Have you added meditation into your life yet? There is so much hype around mindfulness and mediation these days so I want to share the benefits with you. But I also wanted to share some realistic tips for fitting mindfulness and meditation into your life, because it’s been one of my single biggest struggles (and still is to this day honestly…yes I’m a work in progress too)!
So let’s start with the positives…what can meditation do for you…
- It can help reduce stress by giving you tools to help you step back from a stressful situation and breathe
- It can help promote productivity keeping you more engaged in whatever activities you are experiencing in your everyday life
- It can help you stay focused (I don’t know about you…but we can all use a little more focus in our lives). Meditation helps you stay more present in the moment which can help your focus overall.
- It helps improve your relationships. Yep you read that right…meditation makes you more grateful for the people in your life which can improve overall relationships.
- It helps improve your overall mood. Because meditation helps us decrease stress we tend to react better in most situations which can improve overall mood.
Yes I know what you’re going to say…Ashlee that sounds great but how can I implement it in my life…I don’t have time to add another health behaviour. Yes…I hear you on this one! Meditation has easily been one of the hardest things for me to implement into my life and I am still a work in progress on it. For me my biggest issue is remembering to do it. I am working on finding something that triggers me to remember to do it, but if you find something that works for you please share it…cause that is my biggest battle.
When I remember to do it (which is the hardest part I swear), I use the meditation app on my watch (if you don’t have an Apple Watch you can try Insight Timer or just the stopwatch feature on your phone). Start small…I usually aim for 1-2 minutes. This is something that is manageable for me. When you are starting out with meditation the idea of sitting quietly for 30 minutes is probably something that you just can’t fathom doing (I know that I sure can’t). But two minutes…most of us can find 1-2 minutes in a day that we can sit for a moment and count our breaths. So that is my biggest tip when starting out…start with something small and manageable and you can build from there (or you can stay there is building just isn’t going to work for you).
My second piece of advice is one that I’m still working on personally. Find your secret to remembering to implement meditation daily. The benefits of meditation come when you consistently practice it, even if it’s only a few minutes each day. Consistency is more important than the length of time you spend on meditation. This is my biggest struggle and the one I am still trying to nail down for myself but you can try implementing some of the following
- Meditate before you get out of bed in the morning or right before you go to sleep
- Meditate before you get out of your car to go into work, or in the parking lot before you go home
- Use an app to send you push notifications reminding you to meditate (timing this at the right time of day has been my biggest struggle, it always reminds me at the most inconvenient times)
- Meditate before or after your shower
- Or others…try to find a habit that you already do daily and pair meditation with it (either before or after), stacking meditation with the right habit will help you achieve the most consistency with the habit, especially when you are just starting out
So are you going to start to implement meditation into your life? I know adding one more health behaviour can seem overwhelming but think of it as 1-2 minutes each day and the process will become more manageable over time. Meditation has been around for many, many years, but the health benefits of meditation are only just becoming more main stream. Give meditation a try and watch the benefits start to happen. Your stress will decrease and you will be happier overall in your everyday life…yes meditation is that powerful!
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