If one wishes to learn to ski, we do not start by going straight to the most difficult obstacle course and trail, instead we focus on our technique. We practice basic maneuvers on the “bunny slopes” and then gradually make our way to the more difficult trails. Similar in meditation, one must develop the groundwork and maneuvers in order to progress and learn. Here are a few simple meditation techniques that provide training for the mind, allowing us to relax and enjoy meditation. Try one, or several of these techniques and once you find one that works, practice it consistently and frequently – results will come.

Single Object Meditation: Start with something simple and not overly graphic, like a candle or a pen. Begin to gently gaze at this object and think about the object, the structure, the shape, color, size, anything that is related to the object. As you do this, feel yourself becoming physically and emotionally entangled with the object. After a comfortable time gazing, close your eyes and see the object in your mind’s eye. Hold it there for as long as you can until it begins to get fuzzy or starts to fade. Once you have determined that it has faded, or is significantly altered so that you have to imagine or recall from memory the object, open your eyes and repeat the process again. I find that very visual people are able to do this easily and find this exercise to be fun and non-visual people have a very difficult time holding the object for even five seconds. If you are one of those people who have a very difficult time with this, keep practicing on a regular basis and you will improve dramatically. This is a preliminary exercise and can be beneficial to practice for a few weeks before trying the other three techniques.

Develop the Watcher: Take a small part of your attention and assign this part the task of watching everything that flutters through the mind – without judgment or criticism. Imagine this part as a video camera that records everything, to be stored and analyzed almost immediately after it occurs. As you begin to develop this ability, you can notice thoughts, stories, narratives, emotions, reactions, and many other processes going on in your mind. This form of meditation, sometimes referred to as mindfulness can be practiced anywhere and anytime. It is essential that we do not criticise or condemn what we see, imply observe and grow in awareness and depth. With clear awareness, comes insight, understanding, and the power to change.

Mantras: A powerful and easy technique to conquer internal dialogue is to repeat a words or phrases over and over again. By concentrating the mind on these specific words, all other thoughts are cast aside. There are many sacred mantras that exist in the world but the most important factor in choosing a mantra is that we cultivate an attitude of deep reverence for the words – as if they are sacred. In some traditions, mantras are whispered into students ears and the students is to keep this mantra secret and never speak it out loud.

With time and practice, the mind will begin to quiet down and only the breath and the mantra will be heard. Once this state is achieved, there is no more need to for the mantra because all intruding thoughts have been cast out. Over time, just a few conscious breaths and the thought of the mantra should be enough to clear the mind. Clearing the mind is of course not the end goal of meditation, rather, it is the state that enables you to begin meditation; this is where deep self-exploration begins.

Breath Awareness: Once a comfortable and steady upright posture is established, bring the attention to the belly. Notice how it rises and falls. In the beginning, one or both palms can be placed on the abdomen to bring awareness to the sensations there. Focus the mind on the breath as it moves in and out, and as soon as the mind becomes distracted, without judgment or distress bring it back to the belly and the breath. This is probably the simplest and one of the most commonly used meditation techniques in the world. Breath awareness and mantra repetition can be combined to further train and focus the mind. One example would be to say “In” on the in-breath and “Out” on the out-breath.

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2. Meditation Guide: 7 Steps to Establishing a Great Meditation Practice
3. Meditation Techniques For Beginners – Watching The Breath

Millions of people experience the negative side-effects of DIM Syndrome. Everything from sore neck to headaches to the ever-popular lower back pain can be traced to bad posture and unhealthy sitting habits at the computer. Lets face it, the human body was not designed to sit for hours at a time in one spot and stare forward motionless. But, since we all must work, and most of us must work at a computer, there are several habits that we can break free of and others that we may wish to adopt in order to keep our health and our sanity.

Sit Straight:

The spine has a natural curvature and is assisted by involuntary muscles and tendons along the spine. These muscles are linked to the same system that keeps our eyelids up and our lungs moving without our conscious awareness. Through bad habits we have programmed our bodies to tense additional smaller muscles to take on the work of the automatic ones. This is exhausting and causes unnecessary strain and tension in the body. By paying attention and experimenting with slight adjustments in the hips, shoulders, and head we can bring our body into a more natural alignment thereby activating the involuntary muscles and relieving the overworked ones.

While sitting in a chair, locate the sit bones. They are the two bony ridges of the hip bone that are meant to take our weight. To do so, simply experiment with tilting the pelvis forwards and back. Notice how this effects the curvature of the spine, and specifically the lower back. A proper alignment of the hips happens when the tailbone (the lowest part of the vertebral column) reaches down towards the ground/chair while the pubic/lower abdominal area moves up and inward. This action will naturally reduce some of the curvature of the lower back creating a flatter lower back and cause a slight shift backwards so that the weight of the body is distributed onto the sit bones. This adjustment also strengthens the abdominal muscles which assist the back muscles in keeping the spine erect.

Shoulders:

Having adjusted the lower portion of the body, next come the shoulders/chest. Explore the range of motion in the shoulders moving them forward and back. Notice how the forward motion of the shoulders pulls on the muscles of the

upper back and tenses the neck. Imagine somebody taking both shoulders and lifting them forward, up, and back. Let both shoulders melt down the back. Repeat several times, inhaling forward pausing at the top, and exhaling to melt. Do this often throughout the day and you may see a dramatic reduction in stress and tension in the neck and upper back. Another way to think about this motion is to lift the chest.

Head:

Moving onto the head, let the head become heavy and begin to move the head side to side, the up and down, and finally in big circles. Notice how good this feels on the neck muscles. Again here, work with the breath and breath into the area of tension, one can work with images of warmth or relaxation if that feels appropriate. A neutral spine means the head is shifted slightly back and the chin slightly down. One can also imagine a string tied to the top of the head and somebody lifting us by that string. This will cause the spine to elongate and straighten, the shoulders to move back, and the head to shift back.

Breath:

While our breathing is automatic, it is also intimately linked to our emotional and mental state. In moments of intense emotions such as anger or sadness, this becomes self evident. Because computer work requires such concentration, many people tend to hold their breath or not breath as deeply as mother nature intended. Just by the act of stopping whatever we are doing, noticing the rhythm and depth of our breath, and then taking a few deep slow breaths we can reset our system and bring more vitality and oxygen into our bodies. This actually effects our brain in a very direct way, making us more clear-headed and able to remember, reason, and problem solve better. Try it!

In addition to the negative side effects on the body, computers put immense strain on our eyes. Click Here learn simple eye exercise designed to strengthen, relax, and sooth the eye muscles and the optic nerve.

Also see my article for changing bad habits.

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Awareness is the essence of of our being, our birthright. But sometimes we forget, get distracted with life and the many responsibilities that take up our time. Here are a few ways that we can change bad habits by brining awareness onto the present moment.

1. Memory triggers

A memory object is a place, person, or thing which we designate as a trigger for the immediate assessment of our internal state. For example, lets say there is a painting hanging over your desk, whenever you look at that painting that is the trigger to stop and bring awareness to thoughts, emotions, and the surrounding environment. Awareness is objective, it is without blame or judgment – a simple observation of the facts. Paradoxically, we are building a habit to become aware of our own habits.

Doorways are a good memory objects because we go through hundreds of them every day. Upon walking through the doorway, immediately come into the present moment and bring awareness to the five senses to soak in the new surroundings. Remember to notice!

2. Breath

We must breath to live, it is something real, concrete and ever present within ourselves. Breath awareness is one ofthe fundamental steps to raising awareness, learning meditation, or any other internal study. Take a moment right now to focus on the breath. Notice the subtle qualities of depth, speed, location in the body, and even the texture. As often as possible throughout the day, remember to bring attention to the breath. Become curious to discover what is the quality of the breath when there is anger, sadness, joy, excitement, or calm?

Explore, have fun, be playful in figuring out what works best for your life and circumstances. Keep in mind that for these techniques to be effective one must be vigilant to remember to practice consistently, frequently, and for a long time util awareness becomes a natural state of being. Many negativities can be compared to shadows, they are a the darkness outside that stem from within. Awareness and mindfulness is the sunlight that has the power to drive away this darkness. Simply remember and let the sun shine.

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Expanding into the back of the head, neck, shoulders, down the arms, and through the fingertips. Go as slow as you need to feel like the cleansing orb has deeply permeated every level of tissue all the way down to the bone, and even inside the bones themselves. Down the front and back of the torso. Experiment with the size of the ball shrinking it or expanding. Allow the breath to lead the way, focus on the rhythm of the breath. Down even further into the lower back, hips, thighs, legs, calf, ankles, and all the way through the toes. Explore your body and find the places that need the most attention – linger there. Repeat several times to get the most benefit.

Having completed several cycles of the body scan, imagine this soothing light coming from inside your body, the bones, organs, muscles, and skin all glowing. Let the center of this light rest in the chest or heart area, and feel the rays radiate from there. Beyond the skin, and out into your surroundings. Allow the light to spread further and further till you can no longer keep track of how far its traveled, then, with a deep breath let it all go. The image, the thoughts, expectations, judgments, and desires. Let everything relax and allow your mind to settle into the sensations that are happening in the present moment. Repeat often, breath and enjoy!

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Here is something new. A rather interesting technique that people are calling super brain yoga.

The exercise in itself is very simple and involves the use of breath retention combined with crossing the left and right arm. This is very similar to the eagle pose in yoga where the left arm is crossed over right as right leg is crossed over left. The idea is to mismatch and break the natural synchronized patterning of body motion in order to create new patterns and awareness. Using breathing and an up and down motion also help retrain the brain and makes the movement more memorable. The video below mentions that the effectiveness of the technique is due in part to the placement of the fingers on the earl lobes that are related to acupressure points.

Supposedly, doing this exercise 15 times daily in the morning makes children and adults smarter by synchronizing the two brain hemispheres. I wanted to bring this technique to your attention with the hopes that some of my readers will try it out and comment back on this post what they thought of it. I will try this technique out for the next two week doing 15 repetitions every morning and will send out an update on the effects based on my own self observations.

Here is the short video from CBS2 News about it and a link to the specific instruction on how to do it. As the video points out, this is especially powerful for kids with learning or emotional disabilities.

Video, Instructions.

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How do you get ready for meditation? What are the steps necessary to get into the proper mind set and how do you release stress from your busy day? You want the body to be so relaxed and comfortable that you can forget all about it. The mind should be alert, focused, and present in the moment. Here is a great stress management exercise that can be done anywhere. Its quick and very effective. This technique is also extremely beneficial for people that can’t fall asleep and have restless body syndrome.

Laying on your back, begin to do a mental scan of your whole body. Start at your toes and work your way up the front side of your body and down your back. Once you have identified the muscles and places where you feel the most tension, it is time for the full body contraction.

Taking a deep breath in, contract all of the muscles you have just scanned. Systematically from your toes all the way up to your neck. At this point, you should be squeezing everything so hard that your legs are off the ground a bit, your head is off the ground, and your face is all squeezed up like a dried up prune. Holding this for one or two breaths, release everything with a big AAAHHHHHHH breath out. Taking another deep and slow breath here relax everything even deeper. You can imagine your whole body relaxing and sinking into the floor. Warning, please don’t overdo this and remember that the point is not to punish your muscles but to help them go from one extreme to the other.

Now, do another body scan and compare how you feel. If there is still some tension in your body you can work with your mind to breath soothing light and warmth into those places to relax them even further. You may experience a deep feeling of comfort, softness, or heaviness sometimes accompanied by a warm sinking feeling – like your body is about to liquidize and merge with whatever you are laying on.

At this point, you are ready for meditation, relaxation, an obe, or sleep. Enjoy the journey!

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Start by looking away from the compute. Ahhh, isn’t that nice. Take one deep breath and let it out as slow as possible. Rotate your neck, moving it up, down, left right, side to side, and add in some circular motion. Make sure that you are breathing long, deep breaths as you do this, keep the motions in sync with the breathing to prevent injury. Now, with another long inhalation, stand up and let your whole body straighten up. Make sure that you don’t do this too fast, letting the spine, shoulders, and neck fall into their natural and comfortable alignment.

With another long inhalation, begin to fold forward from the hips letting your whole upper body relax completely until you are hanging. If your hands touch the ground, great, if not, no big deal. Now, as you hang there, take a moment to notice the backs of your legs, are they tight? If so, you can bring your attention, your thoughts, and your breath to the spots that are tight and begin to breath into the tightness. After a few moments you should feel the hamstrings relaxing a bit and loosening up. The legs are the key to the back, if they are tight, the rest of your upper body will be also.

Try to notice when you have sat for too long, and take a few moments to work with your mind, breath, and body to relax and release some stress. Because all three are linked, when you change one, you will effect them all. There are of course thousands of ways to stretch, just remember to synchronize and let the breath do the moving. Get creative, have fun, start a conversation at work about this topic. I bet you will have much to talk about with your co-workers regarding this subject.

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Breathing is something so automatic that we frequently take it for granted. It is directly tied to our emotions and state of mind. Have you ever noticed that in a deep state of concentration, it is as if you are not breathing at all and, after a while, you give a long sigh to catch up. When we are in this frame of mind we tend to automatically hold our breath. The reverse happens when we are agitated or energized -we tend to take many quick breaths. In a relaxed state, we can experience and become aware of the slow deep breathing that happens automatically. By first watching our breathing and how it affects our state of mind and emotions, we can then learn to use it to our advantage. Here are a few simple meditation techniques for controlling and working with the breath.

Three- Part Breath: Inhaling slowly and deeply, notice which part of your body appears to receive the breath and where does the air move to as you complete the inhalation. As you begin to bring air into your body, the first part of the inhalation fills your abdomen. You should feel the abdomen expand outward a little, filling like a balloon. In the second part of the same inhalation, the air begins to move to the middle of the chest, and finally the upper lungs. You should feel three separate sections of the torso filling, expanding, and contracting as you inhale and exhale slowly. The reverse movement should happen on the exhale. This is a very powerful exercise and can be done to a count or with a  mantra addition.

Alternate Nostril Breathing: Closing one nostril, begin to draw in breath through the remaining nostril – start with a count of five. As you reach the five count, stop inhaling through that nostril, switch and close of the nostril you were just breathing through. Now, exhale with the alternate nostril also counting to five. When you are done exhaling, keep the hand on the closed nostril, inhale for another five count and switch to the other nostril for a five count exhale. Alternating this way back and forth until you feel comfortable switching to a 2:1 ration. For every five count on the inhalation, exhale for a ten count. Keep this ration, you can vary the inhale and exhale count as you become more adept and your lung capacity increases. Notice any difference either mental, or physical as you alternate this nostril breathing. People frequently find that the sides feel different, are able to breath in longer or shorter. This is fine and over time this technique will balance the two sides.

Fire Breath: Begin by drawing a deep breath in, exhale in rapid short bursts through the nostrils focusing on the lower abdomen. Placing your hand on the abdomen, you should feel a pulsing outward push with every exhalation. As the name suggests, this is a highly effective exercise for creating internal fire and heat and should therefore be practiced with caution.

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Take notice of any bodily sensations, thoughts, or feelings. At first, start with five inhalations and five exhalations, counting slowly and taking deep regular breaths. Make sure that you are paying full attention and giving all of your focus to the breath. If you find yourself getting distracted, do not worry or get agitated, this is a natural part of the practice. When this happens, gently bring your attention back to the breath and begin again. Once you are able to maintain a steady focus and count five breaths without becoming distracted, you can increase the number of inhalations and exhalations.

Take note of the moments when you become distracted, there you will find the greatest lessons and realizations and I always try to think of those moments as reminders and helpful reminders instead of failures. To use the metaphor of driving a car, if you momentarily drift off the road, you simply take control of the steering wheel and bring the car back to the center of the road. It is exactly the same with this meditation technique. Watching and counting the breath can be done frequently and in short bursts, and you may find that even a five count will dramatically reduce stress and anxiety while calming, clearing, and centering the mind. As with any skill, the amount of time and length of practice will determine the benefit and mastery.

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2. Breath- I concentrate on my breathing when I want to feel calm, energized, or patient, however this technique can be used for any mood or emotional state. Slow, deep breaths typically have a relaxing and calming effect while fast shallow breaths speed heart rate and other biological systems.

3. Smile- I love this because it’s so easy and it does wonders when I am starting to feel crappy or start to worry about something. It is amazing what happens when you smile at other people, they almost always smile back. Just the act of smiling improves your mood and improves other people’s moods also.

4. Acceptance – In January, I decided that I needed to apply to graduate school and by April I had taken the proper exams, filled out all the paper work and sent my application to the program. I was terribly excited at the opportunity to study at a graduate level, but I was also aware that I had a lot of competition and it would not be easy to get accepted. I made sure that all of the hard work that I had put into the application process would not bring my hopes up and as I received my letter of rejection, I took a deep breath, looked within and said to myself, “This is fine, take it in, don’t fight it, it is absolutely out of your control. You did the best you could and now, move on.” Acceptance is a powerful force and resource in my life. Instead of fighting something, I just let it wash over me, and once it has filled me completely, I let it go. I find this to be true in many situations and I frequently use this to ward of cold wind and low temperatures outside.

5. Perspective- People often get caught up in their own issues and it can be difficult see things objectively. When this happens to me, I literally imagine myself stepping out of myself, or floating out, and looking down at the situation. Having done so, I then ask myself, “Is your reaction appropriate for the situation? How would somebody else look at this if they were standing out here?” It also helps to think about you in the third person; I would say, “Vlad is getting really worried about this exam at the moment, is this something that he can do anything about? How would John feel if he was standing here next to me, looking at Vlad’s situation right now?” By shifting the angle from which you see yourself and viewing the situation from a third person perspective, you can disassociate from the emotional reaction and gain greater freedom and flexibility in your emotional responses.

6. Help others – I seize every opportunity to help others. From a place of selflessness, I want to help them better their situation and improve their life, meanwhile, I feel better about myself because I have given a hand to someone who is in need. This gives me a thrill of satisfaction and a boost of inner power.

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