If you just start doing some meditation for now, you can start right now without any items, however, if you are the person who prepares everything before you start a new routine or learning. Let me share 5 items that you can prepare it.
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Essential Items for meditation beginners (summary)
As I mentioned in this post, you can start meditation in various ways standing, sitting, and lying down. However, most of the people who trained in meditation for a long time, sit on the floor with a straight spine and stare at the front. For this posture, you need a mat that you can sit comfortably during the meditation. Of course, if you have a cozy and thick carpet, you can use it as an alternative. If you don’t have anything, then you can use a yoga mat.
It is the because Yoga Mat is compact size so you can easily store in your room. Although there are various yoga mats, I believe this is a reasonable product that you can use it.
Firstly, it is 6mm thickness, and when you use it you feel cushioning so when you sit in the same posture for a long time, you can’t feel pain.
Its material does not contain any toxic and is easy to maintain for dirty.
Lastly, it provided a stripe for stores easily. Once you used it just roll it and wrap it with stripe.
2. Comfortable Clothings
The next item that you need is comfortable clothing that helps you to focus. Of course, you can do meditation with business clothing at the office. Again as I mentioned above, this is people who do it at home. Think about that, when you wear too tight jeans, it is hard to sit on the floor for more than 1 minute.
The definition of comfortable clothing is really subjective. Some like sportswear, others like loose clothing.
This is just a reference you can consider to have.
I want to recommend long pants with spandex. It is because when you do meditation for some moment, you do not have any movement. That makes your body’s temperature drop it. So, long sleep is better for wearing.
With the spandex, the waist part is band, so you will feel more comfortable with it, this material is really soft too. Lastly, this trouser is stylish in design, you can wear them daily time such as when going out to meet friends or work.
I believe sweatpants is a good option for the male. Especially These pants consist of cotton and spandex, so when you change posture, feel comfortable. Also, it gets less wrinkle than 100% of cotton. Also, the waist part has a band and stripe easy to wear.
3. Cloth for make you warm
For meditation for a long time. Keeping the body temperature is important. Once you feel cold or hot, then you can’t focus anymore. For that reason, you should put some clothes nearby.
Personally, I like to stay barefoot at home, but when I meditate for a few minutes, I start to feel chilly on my feet. When I do the meditation, I wear some thin cotton socks. In the winter time of course I wear thick winter socks too. For now, I want to recommend cotton socks that you can wear for four seasons and easily wash with machine wash.
Blanket/Shawl
Sometime, when I stay still, I feel cold, then I drag the blanket and cover with my body. The reason I use blanket or is, it is various size and most of blanket big enough to cover most of my body. Also regular day, just cover it on the bed, and when you need it drag from bed. I want to recommend this product that less hair and easy to maintain with machine wash.
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3 factor to careing for Children’s Meditation Training.
Last time I posted about the importance of children’s meditation. I talked about why it is needed for children, and when is the right age to start meditation training. How to form the meditation habit. It sounds really right and great to make these habits, but it is not easy to let children stay in a certain posture for a while.
Today in this post I want to explain more about the method of meditation training for children.
Three factors for children’s meditation training
There was a children’s meditation experiment in 2016 at an Italian primary school. When they practice meditation with children, they are focused on three things: ‘mindfulness of breathing’, ‘mindfulness of body parts’, and ‘mindfulness of thoughts’. Since children can’t concentrate for a long time and by the time the training time is longer, they easily lose interest. By conducting this meditation training with these three factors, children could focus on the meditation at the end of the period, and their meditation time became longer.
1. Mindfulness of Breathing
Every human being knows how to breathe naturally, but ironically, this is one of the important factors in meditation training. It is because by inhaling and exhaling you can focus on you and it brings you calm down. So, breathing is the gate of mediation. Although it is an important process for meditation, at the same time it makes children feel bored since these are natural things and tedious stuff.
In the research, they used various tools to let them feel fun. For example, put a small object such as a pen or pencil on the belly. It makes children pay attention to their bellies. When they inhale their breath, their stomachs are bulging. Another way is to put their hand on their stomach and feel the movement of the stomach or put my hand on a classmate’s belly to feel it. Checking their stomachs lets children to interested in and have meditation habits. Other fun method is let children think the meaning of in and out when they breathe. Then they will more focus circulate of air in and out through the nose.
Another method is using children’s imagination. When the trainer guides the children that there is a dwarf near the nostril and makes them think about how this man will move when the children breathe. These instructions make them to feel fun in tedious meditation training
2. mindfulness of body parts
Once children warm up with statics breathing training, the next step is dynamic training with the body. In this chapter, make children pay attention to their bodies. Using the body, also makes children feel fun in meditation training.
In the research, they used an interesting method. it is called ‘Raisins meditation’ Give several raisins to children’s hands and then let them smell, watch, and touch it. Lastly, let them eat and taste it. This meditation stimulates the four senses (sight, taste, touch, smell). Another method is touching other classmate’s hands and feeling of skin, nails and temperature of hands. Furthermore touching the different parts of the face. By touching body parts, it stimulate children brain.
There is more dynamic meditation training method. Let children walk slowly and try to feel how every part of the body part is working, such as when they step the foot on the floor, which part of the footstep first, and which muscle is used. Made children run or jump for a short time and then let them focus on their heartbeat or panting sounds. But this training should be done end of the training, if not they keep wanting to jump and run which is hard to control.
3. mindfulness of thoughts
As you know children have a great imagination, and by using this children can enjoy meditation training. In the experiment, they used these methods. Let children imagine they were clouds in the sky and then, write their main thoughts on paper such as what they are in their minds, or come up with something by looking at the cloud. Once it is done, make children represent their feelings using their bodies. It can be the movement of clouds by crawling or walking.
Another method is, to try to feel their emotion or main thoughts of the moment. Also, try to think about how this feeling or thing comes from and how it disappears. Or look at family, friends, and classmates’ eyes and try to understand what they think and then, try to transmit wishes (peace, happiness, health) mentally.
Another is, to imagine they are the animals and strolling in the forest. The children will draw animal postures and try to behave like animals. Another imagination is, lying down on the floor and making them imagine they were a paper-facing scan in the copy machine. Then children will represent it by rolling their bodies on the floor.
In particular, by encouraging children to imagine, they can strengthen their imagination.
In Short
I believe these three factors(mindfulness of breathing, mindfulness of body parts, and mindfulness of thoughts) will help children to train in meditation fun. You don’t need to try every three factors, depending on your situation, you can choose some factors. The important thing is, to make children feel fun in meditation training by using your games and imagination to get used to meditation.
Although these are good methods to apply to children, if your children start first, then try under 10 minutes first. After that, you can extend the 2~3 minutes per day. About 1 month later, children can focus on meditation for more than 30 minutes.
Doing it often for a short time is more effective in making habits than doing it sometimes for a long time. For example, doing 10 minutes 3 times a week is better than 30 minutes of meditation once a week.
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These days meditation and mindfulness are becoming popular all over the world. Even some big tech companies‘ CEOs such as Steve Jobs from Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook. Some companies already have knowledge importance of meditation practiced themselves and tried to apply it to their own company. At Apple, Steve Jobs encouraged employees to take 30 min for meditation at the workplace. One of the Google software engineers (Chade-Meng Tan) leads the ‘Search Inside Yourself’ coaching meditate program to employees for a better life.
then you might be curious ‘why it is important?’ ‘what is mindfulness?’ ‘what is the origin of meditation and mindfulness.?’ As for when you begin it, the timing varies slightly depending on the point of view.
First, if you look closely at the Buddha statue, the posture is unique. Most hands and arm shapes are partially different depending on region. Usually, East Asia’s status is a softer shape than West Asia’s (India) one. Although the status is different, there is a common shape of legs. when you look at the legs, are crossed on their opposite legs called the lotus position. This position is also really common at mediation. That’s why, the most well-known origin of meditation is Indian Buddhism.
Then, let’s zoom in on Buddhism simply, Buddha, was born 2600 years ago as the prince of India. and he has been agonizing over suffering, a matter of life, rather than enjoying his wealth and glory as a prince. When he was the age of 29, he left home to find his answer. For this reason, he learned and trained under the guru, but he didn’t get an answer to the question. After he wandered for a few years finally he discovered the truth while meditating under the tree of Buddha(an oleaster).
After that, he taught to people how to get out of the pain of life, and spread meditation. This is the common assumption of how the meditation started. Some believe meditation originated from Taoism or yoga. Some scholars speculate that meditation may have been there before, although it is not on the record.
Although these meditations look similar, the purpose of doing this behavior is slightly different. Buddhism is for the liberation of one’s own suffering, and while concentration-enhancing self-reflection is more emphasized in other areas, it is clear that both are important to check one’s mind and become a better person. Some religious groups did to look for the truth of life. Some groups did this to maintain their mental health. However, the common thing is this meditation tries to focus on myself rather than on outside circumstances.
This behavior is spread to whole over India and gradually extended to East Asia, such as China and Japan. When watching some Asian martial arts movies, you find a main character sitting and meditating at a waterfall or rock.
Then, when did it spread to the West? It was first known to Europe through the Silk Road from about the 3rd century B.C. Then, through the Middle Ages, meditation became increasingly popular and many people began to take over, which some people believe was made possible by the development of colonialism and transportation communication. Since the 20th century, people have been traveling in the East, learning meditation by experiencing the food and culture of the country, and continuing the training when they come back to their homes and informing the people around them, they have gradually extended to meditation and mindfulness. This trend still affects us nowadays. That’s why fitness companies open meditation lessons in metropolitan, big companies try to provide this session at the office, and research on it healthy wise also has increased in recent decades.
There is another point of view of the origin of meditation. Some people believe that meditation began similarly in the West, especially in ancient Greece. This is because Greeks enjoyed discussing mathematics frequently. After all, they constantly asked questions and meditated. However, since then, data on how it has been inherited have not been found yet, so it is more widely known that it originated in the East and is accepted as a leading origin of meditation.
There is still controversy over the origin and history of meditation because it is difficult to accurately define who made it. But, importantly, it is a self-care training method that has been going on for thousands of years now, and there is no denying that it works just as well for you to control your mental health and body condition.
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When you think about contemplating method, people usually imagine sitting in a quiet area and closing their eyes until they realize some lesson or truth. Maybe this is true for some religious or martial artists.
However, we just talk about daily meditation for your mental health, for your mindfulness. Regarding on daily meditation methods, it consist of two kinds. First, static contemplating method is sitting in a certain area. That really common concept when people imagine meditation people think about this. Another is dynamic contemplating method which happens when you do something. Such as walking, and driving.
Static Meditation
Static Contemplating, although this term sounds fancy, is actually a really common way to do meditation. As you guess from the name of the term, ‘Static meditation’ is when you do not move and just stop with a certain posture. This contemplating also sorts with postures.
Standing meditation: Doing contemplating by standing up and closing your eyes.
Sit meditation: Sit down on the floor.
lying meditation: lying down on the mat and focusing on yourself.
Although these postures are different, they really help you in for caring your mental health.
When you try this postures, make sure your posture is straight with your back and head, and breathe deeply and naturally.
Standing Meditation
This posture is efficient when you study or work. Especially if you can’t focus on your task. Just stand up from your chair and close your eyes (if you want you can open your eyes too). During this time, you are not try to think about your task, instead, you try to be aware of the smell, sound, or view of nearby. If there is nothing to gaze then turn on the view picture on the monitor that you want to go to or that you like. I believe this picture makes you peaceful and relaxed.
Maybe someone is afraid that you do not have enough time to do that because of the many tasks that you need to do. You don’t need to take too much on this. Even you can try it briefly like 30 seconds. Once you do that, you will be more relaxed or think differently about your task. Even you can smile at your colleague after some short meditation. Also, it is helpful on your eyesight too, as you know after you gaze monitor or device few minutes, you should relax your eyes too. Once you are familiar with this meditation, you can try it several times or longer time in your work place. I pretty sure it helps you to control your stress from work.
Sitting Meditation
Sitting on the chair
You can do this medication when you sit chair, sofa, or park bench. In that case, you should make the right posture, by straight your spine, do not crossing your legs too. Do not worry about other body parts(especially hand and foot), just put it naturally. If you are not sure where should I put the hands, then, put them on the legs naturally.
Sitting on the cushion
Another way is sitting on the cushion. If you enjoy yoga in daily life, you are already familiar with this posture(Like the image just above). If you don’t have a cushion then you can use the yoga mat. I totally recommend you to have the cushion or mat for this posture it is because without it you will feel pain in your leg, foot, and hip. then you can’t focus on meditation even if you can’t try it for a long time. The worst is you don’t want to try contemplating anymore.
Caution for Sitting meditation
When you sit on the cushion try to cross your two legs it helps you to straighten your spine. Also, your head and spine should be in one line. You can close your eyes if not, then you can open your eyes too.
If you are not familiar with this crossed-two-legs posture or hard to do then try a natural posture that you can easily do such as straight your legs or, sitting on a chair.
When you sit, you might be curious ‘what should I do?’ This moment is totally yours, stop thinking about your concerns, If you open your eyes then, you just gaze at what you see now, and from there just think and imagine like, today’s weather is really nice, there is a bird on the tree.
Do not try to no think anything and make your brain empty, I know this is really difficult, even if you success it is really hard to do maintain more than 5 minutes. Instead of making your mind empty. Just stay comfortable and try to relax. If you can’t clear your mind with worries then start counting numbers or focusing on your breath. Like Do I breathe deeply enough, how often do I breath? Then you will start to think other things are not problem anymore.
Lying down Meditation
This meditation, you can easily try this right after you just wake up from sleep shortly. Just start thinking simple questions such as ‘What I am going to do soon?’, ‘Where should I go to today?’ ‘What should I eat for breakfast?’ Or just look out the window and enjoy the moment of morning. But this time you shouldn’t go back to sleep by doing this.
You can also try this meditation after the exercise is done. Lying down on the mat focusing your breath and cooling down your body. At the same time, you can check your body condition too. For example, today after stretching your legs, you will feel your thigh more relaxed than before. Also, you can ask yourself that ‘How’s the exercise? Is it hard for me?’, ‘If so, why it was hard for me? ‘ I believe it makes you enjoy the exercise time and you also aware that your body is healthier than before.
Caution for Lying Meditation
However, I recommend you to try this posture right after you wake up on the bed or after the workout. Then how about before going to sleep? Actually, I do not recommend doing that time at least you really do not have time for contemplating except the night time. It is because when you start contemplatingyour body and mind are relaxed, which causes you to fall asleep. Of course, relaxing and going to sleep well is nice! However, once this happens several times, your mind starts to believe contemplating is going to sleep. So when you try it in the middle of the day, this habit makes you sleep. I want to stress that if you want to try this posture before you go to sleep, you should try few minutes and set the alarm to prevent you from dozing off. Also you should keep aware that this is not sleep and rest. It is meditation, try to keep thinking. Like ‘What did I achieve today’, ‘What was thankful during today’ ‘Do I have a happy moment today? if so, what was it?’
Dynamic Meditation
If static meditation is too boring for you then you can try others to caring your mind. Dynamic meditation, you don’t need to stay in a quiet area or isolate the room. If you want to listen then, you can have it. As you notice from name of meditation, you can move. It could be house choring, dancing, walking or driving. Any movement you can do.
However, One thing is different with regular movement, when you doing meditation you need to totally focused on your breath and your movements. You need to be aware of what you doing now. At the same time, you can ask some questions to myself. Such as ‘How many times do I breathe with this movement?’ ‘How I feel?’ ‘Do I feel comfortable?’ ‘Do I have under stress these days? ‘
Although these are really simple questions, by pondering the answer your mind will be clearer than before you start contemplating. Once you try it several times in daily life, soon you realize, you prefer doing contemplating instead of spending your time on useless such as watching YouTube or the news.
Caution for dynamic contemplating
When you doing this dynamic meditation, do not do violent actions such as boxing. Sometimes, when you dive in thinking, you are easily careless about your activity then it causes some hurt to your body. For example, when you doing boxing you are in the middle of a thought, then you might hurt your wrist when you punch the target. Oppositely, when you totally focus on the exercise such as running at full speed, then you can’t think anything. It is because your body uses oxygen and resources to your body for movement.
When you try dynamic meditation, just join contemplating with your daily routine to make some habits. Furthermore, try to give a stimulus to your body or focus on meditation in daily life.
In Short
To sum up, depending on postures and movement, meditation is divided into two things: ‘Statistic contemplating’ and ‘Dynamic contemplating’. Also, Statistic contemplating can be sorted into three different postures. Although these contemplating are called differently, these contemplating’s main goal is to try to understand myself by paying attention to me having questions and asking myself.
I believe this contemplating helps you to release some stress that you get every day by turning your eyes away to other things, not the circumstance and situation that you facing. Furthermore it is helpful for your brain If you are not familiar with meditation and don’t know how to start meditation every day, ‘why don’t you start one of the methods that you are interested in?’ I believe this small habit becomes a game-changer in your life.
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8 types of meditation and mindfulness for daily life.
I believe you know ‘what is meditation and mindfulness‘ and it is needed, however, still it is hard to take some time in your daily routine. We are too busy to survive at the company and fulfill our responsibilities and duties at home and the workplace. Well, guess what? There are plenty of ways to sneak in a little control of your mind throughout your day!
Here are weekday life 8 tips that you can care for your mind for your mindfulness such as at the workplace and at home.
Right after wake up
Most people who do meditation, do it in the morning time before they start their day. If you wake up just five minutes earlier then you can also start your day special. Once you wake up, either you sit on or lie down on the bed take a moment to focus on your breathing. enjoy that quiet moment of the morning and focus on your mood today. Although it takes only 5 minutes, instead of just starting your day hectic, this quiet moment becomes a game changer for your day. It is because when your mind becomes more relaxed, you become more tolerant of others and are not easily embarrassed or worried when you see problems.
On your way to the job.
If you can’t wake up 5 minutes early or you are hectic for other family members or yourself to start your job, then you can do mindfulness on your way to work. Nothing special, when you drive to work, although it is the same routine that you do on weekdays, why don’t you start aware of surrounding factors, especially the weather? Just look around the view of nearby buildings or trees. Or just try to feel today’s weather with your eyes and skin, feel the warm and tender morning sunshine, if it is a cloudy or foggy day then just feel that moisture and colors. As you know weather is just a natural phenomenon. Do not get upset or feel bad about the weather, just accept today’s weather itself.
Mindfulness before you start your work.
Again, I believe you do not have time for relaxation when you driving because you are running late or you are still a beginner at driving, so you can’t focus on thinking about whether or yourself.
There is another moment when you can trim your mind. Instead of hurrying start working as soon as you sit down at work. just pause for 3~5 minutes and take a breather, make a plan for what you’re going to do, think about how valuable the work you are doing is to you, and then think to yourself, “I can do it.” I whisper and get to work.
Mindfulness with lunch.
Having meal moment also perfect timing for mindfulness. Think about yourself, when you have lunch how do you eat? do you eat with your colleague? Just stuffing food in your mouth to save time? Watching some video or checking email while eating?
You did a good job during the morning time by dealing with tasks, you deserve to enjoy your lunchtime. Instead of being distracted by the media, how about taking some time to focus on yourself or meals? It does not take much time. When you’re eating lunch, take a moment to truly savor your food. Firstly smell the food and try to image the taste of food. Once you put the food in your mouth, start chewing slowly and try to feel the flavor and texture of each ingredient. And then, take a moment to check in with yourself and see how you’re feeling. This series of steps only takes in few minutes, however doing this mindfulness, makes you enjoy lunchtime and gives you positive energy for the afternoon job. Even when you focus on the food and yourself, you can stop when you feel enough. This also helps you to maintain your body and prevents you to feel drowsy after eating.
Tea Time
There is another moment, you can care yourself. Most people drink something when they are working such as energy drinks, soft drinks or coffee. Instead, if drink these beverages why don’t you drink some hot tea?
When you drink hot tea, because of its temperature you can not just gulf it. You need to wait for to cool it down. During that time you can enjoy that moment too. Such as by carrying the teacup, you can feel the temperature on your hands and can enjoy their fragrance of aroma. By doing this, you can shortly remove your concern. Once it cools down sipping the tea, focus on the taste of the tea and try to feel how that tea goes to the throat.
Take a sip, let your worries fade away, and organize your minds slowly.
the Moment, on one’s way to go home.
After you wrap up your job, on your way back home you might be excited or already tired from today’s various tasks. Maybe it also a good idea, do not think anything just watch some videos on the subway or listening some favorite music when you drive.
But if you want to do some special things to on your routine, I want to recommend you to take some time for mindfulness. If you go home walking or ride a bicycle, then you can try to focus on the view or this time you can try to focus on your body such as when you step, or how your leg is moving. When you drive, you can try to enjoy the moment of driving or the scenery. I believe these jobs clear your bad mood.
Shower
Even the shower time after returning home can be transformed into meditation time. When you take the shower you can focus on the temperature of the water and the scent of soap or bodywash. You can also feel the texture of soap bubbles too. When you take a shower, your mind starts reviewing today. Of course, you will think about some mistakes that you made or a colleague that made me mad today. That is so natural. However, instead of focusing on that negative thought, just simply think it has already past, and believe I can do better tomorrow, how well did I today.
While taking a shower, you can shake off all the heavy and negative thoughts along with the dirt from your body. Although this is a short moment it makes you relax.
Before going to bed
Finally, before bed. This also perfect timing for mindfulness. When you lie down on the bed, take a few minutes to breathe deeply and imagine yourself floating in the sky. Let go of any worries and allow yourself to relax.
Careful, you do not think too much about what happened today or worry. Once you start thinking that makes you think and worry more. Do not take worry worry that much just try to relax.
Remember, you don’t need to set aside hours of your day to meditate. With just a few moments of mindfulness throughout your day, you can reduce stress and feel more optimistic and helpful to your brain. So take a deep breath, and enjoy the present moment!
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When you heard ‘Meditation’, what do you imagine first based on those words?
Personally, I can match meditation with Monk and the movie ‘Doctor Stranger’ main character ‘ Dr. Strange’ who self-trains himself for a cure.
Usually, Meditation is a really static activity, it is easily considered old-fashioned fashion and not suitable for the current era that changes rapidly every day.
Surprisingly, meditation has many benefits to control yourself.
Benefit of meditation
Then how does meditation help control yourself? When you start medication, by closing your eyes, your brain is disconnected from the current environment that you faced before. Once you start deep breathing slowly, your brain starts to think and care about your body. For example, by taking deep breaths, your brain becomes refreshed and your heartbeat is slower.
The next step is to go into your mind. By doing meditation, you have some time to face yourself such as ‘what do you like..?’ or ‘what you want to do?’. Although it sounds really simple and common question, most people never answer this question. they just push it back to the future when they have free time. Once you keep asking yourself, some concern or problem that you have, you will get some clue of it too. As you see, meditation is a useful tool for protecting yourself from harsh real life.
What is Mindfulness ?
This consecutive job can be done by other behaviors such as focusing on playing an instrument or panting. I am sure you felt about it in your life. When you focus on some affair, that makes you forget your problem during that moments. Once you totally in that time, you mode filled with happy and motivated. This is called Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the broader meaning of meditation. Some author( I am not sure author’s name) defined that ‘Mindfulness is the basic human ability to fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us’ from book ‘Your guide to meditation’.
Mindfulness is the thing that you protect your mind by doing some specific behavior. Although you do not recognize the concept of mindfulness, you did mindfulness( by doing your interested activities). Mindfulness can occur not only for passive behavior like closing your eyes and don’t do anything, instead, it can happen by drawing or listening to music.
In short, mindfulness and meditation are necessary too to treat your stress and worry. Why don’t you start from now? Here’s a tip and posture to how to apply on your life.
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