Meditation: Getting Started and Enjoying the Benefits

Meditation is a noble and gentle practice, it cultivates your quieter side, the place where you have time for contemplation and correction.

But as wonderful as that sounds, many of us are still tussling with our inner achiever who’s telling us we don’t have time…

When you’re going about your busy day, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the rushing stream of what you feel you “should” be doing. The pressure may be on, and it can be hard to find the time to slow down and take time out, what to speak of finding the time to learn how to relax and meditate within that hard to find time slot.

Meditation for Busy People

That’s where our Moments of Tranquility program can really help you out. I developed this quick start meditation set for busy people who want a break, but don’t want to have to learn how to get one.

Meditation is a simple art, but it’s becoming a lost one, I can remember years ago scanning bookshelves trying to find information on “how to meditate”. On the whole, my search was futile, what I really wanted was someone to take me by the hand and say “this is what you need to do”, eventually I got lucky.

20 years later I’m still meditating and happy to share with you the basics of a collection of simple exercises for inviting peace and calm into your life in minutes.

Peaceful Pauses

Moments of Tranquility Volume 1 is a collection of guided relaxation and meditation experiences. It’s a 2 disc set carefully created to invite peace and quiet into the busiest of lives

Disc 1 is a walkthrough of eight simple and relaxing sessions; such as the relaxing breath, mindfulness meditation, or the popular anxiety reducing 5 finger Qigong exercise, that you can download and play on your laptop, or iPod, or burn to CD.

All you need to do to get started with the benefits of meditation, is sit back, click play, and follow along with the exercises. Each one is a short 3 - 7 minute session, so that anyone can find the time to slow down and enjoy the benefits of meditation for a few precious moments.

Disc 2 is a collection of meditation music compositions performed with Tibetan bowls, shakuhachi meditation flutes, and other traditional meditative instruments for you to do your own thing with, once you have the knack of some of the sessions on disc one.

Even if you were to listen to just one track once a day and just close your eyes, breathe deeply and listen to the music, you would find that your stress levels would drop significantly.

You don’t need to worry about posture and practice, this program works on the principle of good, better, best, read on and I'll explain...

Good... 

Trying an exercise here and there and taking a break to do some deep breathing is good. Even listening on the train is good, or in bed before you drift off to sleep, or for five minutes in your lunch break. It’s all good. It will give you a break and some genuine relaxation time.

Better... 

Even better is to listen daily and try and really enter into the spirit of each exercise. Have a place which is your meditation place. Maybe buy some incense, or a candle and set a time (perhaps by getting up 10 minutes earlier and practising before work, or perhaps at the end of the day, to unwind and clear your mind) where you absorb yourself in an exercise and derive great benefit from it. You will soon find this a pleasure and your mind will feel the benefits and let you know if you miss a day.

Best...

Best is committing to daily practice, and extending the time you spend in meditation to sessions of 20 minutes to an hour. That can come later, if you so desire. But if I told you that you had to do that now to get any benefits, would I loose your interest? I thought so.

If you make regular listening a health creating habit, you can improve:

- your digestion
- your immunity
- your productivity and creative problem solving abilities
- your relationships (by reducing tension and irritability born of stress)


You can also protect your health by reducing tension and anxiety.

It’s simple. Your nervous system benefits enormously from being consciously invited to stand down. When you are rushing around, your brain is in a reactive, and often defensive state; when you take a few minutes to relax, you give your brain a genuine break and it sends signals all over your body to stand at ease, and the benefits of this are priceless.

Add a meditation download to your iPod and start enjoying the benefits of some moments of tranquility now…