A moment to meditate

A moment to meditate
Meditation: a quick and simple way to reduce stress
Meditation can remove the stress you have been experiencing throughout the day, and bring inner peace. Learn how to easily practice meditation when you need it most.

By Mayo Clinic Staff
If stress is making you nervous, agitated, or anxious, consider trying meditation. Spending even a few minutes in meditation can help you regain calm and inner peace.

Anyone can practice meditation, as it is simple, inexpensive, and requires no special equipment.

And you can practice meditation anywhere you are — whether you're walking outside, riding the bus, waiting at the doctor's office, or even if you're in the middle of a tough business meeting.

Understanding Meditation
Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years. Meditation was originally intended to help deepen the understanding of the sacred and mystical life forces. These days, meditation is commonly used to relax and reduce stress.

Meditation is a type of complementary medicine for the mind and body. Meditation can create a deep state of relaxation and a sense of peace.

As you meditate, you focus your attention, clearing out the string of cluttered thoughts that can crowd your mind and cause stress. This process may improve physical and emotional health.

Meditation benefits
Meditation can provide a sense of calm, peace, and balance that can benefit both your mental and general health.

These benefits do not end with the end of the meditation sessions. Meditation can help you stay calm throughout the day and control symptoms of certain medical conditions.

Meditation and mental health
When you meditate, you erase the excess information that accumulates every day and causes you psychological stress.

The psychological benefits of meditation include:

Gain a new perspective on stressful situations
Building stress management skills
Increase self awareness
Focus on the present
Reduce negative feelings
Increase imagination and creativity
Increase patience and tolerance
Meditation and illness
Meditation can be helpful if you have a health condition, especially one that can be exacerbated by stress.

While a growing body of scientific research supports the health benefits of meditation, some researchers believe that it is not possible to draw conclusions about the potential benefits of meditation.

With that in mind, some research suggests that meditation may help people manage symptoms of conditions such as:

worry
asthma
cancer
Chronic pain
Depression
heart disease
Hypertension
irritable bowel syndrome
sleep problems
tension headache
Be sure to consult your health care provider about the advantages and disadvantages of using meditation if you have any of these or other health issues. In some cases, meditation can worsen symptoms associated with certain mental and physical conditions.

Meditation isn't a substitute for traditional medical treatments, but it may be useful as an add-on to your other treatments.

types of meditation
Meditation is an umbrella term for many ways to achieve a state of relaxation. There are many types of meditation and relaxation techniques that have components of meditation. They all share the same goal of achieving inner peace.

Meditation techniques include:

Guided meditation. Sometimes called imagery or guided imagery, this method of meditation helps you form mental images of places or situations in which you feel relaxed.

It tries to use as many of the senses as possible, such as smell, sight, hearing, and touch. You may be directed through this process by a mentor or mentor.

Meditate a mantra. In this type of meditation, you silently repeat a comforting word, idea, or phrase to prevent thoughts from getting distracted.
Meditation wisdom. This type of meditation is based on being mindful or having more awareness and acceptance of living in the present moment.

In wisdom meditation, the amount of perceptual awareness is expanded. In it, you focus on how you feel during meditation, such as the flow of your breath. You can notice your thoughts and feelings, but let them pass without judging any of them.