If you’re new to meditation as a wellness practice, it’s helpful to familiarize yourself with the basics. As with any new regimen, finding the right techniques for your needs and consistency within your practice is key to yielding the best results. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of meditation, the benefits of consistent meditation, tips and popular techniques, and the best practices for beginners.

What Is Meditation?

Whether you’re partaking in a self-guided or instructor-led practice, meditation is a mindfulness tool that helps train your attention and self-awareness without judgment. This mental exercise utilizes techniques such as breath, mantra, and sound to help your mind return back to the present moment. Many people use meditation practices for a variety of concerns, including:

• Reduce anxiety and stress
• Improve sleep quality
• Cultivate self-awareness

These needs are normal results of our current societal state. Stressors like work and finances, too much digital exposure, and media headlines can easily overwhelm people. Guided meditation is intended to ease these stress factors and offer a healthy, constructive outlet for the mind and body to address them. A technique that has been practiced for centuries, meditation has the power to rewire physiology, thus improving physical and mental health. 

The Benefits of Meditation

Reduce Anxiety & Stress Levels

Meditation is a common wellness practice used to address stress, anxiety, and depression. It is natural to experience stress-inducing thoughts and events that trigger feelings of anxiety. Knowing how to cope with these feelings when they arise is valuable. Using meditation encourages you to set aside time to intentionally sort through these thoughts and feelings in a safe space, so that you may address them with a clear mind.

Improve Sleep Quality

Meditation helps quiet the mind, which makes it a powerful pre-bed activity. There are specific techniques (yoga nidra) that support you moving from activity into silence. This is a great time to confront stressful situations and anxiety-inducing thoughts from your day so you can get to sleep quicker.

Increase Self-awareness

Meditation encourages your mind to reach a heightened state of awareness. When you become more self-aware about the overall state of your thoughts, feelings, and wellbeing, you’re more likely to handle intrusive and uncomfortable situations more effectively. As a result, you will be able to focus more on the present moment throughout the day rather than dwelling on the past or what may happen in the future. 

3 Simple Rules for Optimal Guided Meditation

One of the simplest ways to improve your mental well-being is to commit to a meditation practice. Here are three simple best practices: 

1. Find a comfortable spot
2. Close your eyes or hold a soft gaze toward the floor
3. Use a guide 

Find a Comfortable Spot

It’s hard to relax if your physical body is uncomfortable. So, before you begin any guided meditation practice, be sure to set up in a spot that feels comfortable and safe to you. Whether it’s in bed, on a couch, on your yoga mat, or somewhere else, choose a location that will allow you to become truly immersed in your meditation practice.

Close Your Eyes

With so much happening in the world around us, we often become easily distracted by our surroundings. If it feels safe, close your eyes throughout the duration of your meditation practice so you can really focus on your inner self and mental processing. Otherwise, you can hold a soft gaze toward the floor.

Use a Guide

When you first begin your meditation journey, it may be hard to sit still for an extended period of time. Identify how long you want your daily practice to be – you can start small – and find a guided meditation that lasts for that duration. Having a guide to lead you through your meditation practice will help cue you into your meditative state and prevent your mind from wandering. As you begin to feel more comfortable in your practice, you may find that you prefer longer or self-guided meditation methods instead. If this is the case, set a time for the length of your meditation window so that your mind does not have to constantly wonder how long you’ve been practicing for or when it will be over. 

4 Essential Meditation Practices

Open Awareness

When you would use it: In the morning to start your day on a positive note

Here

When you would use it: To reduce anxiety & stress

Clarity and Gratitude

When you would use it: For sleep

Settle Into Self

When you would use it: To wind down at the end of the day

Explore Meditation with Open

Ready to start your meditation journey? Try Open for free and discover our library of guided meditations for moments of mindfulness throughout the day.