How to Meditate to Clear Your Mind

Meditation is a subject that lots of people don’t fully understand and that has a lot of blended views surrounding it. Some people view meditation as a nearly ‘occult’ practice focussed on accomplishing a state above that of normal people and going beyond onto another ‘plane’ of presence. Other individuals see it as being a great therapeutic technique for healing, and others still do not provide it much idea and write it off as a waste of time.

Meditation definitely isn’t a wild-goose chase, and nor is it always spiritual or wonderful. It is very different things to various individuals. There is not truly one kind of meditation however rather numerous and each has different objectives and functions.

What meditation shares throughout the board though, is that it is exceptionally helpful, very powerful, and one of the finest tools for clearing your mind and for feeling much better about yourself. This is a fantastic method to approach any problem with a fresh mind, and without the usual hang-ups, biases, and problems that avoid us from performing our best, living in the moment, or really expressing ourselves.

Meditation can be used to assist you to attain a kind of “mind reset” both in the brief term, and in the long term.

The same goes for moving meditation, which consists of the likes of Tai Chi which has you focussing on your own body as it moves through the area.

The thing that ties all these various usages together is the simple truth that you are attempting to actively control your thoughts rather than letting them be led and controlled by outside aspects. It has to do with focus. Whether you are meditating on the response to a question, attempting to comprehend yourself better, or just taking a “time out” this is a helpful skill to establish and has been revealed to help produce relaxing brain waves and lower blood pressure.

The picture that any time you find yourself feeling stressed out, nervous, or fretted about something, you have the choice to return to a place where you will feel calm and collected.

Loving Kindness and Gratitude

The secret to many types of meditation then is focus. By learning to pay attention to what you desire, you can opt not to focus on the unfavorable or things that make you stressed. You’ll for that reason feel better more of the time, and be less impacted by things that would otherwise hurt you.

However what if you pick to focus on something that will actively make you exceptionally delighted? This is the concept behind both “loving generosity meditation” AND “gratitude meditation”.

In the very first example (loving generosity), your objective is to practice meditation specifically on feelings of heat, compassion, and self-love. To put it simply, you will think of things that make you delighted, think of people who enjoy you, concentrate on sensations of love, and focus on the important things you like about yourself.

Your goal is to cultivate this feeling and after that hang on to it– to keep it fresh in your mind and to let it take up the totality of your focus for a while.

By doing this consistently, you will have the ability to not just take pleasure in that sense of peace and love in any given minute … however likewise to let it become your default emotion– such that you always feel that way.

The other alternative is appreciation. This is really comparable to caring generosity inspiration, however, the goal this time is to concentrate on the important things that make you feel grateful.

What is Knowledge?

Maybe you have become aware of meditation in the context of knowledge? Possibly you thought you could use meditation to achieve a higher plane of thought? It’s definitely something many individuals think, but if meditation is just about focus, how can this be the case?

What’s all that about? Bear in mind that when you practice transcendental meditation (the kind associated with knowledge) you use a ‘mantra’ which is used to attempt and take your mind off of your typical ruminations (by focussing on the sounds you’re making).

What happens here is that due to the fact that you aren’t using the areas of your brain that you usually would, these locations can close down as they would in sleep however with you still awake. Key areas of the brain that typically help us to understand the world around us shut down: such as the region accountable for finding contrast, or the location connected with determining edges in the world around us. You even lose the capability to recognize where your own body is in space.

This can then modify your perception as you see the world without being able to distinguish between edges, and as you begin to lose your sense of self. This gets rid of the ‘filters’ we normally utilize to see the world and, because sense, you are seeing reality in a ‘purer’ sense.
This makes an intriguing final aim, but of course, takes years of practice. Ultimately, this can lead to total “ego death” (loss of sense of self) which is a very liberating experience.

Flow States: Meditation While Engaged in a Task 

In the world of productivity and self-help, the term ‘flow state’ is used to describe a mental state in which you are able to concentrate unceasingly on a singular task without interruption or distraction. When you reach this state, you are able to hugely increase your productivity and your output and you can this away complete complex tasks in a very short space of time.

In short, a flow state is a point at which an activity you are engaged in becomes meditative.

Of course, though getting into this flow state is no mean feat, and particularly when our brains are constantly trying to distract us with other things and consistently getting bored. Particularly in modern reality, we’re living in where we are used to concentrating on twenty things at once and being constantly entertained through various mediums. The flow state then is something of an elusive concept and a constant goal, in much the same way that someone who meditates regularly might chase after the promise of enlightenment.

To help you in your own pursuit of this magical state, or at least to achieve a satisfactory level of concentration, here are a few techniques you can use to help encourage focus and avoid distraction and procrastination.

Remove Distractions: One of the best ways you can help to avoid yourself becoming distracted by things is to remove them from your visual field. So, for instance, if you are someone who finds yourself distracted by the internet regularly (you are most certainly not alone) then a logical solution is simply to turn off the internet when you are trying to work. And if you find that you struggle with your will power to bring yourself to do this, then an alternative solution is to simply go out to a café to work where there is no internet.

Remove Interruptions: One of the most important things about ‘the flow’ is to hang onto it once you get it and not to let anything break it. This is why it’s crucially important that you avoid anything which could potentially break your concentration which means phones, people talking and anything else that can make a sudden noise. If you can work in a space that will be isolated – such as an office pod at the end of the garden – then this will be ideal.

Ignore Interruptions: And what’s important to bear in mind here is that it’s just as important to ignore the distractions we create for ourselves too. For instance, if you are in the flow when you suddenly find yourself needing the toilet or wanting to get up to get a drink then simply ignore this urge or set yourself a target to accomplish before you’re allowed to move. Consider the flow sacred and if you are working well then don’t jeopardize it for a cup of tea that you don’t really need.    

Switch Off from Other Tasks: Part of the problem when we are trying to focus on one thing is often that we have twenty other pressing matters that it’s hard to forget about. While you want to concentrate on this one task then, it’s helpful to try and force yourself to forget other tasks and put them out of your mind. One way to accomplish this is to just segregate your tasks better by writing a to-do list with blocks of time dedicated to each task. This way you can put the other jobs out of your mind because you know that you’ll be coming to them later.

Entertain Yourself: This might seem counter-intuitive, but actually providing yourself some form of entertainment can sometimes help you to focus. The reason we find ourselves becoming distracted often is simply that we are bored with whatever dry task we are trying to complete. By putting on some background music with no lyrics then, or by watching a video on YouTube of a music video or of someone playing a computer game you can make the work stint a little less boring and satisfy the creative half of your brain while the rest focuses on work.

Psychological Techniques: Failing this you can always try to employ a number of psychological techniques to simply improve your ability to concentrate. This could mean using meditation to practice clearing your mind or even developing self-hypnosis in order to get better control over your unconscious mind. Concentration, like anything, can be trained and developed through practice and these are some great tools for accomplishing this.

The Power of Meditation

Now you know about the various types of meditation and the different ways you can use them to change your feelings and the way you feel at any offered time.
Attempt to set aside 10 minutes a day, to begin with, and practice the type of meditation that attract you. Meanwhile, attempt to accomplish circulation while taking pleasure in computer games, or when deep in work.

As you get much better at this and it comes more naturally, you can begin to utilize meditation for 20 or 30 minutes a day. Ultimately, you must try to integrate all these different types of meditation together.

With practice, you will thicken the neuronal paths and connections that allow you to accomplish these various states. It will then become easier for you to engage in any of them at any offered time.

So, what does that appearance like?
Well, envision having the ability to clear your mind by focussing on the job at hand at any offered time. Imagine being able to “rise above” things that would normally cause you tension, merely by picking to focus on something else instead. Envision waking up feeling grateful about your life and feeling a sense of love and appreciation on your own.

Imagine your default response to negative being occasions being one that assists you cope and feel much better about yourself. That is the power of meditation to clear your mind. Time to use up the habit!