Wellness: Meditation has many benefits

Imagine yourself in a ballroom with more than 2,000 people but they aren’t eating, dancing or talking. They are sitting still with their eyes closed… That was the scene at a meditation retreat I attended recently in Mexico where 2,100 people from 68 countries spent a week getting to know themselves from the inside out.

Meditation is a mind-body practice that develops intentional focus and minimizes random thoughts. To be clear, meditation is not the absence of thoughts or thinking – your heart beats, your lungs breathe, and your mind thinks. We exercise to increase the strength of our heart and we meditate to increase the capacity of our presence.

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years and there are many different types. For example; mindfulness, Vipassana, guided, and walking meditation to name a few. The common element in any type of meditation is the intentional focus on a single point of reference. That focus might be on the breath, on bodily sensations, or on a word or phrase, known as a mantra.

I was originally drawn to meditation in my mid 20s when I was experiencing high levels of anxiety while at university. I found sitting still and focusing on my breath to be really hard, but I found being trapped in my head to be even harder, so I made time to sit. At first I could only meditate for about 10 minutes. My mind and body felt like a wild stallion rearing and racing and refusing to be tamed. It took months to develop a trusting and accepting relationship with my mind. It’s very common for meditation to expose your busy, jumping monkey mind. Time and perseverance helps turn monkeys into sloths.

Meditation has many benefits including reducing stress, relieving anxiety, pain, and depression, and increasing immunity. I’ve noticed that my anxiety is greatly reduced and I’m less reactionary and more peaceful since meditating daily.

So, how did I end up in a Mexican ballroom meditating with 2,000 people? Over the past two years, motivated by health changes, I’ve been drawn to the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza. His heart-brain coherence meditations which focus on generating elevated emotions in the heart and clear intentions in the brain, were inspired by Dispenza’s experience, neuroscience research and the work of the HeartMath Institute. Coherence or alignment between the heart and the brain means more inner harmony and greater access to your intuition or inner guidance. Many retreat participants, including myself, reported life changing experiences when heart-brain coherence was reached.