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HealthySteps to Wellness www.MeditationCoach.com

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Everyday Meditation

Rebalancing in Three Easy Steps

Step One: Breathing

Step Two: Mindfulness Step Three: Meditation


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4 -‐7-‐ 8 Breathing

“Practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing and can even help with stress-‐related health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders.”

~ Andrew Weil, M.D.

Our breathing is something we can control and regulate and is a useful tool for achieving a more relaxed state of mind. The 4-‐7-‐8 Breathing Exercise by Dr. Weil (also called the Relaxing Breath), is described below:

Exercise: The 4-‐7-‐8 (or Relaxing Breath) Exercise – This exercise is utterly simple, takes almost no time, requires no equipment and can be done anywhere. Although you can do the exercise in any position, sit with your back straight while learning the exercise. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue just behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there through the entire exercise. You will be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue; try pursing your lips slightly if this seems awkward.

• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound. • Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four. • Hold your breath for a count of seven. • Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight. • This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total

of four breaths.

Note that you always inhale quietly through your nose and exhale audibly through your mouth. The tip of your tongue stays in position the whole time. Exhalation takes twice as long as inhalation. The absolute time you spend on each phase is not important; the ratio of 4:7:8 is important. If you have trouble holding your breath, speed the exercise up but keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for the three phases. With practice you can slow it all down and get used to inhaling and exhaling more and more deeply.

Once you develop this technique by practicing it every day, it will be a very useful tool that you will always have with you. Use it whenever anything upsetting happens -‐ before you react. Use it whenever you are aware of internal tension. Use it to help you fall asleep. This exercise cannot be recommended too highly. Everyone can benefit from it.

Source: http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00521/three-‐breathing-‐exercises.html


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Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the quality of attention and awareness we bring to the events in our lives. It is the process of bringing our awareness to what we are doing at the time we are doing it, in other words “being fully present.” It is purposely being engaged in our actions, feelings, physical sensations, emotions and thoughts. As we become aware that our attention has drifted, we can gently bring it back to its original intention and return easily to our original purpose. This increases our choices, preventing automatic responses and subconscious reactions from diverting us from our chosen path.

Mindful Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is the practice of training the mind to focus on present experience. This allows us to be fully present in our lives instead of checked out, on autopilot like a zombie, or caught up in planning the future or dwelling on the past. Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve concentration, relationships, ability to rest and access relaxation. Often with greater mindfulness, we experience an expansion of our time and an increase in our ability to experience the world around us. Mindfulness as a meditation technique will help you slow down and become more present in the here and now. By engaging directly with body, breath, and the thinking process, there is space for our agitation and distraction to gradually slow down, revealing the natural strength, clarity, and stability at the core of the human mind. Mindfulness has ancient roots in world spiritual traditions, and today is widely practiced in a large variety of modern contexts.


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Mindfulness can be applied to improve almost any human activity and there is mounting scientific evidence on its effectiveness. Mindfulness programs are found in a broad spectrum of therapeutic and psychological contexts, in schools, hospitals, in athletic training, in business and corporate environments, and more. Whole departments at major universities are now dedicated to the study and application of mindfulness to a wide range of modern day problems and issues. At the simplest level, being mindful means knowing what you're doing, thinking and feeling in the present moment. For example, when you set your car keys down, you pay attention and you know where you are setting your car keys down, and therefore can find them again! It's helpful to remember where we put the car keys, but mindfulness is especially helpful in stressful situations. For example, how many of us know clearly when we are acting defensive by resisting listening to someone telling us how our actions are negatively affecting them, or by saying harsh things that we will later regret? Mindfulness practice helps us know clearly what is happening, and how we are reacting to what is happening, as it is happening -‐ so that we might choose a skillful response instead of reacting mindlessly. More advanced mindfulness is “egoless awareness.” It is a practice through thought and deed where we, without conclusion or contemplation, are present in the very moment we currently exist. When we first see anything, there is a brief moment of time where we experience a genuine awareness of what it is before we reflect on it, categorize it and make a story about it. This moment is very short. But through the intention of meditation, this moment can flow into the next, allowing us to be constantly present in life and fully awake in the present moment.


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Practical Meditation

Much like exercise, meditation has a cumulative effect over time. We want to strongly encourage you to begin to practice meditation DAILY, if even for five or ten minutes. You wouldn’t expect to walk into a gym or aerobics class and walk out that same day looking like a super-‐model or bodybuilder. You must continue on the journey. Much like exercise, at times you feel you had a great workout and at other times the workout may feel like drudgery. The secret is to continue with your practice. If you are feeling like you want to give up, we encourage you to find a group to meditate with. Just like a workout-‐buddy, a meditation group may be just the thing you need to stick with a program. Meditation is a universal practice that encompasses all faiths and religions. Meditation has was referenced in many ancient texts, including the Bhagavad Gita, Buddha’s sayings, The Yoga Sutras and The Bible.

“Through meditation you learn to relax, let go and release the tension (the tightness in the body) over and over again. As you practice releasing this grasping within the body, you learn to release the tension caused by any tight grip on opinions or thought energy. Ultimately you learn to release your tight grip and the need to control external events and allow life to flow unimpeded. Surrendering the need to control and simply allowing what is creates ultimate freedom.”

~ Greg de Vries, Practical Meditation


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Frequently Asked Questions About Meditation Q. What will meditation do for me? A. There are many benefits of a meditation practice. Often people will experience a sense of calm in their daily lives, a renewed sense of joy, stress relief, feeling much more relaxed in situations that used to create stress, an increased ability to focus and concentrate, an improved sense of humor, enhanced creativity, lower blood pressure, and improved personal relationships. Many people report an enhancement of spiritual practice regardless of their path or religion. I personally have sensed an increase in my intuition. Q. How long should I meditate? A. This is based upon personal choice and commitment. A minimum of 10 minutes a day is recommended. Meditation is cumulative; that is, it is better to meditate for 10 minutes a day than to only meditate for an hour once a week. The recommended time would be 20 minutes twice a day. It is important to start off slowly and increase over time. Trying to meditate too long or too often for a new meditator can become discouraging. Q. What is meditation? A. Meditation is stillness of the body and mind (quieting the “babbler”) and opening your heart (soul). You “tune in” to your inner self. It is an alert calmness. You remove your attention from the physical distractions that are all around you (constantly) and focus within. Q. What meditation is NOT? A. Meditation is not sleeping, dreaming, or becoming unconscious in any way. It is not praying. It is not an “Eastern mystical practice.” Q. What should I expect from meditation? A. Something that is important for people new to meditation is to NOT expect anything DURING meditation. The way to determine if your meditation practice is “working” is to look at your daily life for improvements such as those mentioned above in the first question. Many people do report having a good experience during meditation – but it is important to release any expectations of having some sort of mystic or spiritual experience.


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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

~ Marcel Proust

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

"When you don't know what to do, get still. The answer will come." ~ Oprah

“As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings and fits of emotion begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior."

~ Eknath Easwaran

“Meditation gives you an opportunity to come to know your invisible self. It allows you to empty yourself of the endless hyperactivity of your mind, and to attain calmness. It teaches you to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion

previously reigned.” ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer


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Activity

Set aside 5-‐8 minutes each day this week to meditate or simply be alone with your thoughts. Take a moment after each session to acknowledge how you feel and acknowledge any benefits you observed throughout the day. Remember that it’s not the session itself that’s important. Rather, it’s the benefits you see in the rest of your life. Your Notes: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

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”Don’t let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you become.”

~ Anonymous


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HealthySteps to Wellness Team Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital [email protected] Mary Spangler, Director of Occupational Health Services [email protected] Patty Purpur deVries, Wellness Manager [email protected] Lauren Walker, Wellness Coordinator [email protected] Nikhil Kulkarni, Wellness Coordinator [email protected]

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