Breathing Mindful Meditation: Benefits & Step-by-Step Guide

Now, in the ‘era’ of the corona virus pandemic and the resulting economic recession, there have been immensely negative effects on mental health due to several problems faced by the people at large. Many people may be facing increased levels of alcohol and drug use, insomnia, and anxiety. Therefore, one must find a way to fight back against this horrendous pandemic and learn how to cope up and lead life amidst this.

Meditation, especially mindful meditation, helps us to focus on the present moment in every breath we take. So, body scan meditation is one of the ways which can help your body to revitalize yourself and focus on bodily sensations.

By drifting your attention from just your breath to each of your body parts, this mindful meditation will help you to control your stress, anxiety, pain, and also, your sleep.

The central motive is not to reduce your pain completely but to be receptive to sensory practices, be more accepting and can take control over all the worries. It is to acquire the skill to understand what is being felt in the body like bones, skin, internal organs, digestion, etc. Mindful meditation is an advantageous practice to learn self-awareness about how physical experience is bonded with emotional involvement.

For each emotion we undergo, there is a way in which that feeling stays in the body, and by opening the attention of an individual to get the information, one can start learning how to react to physical and emotional suggestions and their associated acknowledgment through mindful meditation.

• According to the research, mindful meditation helps to reduce your pain and anxiety and manages the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It reduces your muscular strain in the body and other symptoms related to stress, such as inflammation, pain, digestive issues, headaches, and insomnia. It makes you get more focused and relaxed.
• Mindful meditation improves your sleep cycle. When you meditate before you sleep, all the troubling worries you just get diminished, make you calm and helps you to have a peaceful night.
• It also brings better self-awareness, mindfulness, and greater psychological well-being. It helps you to sync to your feelings and emotions rather than getting away from them. Mindful meditation helps you to experience “increased internal somatic sensations”.
• It helps you to practice self-recognition and benevolence if you are someone who is suffering from some kind of pain. According to the research, it has been found that there have been immediate results shown on the patients who had been suffering from chronic problems. Mindful meditation is essential to cultivate the attitude of acceptance towards the ongoing moments and current feelings. It will help your body with more tenderness, appreciation, and composure.

• Make yourself cozy- Get comfortable and lie down and slowly, with ease, stretch your limbs. You can also sit and do it.
• Get focused- Close your eyes, take slow breaths, and start focusing on the breaths. Take your breaths from your belly and with each breath, you take, try to let your abdomen expand and contract. Then, while inhaling and exhaling, detect the sensitivity of your breath getting filled up and slowly leaving it.
• Awareness of your body parts- Now, focus down on your feet slowly while the breathing process is on. Try to notice the pain, discomfort, or anything which you are feeling, accept it, and if there are any kind of emotions, or thought running across your mind, detect them, and breathe through it slowly.
• Observe the tension- If you notice some unusual sensations in your body, try to keep your attention on it and breathe through them to detect the results. Now, start imagining that the pressure or the pain which you are feeling is getting vanished into the air. Then, you can shift into another point of focus slowly and gradually. Once you are done scanning all the body parts, try the awareness to flow all over through your body.
• Release- Disperse your attention slowly and pay your attention to the surroundings.

Some may feel a great sensation and relaxation on their first time. Some may too feel the discomfort and some may feel nothing at all. But, slowly with time, everything will fall back to its place with some regular practices. So, keep practicing mindful meditation and hopefully, you’ll be achieving the best out of it. Remember, even 5 minutes of meditation is better than not meditating at all.