Why Can''tI Meditate?

You may eat right, take your vitamins and do water aerobics to keep in shape. But one thing you probably just cant seem to do is meditate. Despite the obvious benefits that meditation offers for health and managing stress easily, most of us have trouble settling into the serene quiet that meditation offers.

The benefits of meditation are indeed numerous, ranging from the physical to the spiritual. On the physical side, it can reduce the stimulus that overloads our bodies with stress hormones and elevated blood pressure. On the spiritual side it can provide a place of quiet exploration, said to be basic for the spiritual quest.

Though meditation has grown significantly in numbers over the last several decades, it is still successfully practiced by a very small percentage of the population. Many of us know how it can benefit us. Yet if you are like most, sitting still feels like being put in irons and told to sit in the corner. Lets face it, there is a reason its so hard to take that leap to quiet contemplation.

The answer may come in the biology of the brain. An increasing amount of research says we form our brains around our experiences. In other words, whether we like it or not, we become biologically tuned, possibly even addicted, to the lives we lead. As our lives become faster and faster it becomes harder to make the jump back to something as slow or as or beneficial as sitting quietly.

For high speed westerners meditation has other challenges. First it was created in both foreign and ancient cultures. We dont have a modern western language for meditation and have to borrow the sights, sounds and rhythms of India and the Far East where the traditions were strongest. Put simply, when we are already trying something new its hard to relate to exotic languages, chanting and sounds.

Second is a complete blurring of the dividing line between the world of commerce and the world of hearth and home. In his pivotal book, The Pattern Language, architect Christopher Alexander, calls for the fundamental, almost primal need for a transition from street life, to the quiet security of a home.

Home was once a place where we could cast off the pace of the outside world and feel quite safe and secure. If you envision yourself proceeding to your front door through a small Japanese garden, or through the thick, cool walls of a Mediterranean courtyard and you may get a sense of how wonderful this can feel.

Inside the traditional home, people could act out different roles that centered on relaxation and simple pleasures like eating. Meditation doesnt seem so far from the pace of this world. On the other hand, in the modern house, the world of commerce holds equal ground inside in the form of TV, radio, internet and cell phones. You never slow down, you never experience retreat and this gives stress no outlet.

There are a few things you can do to calm your household, even with modern and ancient technology. First, consider going on a quest for music that separates you from the day to day world. Experiment with classical music from the 16th and 17th centuries known as baroque. A lot of baroque music has a tempo close to one beat per second, the pace of the human heart. This has been shown to be beneficial to mood, focus and a sense of relaxation.

Other sounds, particularly those from nature, seem to be incredibly calming. After all, humans listened intently to the sounds of nature for signals of safety or threat.

Water fountains can provide a safe, soothing sound that bespeaks safety. Wind chimes have also been used for thousands of years enliven and change the sense of time in homes and temples.

Modern recordings of the sounds of surf, rivers and birds are also very effective calming devices. These are all accessible to anyone with a CD player or IPod. Electronics extends the range of calming sources of sound and can change our entire perception of our environment. We provide an example of how this works on our web site.

A powerful but less known sound that can change our state of mind is drumming. This is not your 15 year old on a new drum set, but the soul-satisfying, rhythmic drumming of ancient, native instruments. These sounds were refined and improved over millennia. Is it any wonder it is hard to keep still when we hear a great African beat or Tahitian drum? In fact, Ayruvedic medicine teaches that certain drum tones break up stagnate energy thereby preventing disease.

Whatever audio selections you choose, play these recordings at low volume most of the time. Music and drumming is actually very stimulating to the nervous system. The lower it is played, the more likely it will be calming, centering and not ultimately fatiguing.

However, any music that calms, relaxes and creates a positive state of mind is worth trying. Specialists in the field say that non verbal, non choral music is best. Vocal music engages the active, critical and logical part of the brain, so it should be avoided as a relaxation tool.

If any of these methods help clear your mind of the days events, it has brought you closer to meditative calm. In fact many spiritual practices in both the east and west claim that all of life is a meditation. The essence of meditation is being aware and clear headed.

With moments of clear headedness, if you ever choose to meditate in a more traditional and quiet form, you will find it much easier to do so. The jump from the sounds of your home to actual meditation wont be too far to take.

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What is meditation?

Meditation usually refers to a state in which the body is consciously relaxed and the mind is allowed to become calm and focused. Several major religions include ritual meditation; however, meditation itself need not be a religious or spiritual activity. Most of the more popular systems of meditation are of Eastern origin, though there exists also various forms of Christian, Jewish and Muslim meditation.
Meditation as a form of alternative medicine brings about mental calmness and physical relaxation by suspending the stream of thoughts that normally occupy the mind. Generally performed once or twice a day for approximately 20 minutes at a time, meditation is used to reduce stress, alter hormone levels, and elevate one's mood.
A discipline in which the mind is focused on a single point of reference. Employed since ancient times in various forms by all religions, the practice gained greater notice in the post war US as interest in Zen Buddhism rose. Meditation is now used by many nonreligious adherents as a method of stress reduction; known to lower levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress. Enhances recuperation and improves the body’s resistance to disease.
Meditation is an easy and simple way to balance a person's physical, emotional, and mental states. It is easily learned and has been used as an aid in treating stress, anxiety, pain management, and as part of an overall treatment for other conditions including hypertension and heart disease. Research shows that meditation decreases the heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, and even decreases blood pressure.