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The Power of the Mind Unleashed through Brainwave Meditation

Monday, December 25th, 2006

When I first heard about brainwave meditation, I thought it was something out of science fiction. But once you get a chance to look into it, brainwave meditation is a powerful tool for releasing the forces already in your mind just by harnessing the power of those things called “brainwaves.”

The idea of getting control of our thoughts and our mind seems other worldly for sure. But when you think about it, you already have some control. Lots of the methods of brainwave meditation are already part of our daily lives and vocabulary. You might hear people say these phrases about their thought lives.

  • I am going to go to my happy place.
  • I need to gather my thoughts.
  • You need to get a grip.
  • I have to try to get my mind around this.
  • I’ll get centered and get back to work.
  • You just need to focus.

All of these catch phrases from “getting centered” to “your happy place” actually refer to little tricks we have already learned to use to control the way our minds and thoughts work so we can stay in that “place” that is happy and productive. You get to that place by manipulating your own brainwaves.

Brainwave meditation takes that skill you already have and supercharges it. Using disciplines pioneered in Kundalini Yoga along with more recent research in such exotic sounding ideas as binaural beats, we can learn to take our master of brainwave meditation and perfect it into a powerful tool for our own well being, our health and our happiness.

If meditating is new to you, don’t worry. There are lots of web pages, books and meditation masters in your own community that can help you get started. Meditating is an act of calming your mind and directing concentration. When you think about it, the mind is a muscle, like the biceps or any other muscle and as such, it can be trained through meditating.

Brainwave meditation combines what we know about the brainwaves of the mind with the discipline and powerful results meditating can bring. Meditation exercises are not difficult to master and can be worked into your busy schedule.

Scientists have discovered that when we are in a positive frame of mind, certain brainwaves control our thoughts and others when we feel depressed or anxious. Brainwave meditation gives you the ability not only to control your thoughts and energies but your moods and frame of mind as well. Binaural beats are just another set of tools to help us achieve the goals we want to have as a result of brainwave meditation.

So What Are the Basics?

Don’t be put off that our ultimate resource for knowledge of brainwave meditation is the ancient teachings of Kundalini Yoga. The process is still quite simple.

  1. Start with the posture. Find a comfortable way to sit, preferably cross-legged and position your hands relaxed on your thighs facing up. You want your hands to be still so touching the fingers together helps encourage the contemplation process.
  2. Focus your eyes so they are still on some quite object. Generally, eyes half closed and gazing at the tip of your nose helps quiet your eyes as well. If that is uncomfortable, you might choose a simple object like a candle flame to fix your gaze on throughout the exercise.
  3. Focus your hearing. A mantra is often used for this because it is a simple word or tone that you can allow to fill your mind and quite the raging thoughts in your head. To let your brainwave meditation have effect, using your sense of hearing is important. Binaural beats can accelerate brainwave meditation tremendously. To use binaural beats you would use headphones so two tones that vary only slightly in tone and frequency are fed into each ear. This triggers the concentration of positive brainwaves to empower brainwave meditation for maximum results.
  4. How long should it go on? The ideal length of a meditation session is 31 minutes. But you may have to work up to that as you train your mind to be able to concentrate your thought process.

There are powerful benefits to brainwave meditation including increased concentration and a more healthy heart and digestive system. But by far the greatest benefit is the sense of calm and joy that comes from being able to maintain a constant positive brainwave level and the positive impact on your moods, your emotions and your approach to life as a whole.

Want to calm your mind, super-charge your energy level and manifest what you truly desire in life?  We’ve created a FREE audio e-course to get you started.  You’ll get guided meditations, free tips and techniques to help you transform your life from the inside-out.  If your happiness is important, click here to sign up

Meditation Stress Relief is for Real

Monday, December 25th, 2006

If you are like me, you are thinking that if meditation stress relief could possibly be for real, it would be a huge benefit to my life and even to the lives of people around me. Stress is a big problem in modern life. They say that stress is as much as a health risk as smoking or obesity. So the idea of finding a way to introduce relaxation and reduce the trauma of daily stress through meditation almost seems too good to be true.

Most of us know that learning to meditate has been a part of many cultures for centuries. But even in our modern world, there is active research going on that is discovering medication stress relief techniques can be a very healthy and natural way to control the destructive effects of stress and anxiety on our health.

Of the many studies on meditation stress relief, probably the one that has had the most impact and been most revealing was a research that was done by Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard University. His book The Relaxation Response was a breakthrough in showing the effect meditating can have on the reduction of anxiety.

But How Does It Work?

To understand how meditation stress relief can be so beneficial, we need to think about the way stress hurts us when it goes on for too long. When we undergo anxiety or stress, there is a direct physical reaction. You may recognize it in the form of back pain, an upset stomach or a headache. These are direct anxiety related health problems.

The reason that happens is that when we encounter emotional stress, whether it is fear, pressure or distress, adrenaline rushes through our system. Adrenaline is a good thing when it helps a soldier in battle or a basketball player but as a routine part of our internal make up, it can cause trauma. It can raise your blood pressure, make your heart beat fast, make you breath quickly and in shallow breaths and create muscle cramps due to accelerated blood flow.

Meditation stress relief methods reduce the negative impact of long-term adrenaline rushes due to stress. As you meditate and seek a state of relaxation, your breathing deepens and becomes steadier, your heart rate slows, your blood pressure drops and soon you are in a state of calm relaxation and tranquility.

But What About When You are Done Meditating?

When you think of meditation, you see a person sitting in a quiet room, sometimes on the floor, eyes shut sustaining a state of relaxation and contemplation. But you cannot do that at the office or at school. So what value is using meditation stress reduction if as soon as you walk out of your meditation room, the anxiety starts up all over again?

Meditation is more than just an exercise of the mind and soul. It is a lifestyle and a discipline. When you learn to meditate, you train your mind in the art of going from a stressed state to a relaxed state. You learn to “put yourself into” a mental and spiritual condition that can let you use meditation stress management even in the middle of the crisis.

Now that is important. You have heard phrases used that refer to going into a meditation stress control mode. It is sometimes called “entering the alpha zone’ or “going to my happy place” but it is a mental discipline of invoking the positive mental attitudes and techniques to use your meditation stress control abilities during your daily life.

The outcome can be truly astounding. Students of meditation stress control training have better self concepts and have much stronger coping skills because they can be masters over how stress impacts them rather than letting anxiety control them. The result is improved performance at school or work, better memory and even more enjoyable and productive personal relationships. By letting meditation stress control have its impact on your whole person, people will see the real you come out in every aspect of your life. And that real you is a winner.

Want to calm your mind, super-charge your energy level and manifest what you truly desire in life?  We’ve created a FREE audio e-course to get you started.  You’ll get guided meditations, free tips and techniques to help you transform your life from the inside-out.  If your happiness is important, click here to sign up

The Many Benefits of Meditation

Monday, December 25th, 2006

It wasn’t that long ago that only people who used meditation as part of their religious ritual realized the benefits of meditation. But fortunately for all of us, meditation has become popular enough that all of us can get help from the many advantages of meditation.

As more and more people have become aware of meditation, many have come to realize that meditating brings tremendous advantages to its disciples. The benefits of meditation can be identified in three areas – the mental, the physical and the spiritual.

The Mental Benefits of Meditation.

It can probably be said without fear of error that peace is a benefit of meditation that extends to all of the areas we are discussing today. Peace of mind is a state that many describe as a life goal and a higher level of existence that is worth striving for. Meditation can help us come to a state of peace in the way our minds work and handle anxiety and change.

The act of meditation gains us the freedom to allow our minds to relax and recuperate from the difficulties of life. As we focus our thoughts, our breathing and our spirits on the mantra or other object of focus that we use while meditating, the act of meditation slows the breath and causes troubled thoughts and fears to drift away. As you meditate you will notice the changes to the atmosphere in your consciousness and that change of mental state that you gain is a powerful benefit of meditation and will include…

  • Reduced anxiety. The mind reacts to stresses and worries and begins to get agitated. When that happens, it can generate anxiety that is as much of a problem as the source of the worries. Meditating eases those anxious thoughts and gives peace of mind within grasp again.
  • Clearer thinking. One of the huge advantages of meditating is that the discipline helps calm, reduce or eliminate anxious and emotional thoughts that so often plaque us. As that happens, our rational calm nature can take charge and we make better decisions. Our mind gains peace and serenity that is a fertile garden for clear thinking.
  • Balance. When something upsets us, we tend to obsess about it and that worry dominates our thoughts. We need help to put that concern in context and get balance back to our thought life. The benefit of meditation is that such balance is given back to us and the peace and confidence that comes with it is invaluable.

The Physical Benefits of Meditation

We think of meditation as a spiritual or mental exercise but the physical benefits of meditation are almost more compelling than the help meditating gives to our minds. It makes sense because we do put ourselves into a physical state when we meditate. We calm and regulate our breathing. We work on our posture so our energies can flow easily. These short-term gains and the long-term effect on our health can become noticeable in time.

The reduction in anxiety and worry can have a powerful effect on our sleep. You will sleep deeper and more peacefully gaining huge physical advantages from meditation. The same gains in reduction of anxiety can also have a positive influence on your digestion which can influence your energy and drive as well. Because we are intricate and amazing human machines, once we feel the benefits of meditation begin to have positive effects on us mentally and even spiritually, those advantages begin to help us physically as well. It’s just a natural outcome of meditating.

The Spiritual Benefits of Meditation

This brings us around full circle. While many of us have different opinions on spirituality. When we speak of spiritual benefits of meditation, we are not necessarily referring to religious spirituality. Humans have a side of them that is above and beyond the mind and logic. We sometimes call it our soul. It is that part of us that can appreciate art or fine music.

Meditating can help the spiritual side of us begin to strengthen and deepen. This is no doubt why meditation and the advantages it brings is so integral to many religious disciplines. And as our spiritual sides become more developed, our quality of life improves significantly. And after all, isn’t that one of the best benefits of meditation that we can achieve?

Want to calm your mind, super-charge your energy level and manifest what you truly desire in life?  We’ve created a FREE audio e-course to get you started.  You’ll get guided meditations, free tips and techniques to help you transform your life from the inside-out.  If your happiness is important, click here to sign up