even if you've never tried meditating before I use it every single time I meditate so you can use headspace for yourself and get a 60-day free trial using the link in my description chapter one the science behind why you should meditate see the thing is it's not just that it's something that's good for you and it's something you're supposed to do meditation literally has the power to change your brain and there are five ways it does this the first one is emotional regulation now when we look at our brain you can spit it up into two parts there's The Logical side and the emotional side many people refer to the emotional side as our monkey mind or as the Chimp in our head and that's because that part of the brain purely acts On Emotion is is completely irrational and it's the reason as to why we self-sabotage if you ever feel like you're acting out of character or you did something crazy to embarrass yourself or you texted your ex when you shouldn't have you can thank the chimp side of your brain now the practice of meditation actually decreases brain cell volume in the part of our brain that is responsible for emotional processes such as fear anxiety and stress Studies have literally been done around this where participants have shown that when they actively took on meditation and were consistent in it they found that their stress levels had reduced which shows that meditation could change our brain our feelings and our perceptions on a daily basis so basically it will be your best friend in making sure that you're always thinking with this out of your brain logically doing everything that's in your best interest rather than letting the Chimp in your mind run wild and ruin your life my second favorite benefit from meditation is increased productivity the best Studies have shown that continuous meditation can increase gray matter in the brain and that has been shown to lead to improved memory and more skilled decision making so basically when you start meditation you can be sure that your thoughts will be decluttered and you'll be able to focus and have a sharper concentration to stay on your work task for much longer third benefit is a better attention span which I love because we now live in an age of tick tock and Instagram and all of these things but all of this content is being pushed out at us all the time every single second and as a result of scrolling on these apps and consuming all of this content on a daily basis our attention spans are rapidly decreasing meditation can control this and reverse that damage it does this by training your brain to regain that Patience by focusing your attention every single day it could be for a minute it could be for five minutes on one thing for a prolonged period of time it's basically habit forming and building up that muscle just like if you go to the gym every single day and you train legs the more you go the higher weights that you're going to be able to train at the gym meditation works the same way where it's forming a habit by forcing you to practice to focus on one thing for a certain period of time and eventually your attention span is going to be perfect and then the last benefit I'm going to mention although the benefits to meditation are endless I want to keep this video short this is just another one of my favorites discipline now if you are a loyal Watcher of my content then you know my favorite way to master self-discipline is to do something you hate every single day because once you master the practice of ignoring your feelings and whether you're motivated or whether you have a desire for something and instead you force yourself to do the thing that's going to be in your best interest long term it will then become Natural Instinct for you to think that way every single day which goes back to point one okay prioritizing logic over emotion and meditation is a great way to practice this discipline Studies have shown that people high in mindfulness which is a form of meditation have also been low in impulsivity because think about it if meditation is putting you into the Habit where you can sit down every single morning for five or ten minutes to just focus on your breath and not think about anything else that is literally a form of disciplining your mind once you control that you can control every other thing in your life so emotional regulation and productivity a good attention span and discipline if you haven't already noticed my four favorite benefits of meditation all equal success so now let's learn how to actually do it chapter two finding the right meditation technique for you A lot of people look at one common way of doing it and then they're kind of turned off by like oh I need to sit on the floor with my legs crossed and just stare into space or like empty my mind that seems hard and it's very boring but that is not true there are so many ways you can meditate in a way where it feels more comfy and easy for you if you like what you're hearing so far and you want to figure this out with me then now is a great time to download headspace on the App Store they have every single technique I'm about to mention on their app which is why I love them over other meditation apps so much so the first step is to figure out whether you are a guided or an unguided meditator super simple all this means is if you are guided then you want to listen to a video or an audio of a meditation teacher talking you through the steps okay they're going to talk about meditation they're going to tell you where to put your mind to think about how to sit and just guide you through the entire process this is really great if you're a beginner on the other hand you could be an unguided meditator this means you're not listening to a video or an audio you are simply sitting in silence focusing on your breath and doing it on your own step number two is figuring out your meditation practice now because I am such a simple unguided meditator I'm really excited to talk you through all of the techniques that I've done research on because I'm going to be trying them out myself and hopefully stumbling across a new favorite because I feel like I need to mix up my meditation routine right now the first type of meditation is mindfulness meditation is where you are fully aware of what you are sensing and feeling in that current moment without any judgment a lot of people think you have to completely remove all of the thoughts out of your brain but that can be very hard to do when you're starting out okay meditating is simply about you know you can have your eyes closed or open and you're breathing and you're focusing on feeling the ground that you're sat on feeling every sensation in your body hearing the noises around you and letting your thoughts flow in and out of your brain there are actually three ways to practice a mindfulness meditation the first one is a sitting meditation this is the one I do most of the time all you're going to do is sit comfortably with your back straight feet flat on the floor and hands in your lap you're going to breathe through your nose you're going to focus on your breath moving in and out of your body you should be able to feel that breath going over your nose you should feel your tummy going in and out if you feel like there are any distractions you know you can hear noises from the other room or your siblings are like having an argument that's completely okay you just acknowledge the experience and then you return to focus back on your breath again another way to practice mindfulness is a walking meditation I absolutely love this one you're going to find a quiet place and you're going to begin to walk slowly it doesn't need to be big it doesn't need to be in a public area just somewhere where you can take a few steps you're going to focus on the experience of walking being aware of all of the sensations feeling the breeze feeling the ground that you're walking on feeling your movements in your body and the last way to practice mindfulness is a body scan meditation this is quite new to me so I'm really excited to try it out this one is much more relaxing you're going to lie on your back with your legs extended and your arms at your sides with your palms facing up you're going to focus your attention slowly on each part of your body so you're gonna go in order from your toes all the way up to your head or you can go from your head down to your toes you're going to be aware of any Sensations in your body any emotions you're feeling thoughts that are going through your head that are associated with each part of your body I find this one to be a little bit more complicated to the headspace app really helped me you can type in literally any meditation technique they'll give you the instructions you can learn about it you can do a guided meditation with it I found that listening to the audio for this one really helped me okay so that's mindfulness as a meditation technique now the next type of meditation is what I personally like to call Vision meditation there are a few different ways to practice this but I'm going to start off with my favorite which I have spoken about before on this channel this visualization if you were into manifestation and you've watched our manifestation videos then you know we are all about visualization and it's literally a form of meditation you guys every single night when I go to bed I close my eyes I'm drifting off to sleep what I'm doing is I'm visualizing my future I'm removing any limiting beliefs and I'm manifesting my dreams in the process but most importantly I am observing my mind when I'm thinking about my goals and my future which you don't have to do that's just what I personally do I'm observing the thoughts that are going in and out of my mind when I'm thinking of those images most importantly it's about falling in energetic alignment with whatever you're thinking about another way to practice this which I have just learned about is the love and kindness meditation practice this is so cute so wholesome I am here for it if there is one meditation practice I want everyone to take away from this video is this one so what you're going to do is sit in a quiet place you're going to get into a comfortable position and you're going to start to breathe slowly for a few minutes as you would with any other meditation now you're going to focus on yourself and you're going to start repeating something to yourself it can be out loud it could be in your head this is very similar to affirmation so you could say may I be filled with love and kindness may my family be abundant with all of their dreams this week with this meditation you can really focus on thinking about other people start thinking about a person that you feel deep affection for and that you want the best for and throughout this you're basically going to be opening your heart and your mind for the benefit of other people it's a lot like praying for others and I absolutely love this what a beautiful way to meditate the next type of meditation is a chakra meditation now I've been trying to learn about this a lot recently if you can relate and you ever feel like you know you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or you're going through the day and nothing bad has happened but you kind of feel like I just don't feel like myself or I feel sad and I don't know why that is a very big sign that your chakras have fallen out of alignment and they're not balanced this is all about the energy that is kept in your body and whether it is blocked or open and chakra meditation can help make sure that it's all open and your Opera waiting at your best self every single day so because I wanted to learn more about this all I did was research chakras online I read a little bit about it it only took two or three minutes and I actually related very fast and found out that I had a disrupted solar plexus chakra this is because I had chronic fatigue low energy low physical energy and I was just kind of in a mood and I didn't really know why type in solar plexus chakra meditation and then I gave it a try I think this is a really great way to mix up your meditation routine and make sure that you're kind of altering it to your needs every single day because a lot of the time we can wake up with a completely different mood and then I saved the best meditation practice till last are you ready this type of meditation is called Mantra meditation which is all for my affirmation girlies here instead of focusing on your breath to quiet your mind you're going to be focusing on a mantra instead this could be a word it could be a phrase it could be a syllable a lot of people for this would say something like um um but for me I'm gonna be saying something like I have power over my thoughts I am worthy of a peaceful life I am beautiful I am powerful this is such a high vibrational practice this is the best type of meditation if you feel like you need a boost in self-love and confidence now those are a few different meditation techniques but did you know there are actually 16 types of meditation I didn't want to go through all of them in this video I just shared a few of my favorites on the ones that I really wanted to try out but once again if you go into the headspace app they actually have entire articles teaching you all of the different types of meditation now that was a lot of information I just gave you guys so to sum up this chapter I thought we'd go through a few little top tips just to help you remember this process and remember how easy this is to do so first remember the main focus on any type of meditation is focus we are trying to focus our attention on one thing even if you're sitting alone in your bedroom it could be just focusing on sound touch the feeling in your fingertips in your feet another top tip is that it's much easier to meditate if you close your eyes I know for me I just feel more comfortable if I do it that way and I feel like it's easy to be present because I'm not distracted by all of the stimuli around me I mean look how colorful my apartment is but if you want to switch it up you can keep your eyes open you can go meditate in your favorite Park you can make it meditate by a lake and then my last and most important top tip is that you can start meditating for literally 10 seconds I think the easiest way to be consistent is to make it easy and achievable in the beginning if you're like all I have to do is sit down for 30 seconds to Just Breathe it's going to be over before you know it that leads us to Common pitfalls why people feel like it's too hard they can't do it it's boring they do it for a few days and they quit let's make sure that we don't fall into these same mistakes chapter 3 overcoming obstacles and staying consistent let's start with the most common one which is losing focus okay you've started meditating and now your mind is wondering and you're thinking about a bunch of other things a lot of people fall into this trap and then they start feeling guilty and they start beating themselves up for it and they're like oh see like meditation is hard and I can't do it and I'm not good at it and because then they are feeling guilty about it they quit because it doesn't feel good but what you guys don't understand is that is completely normal and okay the goal when you're losing your focus is to just acknowledge it okay I'm sitting here I'm breathing and now all of a sudden I'm thinking about oh I have work to do later what am I going to have for dinner tonight you stop you acknowledge the thought and you let it pass once you've let it pass now you are just going to focus on regaining that focus on your breath in and out in and out that is it that is literally at its core the practice of meditation the second common obstacle is getting bored and just feeling like why would I want to wake up first thing in the morning and do that like I want to do other things I get it but you need to understand that if you are feeling bored about meditation that is all the more reason to do it because all it shows is that you have a bad attention span and that you are constantly over stimulated you can't even sit in silence for a minute a day yes it can seem boring and when you sit in silence and you sit in that discomfort and you embrace the board in you then uncover all of these thoughts and all these feelings that you weren't even allowing yourself to be experienced before because you were constantly distracting yourself and when you have that perspective instead and you look at meditation as a way to uncover and learn more about yourself which in itself is a massive way to practice to self-love meditation instantly becomes more inspiring and exciting another obstacle is a lot of people just don't have the discipline and they're like oh I don't want to I can't be bothered like I said before using an app using guiding meditations like on headspace makes the whole process easier but you have to remember that nothing good comes easy and if you keep following how you feel in the moment where are you ever going to be you have to be able to have the self-love and the accountability to be able to show up for yourself to do something that's going to benefit you long term than constantly focusing on temporary pleasures and the last obstacle is routine a lot of people you know you're going to wake up you want to get to school you want to get to a nine to five you feel like you don't have time because life is just so go go go you can do a nighttime meditation you know you can have a cup of tea get into bed be falling asleep and quickly just do that visualization meditation another thing that helps me build up my consistency was I wouldn't even make meditation a priority at the beginning I would more so use it as a solution and when I was reprogramming my mind to see my as a solution that made me feel better it made me want to do it more for example I am at my desk on my laptop all day every day I'm working it's go go go go go I sometimes feel like my breath is getting really fast and uncontrollable and I feel really stressed and anxious and on edge any single time I've ever felt like that when I'm doing a lot of work tasks in one go I sit but I just lean back in the chair I'm already sitting in and I do that just until my breath returns to normal and it's as easy as that and the last chapter the homework chapter is super simple guys the first step is to download the headspace app and honestly I downloaded it for the first time in December 2020 and it was the best thing I ever did for myself it makes meditation super easy to understand and practice on a daily basis and you can explore in further depth and actually put into practice everything I've taught you in this video is through that app once you've downloaded it I want you to decide what you actually want to get out of meditation is it confidence is it self-love is it discipline and once you've done that I want you to start a 30-day meditation Challenge and I want you to do this with me okay all throughout September I am going to be meditating every single day personally I'm gonna do it in the morning you can do it when you like like I said before build your own routine DM me on Instagram is linked below letting me know how you're getting on and what benefits that you've started to see in your life as a result you can literally start from one minute a day it's as simple is that I'm wishing you guys the best of luck on this journey thank you so much for watching and proud of you for getting this far in the video well and remember this is all in favor of the person that you want to become and bettering yourself for the life that you are about to live you got this thank you so much for watching I appreciate you and I'll see you in the next one bye [Music] for me