Too Busy to Meditate? Think Again!
By Ronald Alexander
The benefits of meditation are many and varied from reducing stress, blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes to increasing one’s cognition and creativity. As well meditation decreases our need for sleep by heightening our concentration, allowing us to be more productive. Ray Kroc, who took over McDonald’s in its early days and built it into a business of outstanding success, once reported that he’d spontaneously fall into states of meditative reverie during the day and thus didn’t need a lot of sleep.
Many people think that they have to run off to a monastery or spend hours a day sitting in a lotus position to receive these benefits. WRONG! If you feel overwhelmed with work, family and personal responsibilities here are three quick and easy meditations to help you release unwholesome emotions, shift your mood and improve your relationships adapted from my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind.
1. Breathing Meditation to Release Unwholesome Emotions
This meditation can help you quickly release any unwholesome emotion or stressful situation and bring yourself back into balance whether you are traveling, at work or at home. The key is to be mindfully aware of your breathing. To do this you breathe in through your nose for a count of three, hold for three, and then out through your mouth for three. The first step is to identify the negative emotion you are feeling so as you focus on your breathing ask yourself, “What am I experiencing?” Once you can answer this question with, “I am feeling anger, impatience, irritability, frustration or even fear” after your next in breath when you hold for three replace that unwholesome statement with a positive one. For example if you are standing in a long line that is moving very slowly and feeling frustrated, focus on your breathing and replace the frustration with, “I am feeling compassion.” Keep repeating the breathing, hold and statement until you can feel all the negative emotions release from your body and mind. This meditation is a great antidote for road rage when you replace the anger with acceptance; when you get moody with your kids or a co-worker you can substitute your irritability with patience; or if you are annoyed at someone you can replace your impatience with surrender.
2. Walking Meditation to Improve Your Mood & Fight Depression
A major part of feeling despair or sadness is the lack of energy or motivation you have to get out of bed, to stop procrastinating or giving in to the feeling that there’s no point in taking action. To remedy torpor and depression, you have to experience the vital life force that sharpens the mind and focuses the awareness like a laser beam. This walking meditation focuses on your breathing and encourages a reconnection with your vitality by paying attention to what’s going on inside of you.
