From "Health and Fitness" by Jennifer Campbell, Certified Personal Trainer
Meditation can help during the short, dark and cold days of winter which can contribute to depression for many people. Meditation is a science-backed solution to effectively combat these feelings, whether they're related to seasonal or other stresses. Those who practice meditation say they find it relieves stress, reduces symptoms, improves sleep, lowers blood pressure, helps sooth pain, aids in managing anxiety and more.
Starting a meditation discipline can be overwhelming. It's normal to have racing thoughts and difficulty focusing or feel like it isn't working. The keys to meditation are consistency and compassion. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. For consistency, build it into your daily routine. Pair meditation with a daily habit like brushing your teeth, showering, reading the Daily Word, or right before you go to sleep. Also, ease your way into it. Start with short 20-minute sessions and gradually increase the time and frequency of your practice as you wish.
Common types or styles of meditation include:
Mindfulness: Urges awareness of and being present in the moment while letting go of negative emotions and judgment. This form can increase focus in memory, reduce impulsive reactions, and improve relationship satisfaction.
Guided: Uses the voice of a live person or recording to encourage you to form relaxing mental pictures or situations using the senses to evoke feelings of calmness This is a great option for beginners.
Transcendental: Emphasizes reciting a mantra, a word, a phrase or sound and repeating it throughout the meditation. Studies show it may help reduce stress depression and burnout.
Progressive muscle relaxation: Focuses on tensing and then relaxing muscles, often starting at the toes and working up the body. This form of meditation promotes calmness and relaxation and may help with chronic pain.
Breath-work: Encourages mindful breathing, inhaling deeply and slowly by counting or using a cadence to reduce anxiety, improve concentration and increasing emotional flexibility. If you're having acute stress or a panic attack, breath-work and progressive muscle relaxation meditations can be powerful tools in overcoming them.
Loving-kindness: Promotes attitudes of love, kindness and compassion toward yourself and others, including the perception of enemies and sources of stress. The key is repetition of the message until one achieves an attitude of benevolence.
Unity: Unity has a unique style of meditation that is usually combined with prayer and includes many of the style elements mentioned above. “Prayer and meditation” is a term often used. Many public Unity prayers begin with prayer and have a short period of silence near the end. Prayer may include giving thanks and asking for preferred outcomes. Meditation is considered to be a period in which waiting and listening occurs.
A definition from truthunity.net:
Meditation: Continuous and contemplative thought; to dwell mentally on anything; realizing the reality of the Absolute; a steady effort of the mind to know God; a spiritual approach to God.
“The purpose of meditation is to expand the consciousness; to be transformed in soul, and body by the renewing of the mind. Meditation has a spiritual connotation. God is a sphere whose center is everywhere. This should draw the mind away from a tendency to envision God as being in any place.” -Eric Butterworth.
03/12/23