How to Use Meditation to Heal Yourself
Meditation can be an indispensable aid to mental wellbeing. Through its simple yet potency practice, it can reduce symptoms associated with mental illness, boost emotional resilience, and raise awareness.
Close your eyes and take 10 minutes to sit comfortably in any position – chair, cross-legged or on the floor–in which to focus on each part of your body and feeling its energy (prana/chi/life force) flowing to it. Focus your mind on each part, feeling life energy (prana/chi/life force) flow inward into it.
Breathing
One of the key aspects of meditation for healing is learning to control your breathing. Stressful situations may cause us to breathe through our chest muscles instead of diaphragms, leading to shallow breaths and inefficient oxygen absorption. Deep, even breaths can help reduce inflammation and relax the body and mind – aim for four counts inhale/eight counts exhale for this exercise! It will be an invaluable asset when stressed or anxious situations arise – practice this simple exercise whenever stressed!
Inflammation is a silent killer, contributing to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer as well as depression and anxiety. Studies have proven that meditation can help combat inflammation by encouraging mindfulness – the ability to fully experience your thoughts and emotions without judgment – which has numerous applications including practicing gratitude, staying present in each moment and recognising self-talk.
Breath-based meditation techniques like Sudarshan Kriya have been demonstrated to increase functional reserves of the autonomic nervous system by modulating metabolic, cardiovascular and nerve function.[1] These results indicate that traditional cultures’ meditation practices may help optimize human performance.
Meditation for healing has been shown to ease symptoms associated with depression, anxiety and panic disorders. A clinical study of those living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) demonstrated reduced hyperarousal, re-experiencing symptoms and anxiety through breath-based meditation techniques.
Breathing techniques used in meditation can be an invaluable way of improving sleep and increasing productivity. They’re especially helpful before bed, helping calm the mind and prepare for restorative restful restful restful slumber.
Meditation’s healing benefits can be felt by all, regardless of age, gender or religious belief. Meditation can help reduce stress and anxiety levels, improve cognitive functioning, promote self-healing and build more resilient mindsets. Finding the appropriate form of meditation for healing that suits your personal needs is the key. With time and dedication you may start experiencing immediate results, such as increased emotional resilience, concentration/focus improvement and deeper compassion towards yourself and others as well as finding purposeful purposefulness within daily life.
Visualization
Visualization can be an extremely helpful part of meditation for healing. It can help overcome fear and anxiety, relax muscles and ease pain, as well as achieve life goals such as losing weight or quitting smoking. Furthermore, visualization may enhance self-esteem while helping create more compassion in yourself and others.
Visualization requires closing your eyes and envisioning a safe haven where you feel at peace – such as your vacation spot, garden or other peaceful setting that makes you comfortable. Color may help set the scene; blue can promote calmness while orange stimulates energy and passion.
One popular visualization technique involves visualizing yourself being enveloped in golden healing light, starting at the top of your head and moving down through your shoulders, arms, chest, core and legs and feet to relieve tension or stiffness. Finally, any negative energy released will be returned back into the universe before any darker energy dissipates and leaving only peace and healing behind.
Meditation has been proven to benefit a range of health conditions, from depression and cancer to improving immunity and chronic pain management. Studies have also found that this form of meditation can increase motivation, motor performance and help manage stress and depression; which explains why athletes, therapists, coaches and many other professionals rely on this form for healing and personal growth.
Visualizing what you want to accomplish can be very effective, since your brain cannot differentiate between real and imagined experiences. For instance, when imagining yourself eating an inviting piece of fruit, your brain will respond as though you were actually biting into it! Regular meditation sessions that incorporate visualization techniques may help speed up the achievement of goals faster.
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Self-compassion
Self-compassion is a cornerstone of meditation for healing. This practice requires cultivating mindful awareness of feelings, thoughts, and body sensations without judgement; creating a supportive inner dialogue; replacing self-critical statements with positive ones. Other self-compassion activities may include eating well, exercising regularly, resting as necessary; as well as breathing exercises, visualization exercises or mantras as calming practices.
Mindfulness can be effective at alleviating stress and depression; however, research indicates that self-compassion may even more so. Self-compassion provides a deeper connection with others which reduces shame or feelings of inferiority; additionally it can be used to decrease rumination which often results in emotional distress.
Self-compassion can be difficult to grasp at first, making meditation practice even harder. Unfortunately, for many people the concept can sound like self-indulgence or indulgence and they may find difficulty integrating it into their routine. But researchers are discovering the relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion – such as improved emotional resilience and focus/concentration/compassion/and spiritual reflection/.
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To practice self-compassion during meditation, begin by finding a quiet space free from distractions and seating yourself comfortably with good posture and good breathing technique. Focus on breathing deeply while breathing deeply through your nose. As soon as your mind wanders off-track, gently bring it back onto the focus of the meditation if possible – if meditating alone use this practice to build trust in yourself through following instructions given by a guide; or use guided meditation as an opportunity for self-exploration!
Mindfulness
Meditation for spiritual healing can provide physical and emotional support during times of health crisis, helping you feel more grounded and managing stress more easily. Meditation practices focused on breathing, visualization, affirmations, mantras and mindfulness can not only reduce effects of chronic pain but can help cultivate self-love as well as connect you with divine feminine energy.
One of the key steps of spiritual healing meditation is setting an intention for what you wish to heal – for instance, negative energies or old patterns might need releasing, reconnecting with higher powers or anything else you need help with. State your intention during meditation to prompt powerful energetic shifts that accelerate healing both mental and physical ailments.
Although it is normal to become distracted during meditation, the best practice is to remain focused on one single thought/image/or mantra to help ease nervous system tension from an increasingly informational world. Studies have proven that many different meditation practices result in lower cortisol levels, blood pressure and heart rate responses due to stress.
Meditation also aids in improving the balance of a person’s autonomic nervous system, which controls both fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest responses in their body. Under prolonged stress, this balance may become compromised, leading to various health problems; through regular meditation sessions, however, one can retrain one’s nervous system so as to remain balanced and center all the time; helping heal illness as well as prevent new ones.
Meditation has long been seen to relieve chronic pain conditions like arthritis, fibromyalgia and migraines. Meditation helps individuals learn how to pay more attention to the involuntary functions in the body – which in turn reduces discomfort – as well as other things going on around you (like hearing your own breath or feeling sunlight on their skin) which can serve as a distraction from what pain may be present.
