Meditation

If I try to meditate, I always fall asleep. :rolleyes: I wish I could cure that!

yea i meditate, havent in quite sometime tho.
i don't know the answers myself.
i to get sleepy and get very relaxed.
if i am laying down i can fall asleep fast.
i have fallen asleep sitting up tho too.
breathing is way important.
breathe in thru your nose, exhale out your mouth.
maybe stick in a meditation cd.
is the syllable your saying OM?

yoga is very interesting and help me a lot .I'm a very nervous person and start with yoga was the best ..

MahoganySouls wrote:

I am an avid fan of Hatha Yoga. It's principle is of relaxation. One exercise that I highly recommend to my patients is to do a complete body purge.

First get into a comfortable position. I suggest laying down. For meditation I assume you are using a half lotus or burmese pose. Either way, start with a deep cleansing breath and then you will begin a series of taking a deep breath and then squeezing muscles for 1o seconds then releasing the air slowly.

Start with the toes. Take a deep breath. Squeeze all toes into a tight ball. Count to 10. Release the toes and exhale slowly yet fully.

Next do the heels of the foot.

Then the ankles.

Then the calves.

And on until you reach the top of your head where you expell all of the stress.

At this point, your mind and body will be totally relaxed and more receptive to a meditational state.

i've got try that

ZiggyStar wrote:

Does anyone practice it?

I'm been trying to do a sort of Transcendental Meditation (but it's called Natural Stress Relief) and it's bloody hard! I'm struggling to stop thinking of things while I concentrate on the syllable that I'm supposed to say over and over for 15 - 20 mins each session (2 sessions a day).

Any tips on how to quieten my mind? I've only been doing it for 1.5 weeks.

Zig, I had that problem too when I started, brain would go racing around, freaking because I wasn't doing it right or just because my brain is mental. I just kept gently stopping myself by refocusing on my breathing going in and out. I found that the more I meditated the better I got at quieting my mind, so you'll probably find that if you keep at it you'll improve. I always find that if I stop meditating for a few weeks that my brain does the racing thing when I start up again. I also found that by doing a 3 minute breathing exercise at regular times during the day, that I "built up my focus" so to speak and was able to meditate for longer. The meditation that I learned didn't require me to make any sound but I'm sure the principles are the same.

I went to a group who used the cd's of this guy.

http://www.mindfulnesstapes.com/author.html

And the 3 minute breathing exercises are explained here.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=46922

Maybe you could try the 3 Minute breathing exercises and see if it helps?
I swear by it because it really helped me when I was doing a full meditation.

Good luck.

ZiggyStar wrote:

Thanks! I'll try that.

How long can you quieten your mind? I thought meditation was some sort of trancelike state that you go into and wake up an hour later and can't remember anything...but what I'm reading suggests the opposite. Hmmm....I'm a little confused to be honest.

Well I guess it depends on your experience, but it's not hypnotherapy!

I can't say that in my experience that it's been trancelike or that I'm unaware or can't remember. I can still hear everything and am aware of things around me, but they don't concern me I guess is the best explanation. I can go for an hour, probably longer if I put my mind to it, but I find that 20 minutes to 1/2 hour is more than enough to refresh me. But I did find that REALLY difficult to begin with. And if I did manage to go for longer than 1/2 hour I tended to fall asleep, WHICH if that's what you're wanting to do fine and good, but if you are looking at it as a way of releasing stress and tension and helping your brain to function more effectively during the day, falling asleep isn't what you want at all!

I'm fairly practical Ziggy, so I look at it as a tool for better mental health and it's definitely very beneficial for your circulation and oxygenating your blood. I really got into it for stress relief and to help myself go to sleep at night. So I have different meditations depending on what I'm hoping to achieve. Like I said the 3 minute exercise is GREAT just to calm yourself down during the day and get a little equilibrium. You can do it anywhere, you can even do it with your eyes open so people don't even know what you're doing. I found it really handy in tea breaks at work.

Are you actually meditating with guidance? Like are you doing it with a practitioner or from a cd? The important thing to remember is that it's what you want to get out of it that is the most important and you can't "do it wrong" you can only do it your way and see how you go. But practice definitely makes perfect. The more often you try the less confusing it will become I suspect. Well that's how it was for me anyway. I just didn't get it at all in the beginning, and then I eventually got the guided relaxation meditation to put me off to sleep down, but couldn't see myself sitting up doing it during the day but after going to a group, I've found it much easier to understand and achieve what I wanted to achieve with it.