What is Meditation?

There are a lot of common misconceptions about meditation so it's good to have a clear understanding and definition of what it is. For this purpose, meditation can be usefully defined as the art of deliberately relaxing the body and calming the mind. These are simple skills that anyone can learn. They're based on clear, verifiable principles and are surprisingly easy to do. During meditation you:

In order to meditate you don't need to adopt any special posture, sit for a certain length of time or take on any particular religious or philosophical beliefs. When you begin meditating you simply learn a new set of skills, much as you would if you took up an instrument or sport or underwent any other sort of training.

Meditation is also easy to adapt to your own needs. You can integrate it into the busiest of lifestyles and use it for all kinds of different purposes. At work, you could do a momentary 'spot-meditation' to quickly destress. You could use it to heighten your enjoyment whilst walking or eating, or to prepare yourself for an exam or important meeting.

If you want, you could also do longer sessions in your spare time or on a bus or train to work. These meditations allow you to relax the body to an extent most people are completely unfamiliar with - and over time you develop a much friendlier and healthier relationship with your thoughts. You come to see and understand how thoughts can contribute to stress and that it's possible to live a life with less anxiety, worry and concern.

If you're anxious or suffer from stress-related illnesses meditation is an ideal way to restore the body to balance. In fact, medical research shows that meditation can help to relieve the effects of insomnia, hypertension, migraines, fatigue, pain, digestive problems and chronic illness.

Yet meditation is much more than stress-relief. People often discover a degree of tranquility and mental clarity that they never imagined possible. Life often seems to flow more smoothly and difficulties become easier to manage. On the other hand, meditation is not a panacea for every conceivable difficulty or ailment, nor a quick fix. It requires practice, persistence and a long term outlook to be most effective.

In brief, people meditate to:

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