Why meditate? Because it’s good for you. Nowadays, there’s plenty of information and evidence available that valide the benefits of mediation and support this claim. When you consider the numersous styles of mediation intended for many different of purposes, the cumulative benefits are pretty astounding.
Thanks to meditation champions such as Deepak Chopra, meditation has become a common term and more popularly practiced. More and more health practitioners are offering relaxation sessions or recommending some form of meditation to their clients to address their complaints. Even conventional medicine has embraced it. (see Mayo Clinic notes on meditation).
The Benefits of Meditation
The literature, as well as the two above sources, identify many benefits of meditation. These most often cited benefits:
- Stress reduction
- Heart rate and blood pressure reduction
- Improve heart-rate variability, an indication of stress resilience
- Relief from headaches, tension, and tension-related conditions such as muscle stiffness and pain
- Increased energy and balance
- Enhanced mental calm, clarity, and reasoning
- Improved memory
- Increased focus, clarity, and productivity
- Greater perspective
- Greater creativity, intuition, and innovation
Types of Meditation
The Right Practice For the Right Purpose
Lots of people seem to think meditation is hard and time-consuming. But, the effort and requirements depends on the type of practice you choose.
Not all types of meditation are alike. That makes it difficult to generalize. To choose a practice consider the following:
- Clarify what your intentions are so you can make an appropriate choice about which method is most suitable. Why do you want to meditate – relaxation, balance, toning the nervous system, clearing the mind, enhancing cognition and innovation, introspection, spiritual growth, raising subtle vibration, transcendence, etc? What do you hope the outcome of your practice will be?
- Assess how much time you realistically have to dedicate to your practice. It can be as little as a few minutes when you want or need to meditate or as much as forty minutes every day. You can derive benefits with either extreme or anywhere in between. So, don’t let your available timeframe deter you. Just work with it.
- Consider your style or technique preferences and identify a practice that incorporates them. For example, if you love nature and movement, pick a practice that lets you get outdoors and move. Do you love movement, but not outdoors so much? Try 5Rhythms dance. There are also many types of seated meditation for those who like stillness and deep inner reflection.
Make sure to factor this into choice. These considerations are paramount to your success. Many meditators use different techniques for different goals and situations.
Techniques and Benefits of Meditation
Meditation practices are grouped together into several broad categories based on their technique or intention. These eight categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-focused and guided meditations can be followed while seated or walking.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness and various Buddhist meditation techniques tend to be observant and reflective of life experiences, personal development, and enlightenment. Mindfulness techniques vary, but what is consistent the use of the breath as an instrument of focus and gently engagement of the mind in the process.
Transcendence
Transcendental meditation quiets the mind effortlessly and moves the meditator toward a state of inner awareness, pure conscientiousness, and transcendence. These methods typically reduce stress, enhance bodily functioning, and support self-development.
Spiritual and Expansive
These techniques involve connection to source (however defined). They tend to focus on the retrieval of guidance, usually associated with a specific question the meditator chooses for the specific session.
Spiritual meditation can be associated with organized religion, but this isn’t necessary and often is not the case. Some spiritual practices are expansive, opening the meditator up to universal energies, whether or not the meditator has a question related to her daily living or spirituality.
Focused
Focused meditation uses techniques that center the meditator’s attention on something specific. Music, mantras (words or sounds), or mandalas (symbols or designs ) frequently facilitate the session. These sessions can be healing, introspective, and/or transformative.
Open-Focused
The basic technique of open-focused meditation is an aspect of many styles of meditation dating back to perhaps the first meditators. It is most commonly incorporated into practices that address trauma and stress release as well as creativity, neuroplasticity, and manifestation.
Guided Meditation
The intentions of guided meditation are wide-ranging. The goals of the mediation can vary, but what is a constant and defining is the use of a guiding voice. The guide can speaking or be recorded.
Sometimes guided meditation acts as a conduit to achieving a particular state of consciousness and other times to expose the meditator to new ideas and personal possibilities (e.g., self-improvement).
Movement
While the average people tends to envision a seated meditator, this is not always the case. Movement-based practices include Qi Gong and yoga where the intention is usually to move subtle energy and induce healing and/or awareness.
5Rhythms is a dance meditation style developed by Gabrielle Roth in the 1970s and rapidly grew in popularity. This meditation style is another example of meditation through movement. The main idea is for the person (i.e. dancer) to naturally and freely express themselves and their emotions through their movement and dance, which arrives through the music of five basic rhythms: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness.
Kundalini Awakening
Kundalini meditation aims to release and circulate Kundalini energy, a dormant but powerful source of creative and spiritual energy stored at the base of the spine.
Match Your Meditation to Your Intention
What meditation is and what it does all boils down to the intention of the individual and a choice of meditative practice that supports that intention.
If you’r interested in initiating a practice, first get clarity about your intentions so that you can choose an appropriate method.
It’s important to develop a practice that integrates well with your personal preferences and schedules. To the extent possible, the practice should be supportive and not an additional burden.
Over time, intentions tend to change. Therefore, the preferred mediative practice may change over time as well.
For more on meditation or assistance in starting up a meditation practice, see:
- My related Mind Body Spirit blog. In particular:
- My FREE Guided Meditations
Updated October 9, 2022
Updated April 12, 2024
