How many times during this quarantine have you not felt overwhelmed with feelings or emotions that you do not know how to handle? Stress or anxiety during this pandemic period are common feelings and sensations. However, we cannot allow ourselves to be dominated by them and must look for a way to find calm. Especially now, when there is so much uncertainty and worries, more than ever it is necessary to learn how to handle it.
But how?
Mindful breathing and meditation are the answer. Put your mind in the present moment during this pandemic period, it has become common to think a lot about the past or be very anxious about the future, which causes us to lose a lot of energy and become more stressed.
One of the benefits of meditation is that it focuses us on the present in the here and now, which is the only time we can act. Meditation focuses on breathing and when we focus on just breathing in the present moment this can help you take control over your emotions.
There is a link between emotions and breathing
When an emotion comes, our breathing rate changes. For example, anxiety makes it faster and superficial, anger makes it stronger, when we are sad the exhalation is longer, etc. If we control our breathing, we can control those emotions and let them go. You keep the energy level high just by breathing since it is one of the main sources of energy, and with simple techniques you can make it rise quickly.
Meditating regularly is also essential to keep energy high. Helping eliminate toxins. When we meditate and breathe well, it helps us eliminate up to 90% of the toxins that accumulate in each cell of the body. In addition, it helps lower blood pressure, increases the energy level in the body, calms the nervous system, eliminates insomnia, and helps fight anxiety and all other stress-related symptoms.
How to practice meditation
Next, we will mention 6 steps for you to learn to meditate from home and achieve all the benefits that we mentioned above.
- Put on comfortable clothes: Take off your shoes and choose a wide garment and forget about tight clothes and take off your watch or other accessories that may be annoying.
- Find a quiet place: Any place is good as long as it allows you to be comfortable and focused, totally immersed in the activity you are going to start.
- Sit correctly: Sit on the floor with your back straight, but without tension, taking deep breaths and keeping your shoulders and arms relaxed
- Focus on one object: Focus on an object or on the breath (with your eyes closed) when you begin meditative practice.
- Accept the thoughts that arise and move on: It is common for various negative thoughts to arise during meditation practice. When these thoughts appear, simply accept them and then refocus your attention on the object, the breath, the sound, or the body sensation.
- Increase your meditation time progressively: When you start in meditation, you should start little by little and then increase the time. We recommend starting with 5 minutes a day.