Meditation for beginners tips with Guided meditation for sleep.
As a beginner in meditation, there are so many recommendations about how to start. We have sorted through these expert recommendations and created the 5 actionable tips on meditation for beginners with guided meditation for sleep. Hopefully, this will ease some stress in your meditation practice.
Meditation is a great way to include relaxation to your everyday life. There are many techniques of medication like being mindful, or focusing on the breath. But the beginners technique is practice. We understand that it’s not practical to meditate 2 hours everyday, no matter how beneficial it is.
Remember, Meditation is called a practice because there are no levels of achievement. Everyone, no matter how many years they have been committed to meditation, is better or worse at meditation. We are all just practicing. Continue scrolling to find the best 5 actionable tips on meditation so you can start today as a beginner in mindfulness!
1. Start with 10 minutes a day
Starting with meditation 10 minutes a day (or whenever you remember) is an act of being mindful. Even if those 10 minutes seemed unproductive, creating a habit of meditation and practice is key.
In these 10 minutes try focusing on your breath. Choose a meditation you can start and stop at any point. 10 minute guided meditations are helpful for some beginners. Others feel that when they drift away from the speaker they have failed the meditation. Try a longer music based meditation. That way you can do 10 minute intervals and never hear the same thing twice. Try our best Guided meditation for sleep.
Which is fairly concerning because the only way to fail meditation, is by not setting aside 10 minutes a day to try.
2. Be cautious but comfortable
When you start your meditation journey, you may learn that you need to keep your back straight and breath deeply. That’s a myth. There are multiple ways to do meditation.
To fully relax you can either sit in a chair or lay down. It’s best to lay on your back with Palms facing up. If you are more comfortable on your side try laying on your back with you knees up. If this just doesn’t feel right no worries. Lay on your side.
Closing your eyes offers the best way to distinguish between just laying down and actual meditation. Bonus tip: if you add cooling eye gel masks or restorative eye pillows this can train your brain to know when it’s officially time to meditate.
Finally, don’t force your breath. You can be cautious of your breath while it continues its natural rhythm. Often, meditation for beginners puts too much pressure on breathing deeply. There is no right or wrong way to breathe so keep it natural.
3. Notice if your mind wanders
It’s going to happen. You are going to sit down for your ten minute meditation, like you have been for the past week or so and you are going to start strong until you remember you forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer and your mom is coming to visit in 2 weeks.
You are not alone, Everyone who meditates has a wandering mind. Instead of feeling like you have failed at meditation, practice acknowledging the thought. By acknowledging the thought’s existence you have created a note in your head. Your mind has wandered, and that’s okay, let’s go back to breathing for as long as you can until it happens again.
If you are easily distracted avoid speaking meditation videos. You’ll get lost in thought and forget what the guide was trying to get you to do. This can be super frustrating for beginners, so we suggest longer nature-based meditation videos.
4. Embrace the awkward
Remember those awkward “now close your eyes and imagine…” lectures? Where half of the audience would comply and the other half would snicker. Meditation gives you that same awkward feeling.
To be honest, your mind will tend to resist sitting quietly with your innermost thoughts. Which is totally normal. But just like you give your legs time to recover after leg day, your brain needs 10 minutes of quiet to calm down and focus.
To any beginner of meditation it can feel alien. Just remember people have been meditating for around 3,000 years. There is no way you are the first to feel your brain resists the rest it deserves.
5. Finish each mindfulness session with kindness
Remember you are in complete control of your practice. So you get to start and end it anyway you would like. We suggest finishing your session with some kindness. Either a statement of gratitude, or a compliment to yourself.
By ending your practice with kindness you are correlating meditation with the benefits of gratitude. You can change your kind ending each day, or say the same thing. Most beginners want to use meditation as a guide to be less stressed or more focused. In order to achieve this cool you have to give yourself some kindness.
Conclusion
Creating a meditation practice as a beginner can seem daunting. So many people will give you conflicting advice. Be mindful that meditation is unique to each person’s perspective.
The mind is the epicenter of your body. It controls everything you do, and the quality in which you do it. There are many benefits of meditation, and in time you will find how it uniquely improves your life. For some, it takes them out of their current chaos by taking them back into the forest or sitting on a bench in front of the beach.
While searching youtube for the perfect meditation videos think about a past place or event where you felt completely serene. This will help you find videos, and meditation guides that are beneficial for your practice.
