Meditation Articles

Did You Know Mindful Eating Can Promote Weight Loss?

It’s true, paying attention, I mean REALLY paying attention to your food as you eat has been shown to promote weight loss. First I will tell you how to try it yourself, then I will explain why this works.

I suggest the first time you try this when you are going to be eating something you enjoy. It will make the experience all the more enjoyable! Likewise a caution – junk food, will taste junkier! Trust me, it’s true, I’ve tried it 🙁

BEFORE YOU START

If you are eating at work or a restaurant
- Prepare and pack a healthy meal that you know you will enjoy OR pick a restaurant that serves fresh healthy food you like.
- If you are packing your meal make sure to pack it in a way that is visually appealing.
- Get away from your desk to eat if it is hard to ignore the phone, or if you are likely to be interrupted.
- Either way make sure you find a place where you will not be pestered by anyone.
- Turn off all noise making devices (cell phone, pager etc.)
If you are eating at home alone
- Make a healthy meal or snack that you know you will enjoy. We are talking about mindfulness as a tool to aid weight loss, so let’s keep it healthy 🙂
- Clear your table off and set it with your nicest dishes and cutlery.
- Serve your food in a manner that is visually appealing.
- Before you sit down to eat make sure you have everything you need so that you don’t have to interrupt your meal by getting up for something.
- Turn off both your home phone and your cell phone. The world can wait 15 – 20 minutes for you.
If you are sharing a meal with someone else
- Follow the “Before You Start” instructions above and make sure to let the person you are sharing your meal with knows about your experiment so they know what to expect. Ensure it is someone who is OK with getting “the silent treatment” during the meal, preferably someone who is likely to understand and support your experiment.

ENJOY YOUR FOOD!

When you begin, remind yourself that the purpose of this experiment is to fully experience your food.

As you uncover your food take a moment to really see how it looks. How do you feel about how it looks? Notice everything – Is the food carefully arranged or in a wonderful jumble of contrasting chaos? Are the colours really appealing? Do you like one colour more than the rest? Is there a contrast of light and dark? Heck, maybe all you notice is that looking at it makes you hungry! That’s OK 🙂
Allow the part of your brain that thinks with words to take a brake. Instead, focus on your sense of sight, smell, touch, taste and even hearing.
Take a good deep appreciative sniff, really smell your food. Is it strong and pungent? Is it a delicate aroma? Does the aroma make your mouth start to water? (This is a good thing, saliva starts the digestive process, aiding in effective digestion).
Take a bite and taste the food. Is it sweet, or sour, or salty? Maybe it is spicy hot, or is it a combination of sensations?
Notice how it feels as you bite into the food. Is it smooth and silky, or crunchy and invigorating? Is it cold or hot?
Chew your food thoroughly , savoring the flavour(s), smell and texture.
Listen … does the food make a noise when you bite into it?
Can you taste the different ingredients? Is one flavour more dominant than all the rest?
How does the food make you feel? Does it bring up any emotions or moods for you?
Does the food satisfy your hunger?

Notice every bite, really appreciate it and pay full attention to it.

HOW DOES THIS WORK TO AID IN WEIGHT LOSS?

When eating without attention you can easily eat an extra 3 – 10 bites after you’re actually full before your body gets the message across to your distracted brain that it doesn’t want any more food. Multiply those 3 – 10 bites of food by say 3 meals and 1 or 2 snacks every day easily adds up to 15 – 50 bites of food a day that is not enjoyed, let alone physically required!

It also slows down how fast you eat so you’re less likely to overeat before your body recognizes that it has had enough food. It takes somewhere around 15 – 20 minutes for that message to get to your brain!

Some of the benefits of mindful eating are

Recognizing when you are satisfied more quickly.
Really enjoying your food fully.
In a recent study had 2 groups of people were given the same food to eat. One group was told to stop eating when they were full and the other group was instructed to pay mindful attention as they ate and to stop eating when they were full. The second group consistently ate a little bit less.
Make it a habit to really taste your food, and a lot of junk food will not seem so appealing because the very nature of junk food is to be Over salted / Too sugary / Too greasy / Artificially flavoured or Over flavoured! While it is probably better to avoid junk food all together, if you do decide to indulge take a smaller portion and really ENJOY it.

by Totally Meditation on 2 Comments

Meditate With Your Child – Releasing Anger And Resentment

Sometimes telling your child to “run around the block” when they are angry works wonders, but wouldn’t it be great if your child learned another way to calm themselves down?

Meditate with your child to help him/her to calm down after a stressful situation. It is a self help tool you can teach them to help them calm themselves. This is more appropriate for older children.

Allow approximately 4 – 7 minutes for this meditation.

The Meditation – Before you start

Find a place to do this meditation that will feel safe for your child
Turn off things that are distracting like the TV and radio
Let your child know that you are going to do a meditation together. If they want to know what a meditation is you can say that it is something you think might help them to feel better
Before you start speaking take a couple of deep breaths yourself so that your voice sounds calm, not rushed.
In between each step take a breath. This will help to pace the meditation so that each instruction has a chance to be understood and processed by your child. It also gives you time to read the next instruction before you speak it 😉

What follows is a sample “script” of words you can use to lead your child through the meditation. Please feel free to change some of the words to better match your child’s situation. What your child imagines as they breath out (and in) would depend on what they are feeling. Keep the wording simple, this makes it easier for your child to duplicate the meditation if they choose to try it on their own.

The Meditation – What to say

Sit with your feet on the floor and your hands open on your lap
Close your eyes
Take a nice l-o-n-g BIG breath and let it out
Take another nice l-o-n-g BIG breath and blow it out
Take one more HUGE big breath in and as you blow out, imagine that all your anger gets blown out of you when you blow out the air!
Take a great BIG breath in and imagine you are breathing in a nice feeling of quietness (Repeat this process of breathing out what they don’t want and breathing in what they do want at least three times, more if it seems to be helping)
Breath in some more of that nice quietness one more time before you open your eyes
Now open your eyes

After The Meditation

Let your child know that they can do this on their own when they are feeling angry (or whatever the feeling is that is bothering them).
Ask your child what they thought about the meditation.
- Don’t be too surprised if they come up with comments like “why do I have to close my eyes” or “you talk too fast (or too slow)”. This is a new process for them so comments and questions about the act of meditating are just as likely as comments about how the meditation made them feel.
- Listen to what they have to say and answer questions that come up
- Also don’t be too surprised if they don’t really have anything to say, they may not really know what to think of it yet 🙂

Depending on your child’s response you could

Set up another time to practice this together again in a couple of days. Practicing when they are not in distress makes it easier for them to remember the steps so they can try it by themselves later.
If you feel it was beneficial you could set up a regular practice schedule. Although the purpose is for your child to learn a self help technique, it can be calming if you lead them through it so they don’t have to do anything except follow what you say.

Important note – if you think there may be a more serious underlying problem you may want to consider talking with your doctor or a counsellor to learn other coping techniques.

by Totally Meditation on 2 Comments

Grounding Meditation

This visualization meditation can help release tension and anxiety. It just requires the ability to focus and imagine.

There are lots of variations of grounding meditations and practices. I will cover other versions in future posts because “grounding” is so beneficial it’s worth further exploration; also different versions appeal to different people.

The Meditation

Sit on the floor if it is comfortable for you, otherwise sit upright in a comfortable chair with your feet flat on the ground and hands open loosely on your lap.
Close your eyes, and take several good long deep breaths
- As you breath in imagine you are breathing in calmness
- As you breath out imagine you are releasing stress
- Breath in calm
- Breath out stress and allow any tense muscles to relax
Now imagine there is a cord of your own energy that starts at about your tailbone that travels all the way down to the center of the earth. Imagine it having a downward flow. See if you can sense or feel this energy. Stay with this for a couple of minutes and don’t worry if you don’t actually sense the energy. You do not have to feel it in order to benefit from this exercise.
Now shift your attention to allowing frustration, anger and other emotions to flow from your body down this “grounding cord” (this is the part I enjoy). If you have been around people during the day who made you angry … you know who I mean, the ones who felt like they were invading your personal space, this is the time to let go of their negative energy. By releasing those negative emotions and letting them flow into the earth you are taking control of your own personal space. You don’t need to carry around emotions other people dumped on you! Don’t worry “mother earth” can handle it 😉
As you release this negative energy sense your emotions becoming more balanced.
Take a minute to enjoy the feeling of calm before opening your eyes. Paying attention to positive emotions helps to make them more real.

Allow at least 5 minutes for this meditation. If you are feeling very agitated and angry you may want to give this a few minutes longer to allow your body the time to adjust and relax.

What is the take away from this? A grounding meditation in essence helps you regain your own emotional balance.

by Totally Meditation on 4 Comments

Exercise Your Meditation

Why not turn part of your exercise routine into a mediation practice? Think of it, multitasking that is HEALTHY and ENJOYABLE, stress releasing instead of stressful!

When I was on the treadmill, stationary bike or rowing machine at the gym I would often daydream, a pleasant enough way to make the time go faster, but after I got into practicing meditation I would switch back and forth between daydreaming and a breathing meditation. I found when I focussed on my breathing for part of the work out, the exercise seemed a little less exhausting, and I felt a bit calmer afterwards even though I worked as hard.

I’ve since found out that deep breathing helps to oxygenate muscles during exercise which is beneficial for reducing physical stress. Couple that with focussed breathing and you have a recipe for stress reduction.

This is how I went about it. (If you are new to exercise check with your doctor to make sure this exercise meditation is appropriate for you.)

Preparation

Choose an exercise that is simple, repetitive and does NOT require your full attention. I would not want you to injure yourself by focussing on your breath when you should be focussing on your interaction with the equipment!
As you exercise find a pace that works for you. Breath in deeply, filling your belly and your lungs. Most people just fill their lungs, but you will have more stamina and be less likely to end up panting if you breath deeply.
If you are working on a machine like a rowing machine, breath out at the point of exertion (in this case it would be as you pull handles away from the machine). Breathing out at that point seems to bring more strength to the movement, as well as making it easier to take a deep breath in during the easy part of the exercise (as the handles returns to the machine).
Adapt your breath to accommodate the speed you are working at. For example if you are walking very quickly on a tread mill breathing out with every step you could cause you to hyperventilate, instead you would breath in fully over several steps and breath out over several steps. Adapt your breathing pattern to suit your work out.

Now for the meditative part

Once you have found your exercise and breathing rhythms, bring your focus to your breathing, paying attention to details like the temperature of the air, how it feels as you breath in, and the sound it makes as you exhale. Let your thinking mind take a break while you pay attention to the sensations and action of breathing.
Notice if you are carrying any extra tension in your body, (neck and shoulders for example).
As you breath in, imagine your breath is carrying extra oxygen to any tense areas of your body. As you breath out imagine you are breathing out that tension. Continue this for a few breaths, you may be surprised to find the tension really does ease up.

After your work out

Make sure to stretch the muscles you have just used. As you do this, once again practice deep breathing. This time as you breath in, imagine the oxygen flowing into your tired muscles helping them to recover. If you hold the stretch for a few extra seconds you may find that you can relax into the stretch a bit further as you breath out. Never push it.

If you would like to read more about effective breathing during exercise (sans the meditation part) sparkpeople has a great section about proper techniques.

To your health!

by Totally Meditation on 2 Comments

T’ai Chi As Meditation

I write about T’ai Chi as a meditation because the slow, gentle “forms” are like a moving meditation. You gain physical strength and balance through the series of concise rhythmic movements, while at the same time you are focussing your full attention (mindful meditation) on each individual movement.

With the careful concentration and slow actions involved in this martial art you are not likely to end up with injuries. My aunt started going to tai chi classes when she was about 85! Now, don’t let that fool you into thinking that it is going to be too easy, because much like yoga, the more you practice and learn, the more challenging it can be. There are many dvds available for learning tai chi at home. This one T’ai Chi Beginning Practice – has clear verbal and visual instructions. I would suggest attending classes in person if you can. Taking classes can be extremely beneficial because a teacher can often spot incorrect movements and help you correct them before they become a habit.

I’ve only attended a couple of drop in sessions of Tai Chi so I had to enlist the help of Google to find good information for you. This article called Essential Tai Chi Principles by Dr Paul Lam and Nancy Kaye outlines the basic principals that anyone considering learning Tai Chi should know. The same website has a whole series of useful articles about Tai Chi.

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Labyrinth Meditation

The difference between a maze and a labyrinth is that a maze has several paths and directions like a big puzzle, and a labyrinth is a single path that leads to the center. Large labyrinths can be very complex but if you look at them from the top down you will see there is a single path that eventually reaches the middle (as you see in the photos)

If you are lucky enough to live in an area that has a labyrinth close by, try a walking a labyrinth meditation. (The Labyrinth Society www.labyrinthsociety.org has a link to a labyrinth locator at http://labyrinthlocator.com)

This kind of meditation is great for people who find sitting meditations difficult because they fall asleep or get too restless.

Both of these meditations use one of the senses as a point of focus. Choose the one that best suits you. Or, experiment with using your sense of smell or touch as your focus.

Meditation using your sense of hearing
Walk at a relaxed pace.

As you walk, pay attention to everything you hear, without judgment. Imagine that the sound of birds twittering is no better than a lawn mower, just different. It is only a matter of perception that makes one sound seem better than another. Remind yourself to just listen and NOT judge what you hear.

As you walk, breath deeply and allow your shoulders to relax downward. If you sense any muscle tension take a few deep breaths as you walk. Focus on sensing that the air you breath is helping your muscles to relax.

If the sounds seem to be too distracting try switching your focus to one of the other senses for a few steps and notice how the sound seems to diminish as you change your focus. Either stay with your new focus as you complete your walking meditation or switch back to your sense of hearing.

Meditation using your sense of sight
As you walk at a comfortable pace, place your attention on what you see.

Really notice the colour, shape and texture of objects. Notice also your reaction to what you see. Do you have a physical reaction to what you see? For example a beautiful flower may elicit a deep inhale of satisfaction or the sight of a slug may give you a little shiver.

Rather than passing judgement on what you see, try to be impartial. Remind yourself you are just seeing, not judging. When thoughts and words come into your mind release them, bringing your focus back to just seeing the world around you.

According to Wikipedia.org – the cultural meaning of labyrinths

Prehistoric labyrinths are believed to have served as traps for malevolent spirits or as defined paths for ritual dances. In medieval times, the labyrinth symbolized a hard path to God with a clearly defined center (God) and one entrance (birth).

Labyrinths can be thought of as symbolic forms of pilgrimage; people can walk the path, ascending toward salvation or enlightenment. Many people could not afford to travel to holy sites and lands, so labyrinths and prayer substituted for such travel. Later, the religious significance of labyrinths faded, and they served primarily for entertainment, though recently their spiritual aspect has seen a resurgence.

Many newly made labyrinths exist today, in churches and parks. Labyrinths are used by modern mystics to help achieve a contemplative state. Walking among the turnings, one loses track of direction and of the outside world, and thus quiets the mind. The Labyrinth Society[34] provides a locator for modern labyrinths all over the world.

What is Meditation and Why is it Important?

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