subject: Mindfulness Meditation - Techniques to Improve the Quality of Your Life [print this page] Mindfulness Meditation - Techniques to Improve the Quality of Your Life
Do you feel that your life is happening so quickly that you're constantly running from task to task and you never have time to enjoy anything? If you're like most people, the answer is yes. With the hectic pace of our society, many people find themselves seemingly trapped in an endless list of things to do, as if they're on a never-ending treadmill. That can make it very difficult to find satisfaction in life. Even worse, it can eventually lead to emotional burnout, or even anxiety and depression.
So how can we learn to slow down and have more enjoyment in our lives? It has been demonstrated that the practice of mindfulness meditation can lead to a dramatic improvement in the quality of a person's life. Mindfulness meditation is a discipline that has been developed over many centuries by the Buddhist tradition in the Far East. Over the last twenty years, people in the West have adapted these practices so that they can be used by anyone, regardless of their religious affiliation.
Mindfulness can be described as the art of paying attention. While this may sound simple, in reality it requires specific techniques to train your mind to do this. Once you start trying to pay attention, you'll notice that your mind is hardly ever fully paying attention. Our minds tend to jump from thought to thought and from experience to experience, with the result that we're not really fully present in any of them. The techniques of mindfulness meditation help our minds become more calm and focused, so that we're able to be fully present in each moment.
There are many techniques to practice mindfulness meditation, ranging from the most basic to more advanced. In this article we're going to describe the most fundamental technique, called sitting meditation. In this exercise, you simply sit and attempt to pay attention to your breathing. Choose a simple, straight-backed chair and assume a sitting posture. Inhale slowly through your nose, and as you do this try to focus your mind on just experiencing what it feels like to breathe. Now exhale slowly through your mouth, once again experiencing what it feels like to breathe. Repeat the breathing for several minutes, while attempting to keep your mind focused on your breathing.
While doing the sitting meditation, you will invariably find that your mind wanders away from paying attention to your breathing. This is completely normal. When this happens, and you become aware that your mind is no longer with your breathing, you simply become aware of what your mind is doing and then, gently but firmly, bring your attention back to your breathing. Don't get frustrated if this happens many times. Each time your mind wanders, keep gently letting go of whatever your mind is doing, and come back to your breathing. In this way, you are training your mind to be able to pay full attention to the present moment, and also to let go without becoming frustrated. These skills form the foundation of the practice of mindfulness meditation.
With practice, you should eventually be able to do this exercise for 30 to 45 minutes at a time. As you become more proficient at it, you'll find that these skills begin to positively impact your life, as you will feel more tranquility in your everyday experiences, which previously your mind was too busy to appreciate.
To read more articles by this author click here at the mindfulness blog.
