Updated November 16th, 2022
Introduction
What do you know about meditation? Have you tried it before? Did you have difficulty getting into a state of mind that can avoid all thoughts? Or maybe you sat with your legs crossed and said the word “HUMMM….” for too long, and got sick of it. I’m here to tell you that most of us picture meditation in the wrong way. Meditation can be whatever you need it to be to relax your mind and body.
I plan to go through simple ways that you can begin meditating and experiencing health benefits from it. But first I want to explain to you why you should be meditating every day.
Mindfulness
Meditation starts with mindfulness, which can be described as the awareness of both your environment around you and your inner body, thoughts, and functions. I used to think of myself as the most productive person ever because I was always thinking about what was next on my to do list. I would be educating my patients on their specific injury, while at the same time thinking about what I needed to do when I got home from work (like dishes, laundry, workout, etc.). Then I would think about the next task while I was completing each one. While these thoughts made me feel productive, they didn’t allow me to be mindful in each situation and truly experience each day.
Now that I practice meditation daily, I am able to show up better for my patients, family, friends, and myself. I focus on each task without worrying about what’s next, which actually makes me more productive.
Pillow Talk
Mindfulness starts for most people when their head hits the pillow. How many times have you rushed through your day to get everything done, then you lay down for bed and the thoughts started rolling in? These thoughts usually aren’t peaceful ones. A few examples may be: Am I making enough money? Am I doing the right things for my health? Is my family safe? Why did Shawn make fun of me today?
These thoughts can take away from our valuable sleep. So how do we block them? The answer is: we can’t. The art of meditation is finding ways to accept these thoughts, or push them to the side for a later time. If you don’t get enough sleep, how will you make more money tomorrow? How are you? How can you keep your family safe if you’re too tired? How could you come up with a good comeback for Shawn?
Meditation practice is how we counteract these thoughts throughout the day and at night so we can live a more mindful life.
Types of Meditation
There are many useful ways to practice meditation, but let’s start at an easy point. Watch my video below to learn how to breathe into your belly. Focusing on your breath is an easy way to distract your mind from other thoughts.
Now that you have the belly breathing down, let’s add to it. I want you to try the body scan. A body scan involves breathing in and picturing the air, going all the way down to your toes, then breathing out and releasing it. I know you can’t physically breathe air down to your toes, but again it gives you another distraction from those harmful or distracting thoughts that we usually have all day. Check out the video below for more information on the body scan.
I have also included a bonus video on my favorite meditation practice:
Impact On Recovery
Just in case you need some science to back up what I’m saying above, let’s get into it. Our body operates using two major components of our nervous system:
Sympathetic Nervous System - referred to as “fight or flight”. We are very focused on the task at hand when this system is activated, which is great for exercise, conflict, and emergencies.
Parasympathetic Nervous System - mostly active when we are asleep, used to help us rest, digest, and recover from injuries.
Although the sympathetic nervous system helps us in the above situations, we often spend too much of our waking hours with it activated due to social media, racing thoughts, and constant use of technology. Meditation helps us activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Like I said, this system helps our body rest, digest, and recover. Although we get this benefit at night (if our sleep is adequate), relaxation and recovery during the day is also very beneficial (1). Meditation has also been found to improve pain tolerance, improve mindful awareness of an injury, and reduce stress/anxiety levels in injured athletes (2). As you can imagine, improved pain tolerance and reduced stress/anxiety would likely help you recover from an injury. Man, I love research.
Conclusion
The power of meditation and mindfulness practice is growing in popularity and use by the day. Don’t get left behind on something that could be very useful for you and beneficial to your overall health. Meditation doesn’t have to be sitting cross legged with a non-stop “HUMMMM”, remember? It is simply giving your brain a little shut-eye during the day so you can perform tasks better, be more focused, and recover from injuries. I will continue to create more information on this topic because it has made a major impact on my life and many of my patient’s lives.
References
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