meditation is a practice that's been
around for thousands and thousands of
years yet there is still a huge
misconception about what it really is
most people like to associate meditation
with a monk sitting on top of a mountain
cross leg
staring into the horizon but in reality
it's actually something that everyone
can do and everyone can benefit from
there's even been hundreds of studies
that prove this here's some of the
benefits and there's links to the
sources and studies in the description
below to understand what meditation
really is we have to look at our own
lives first there's something that we're
doing every single day for the majority
of the day we're thinking we're always
thinking best-selling author Eckhart
Tolle even goes as far to say that
humans are addicted to thinking try to
stop thinking right now for just 10
seconds
chances are unless you've been
practicing meditation for a while you
had at least a couple of thoughts pop
into your mind during this brief period
of time you might say well thinking
isn't a bad thing it's good we need to
think in order to survive don't we well
that's true but only to some extent if
you really sit down and take a look at
it the large majority of your thinking
isn't as useful as you think it is
a lot of it is actually quite negative
just to prove a point
I took the privilege and sat down with a
pen and paper for five minutes and
recorded as many of my thoughts that I
could I had a total of a whopping two
thoughts that I were considered to be
either positive or constructive while on
the other hand I had a total of eleven
thoughts that I would consider to be
negative and not constructive at all
they also have a direct correlation with
how you feel for example let's say that
you're at a party and the following dot
pops into your mind
what am i doing for my hands I should be
talking to people
am I being awkward and all of a sudden
you're feeling anxious another example
let's say that you're on the train and
somebody steps on your shoe by accident
you start thinking he didn't say sorry
how dare he what an and all of a
sudden you're feeling angry so we know
that we think a lot and we also know
that most of our thoughts are either
negative or not constructive and finally
we know that our dots can affect how we
feel so you can see how we came to the
conclusion that thinking too much might
just make you feel crappy sometimes now
what does thinking have to do with
meditation
well there's hundreds of different ways
that you can meditate is breathing
meditation there is mantra meditation
there's guided meditation just to name a
few but all of them do one thing in
common they teach us how to slow down
the amount of thoughts entering our mind
as well as the speed over which thoughts
enter our mind and with practice you can
even reach points where you have no
thoughts for short periods of time and
this is why meditation has so many
benefit
when you think less you become more in
control of your emotions when you
practice meditation you're basically
teaching your mind how to turn off your
dots like a switch so the next time
somebody steps on your shoe and you
start thinking how rude you can just
turn it off you can control whether or
not you want to get mad on top of that
when you think less you start spending
less time in your head and more time
outside and you start noticing things
trees are brighter the birds are
beautiful you'll notice flowers on the
floor you'll become less involved with
your thoughts and more involved with the
real world and that is the beauty of
meditation
you