Meditation

Vipassana Meditation is also known as ‘ Insight ‘ meditation. This meditation is simply about observation. Observation of breathing, body sensations, thoughts, emotions, and all the body activities. Vipassana is the only meditation that can be done while taking part in daily activities. Vipassana is being practiced since ancient times by different sages and this meditation is said to be the most profound meditation of all because it has awakened many individuals than any other practice or meditation. Vipassana is very easy to be practiced. Anybody can practice it, even a child. Vipassana meditation leads you to a very subtle level of the mind, which eventually helps you discover and achieve ultimate peace, joy, and happiness. How to practice Vipassana Meditation? Find a quiet place – For any meditation practice, it is very necessary to find a quiet place because in a noisy atmosphere, you get distracted very easily. This is the reason, it is advised to practice meditation early in the morning. The atmosphere is quite peaceful and steady at this time of the day. Make sure you meditate at the same place every day. Sit in a comfortable position – For Vipassana, you should sit cross-legged on the floor ( you can take a mat for your comfort ). Your spine should be erect and in alignment with your head. Your back should not be arched. Avoid leaning forward in the practice. If you cannot sit like this or if you have back issues, then you may take the support of the wall to keep your back straight however, make sure you do not lean towards the wall. If you have got issues with sitting on the floor, then you can sit on a chair. Note: While sitting for meditation, make sure you are not feeling uncomfortable. If you are, then you should adjust yourself; otherwise, you would be more concerned about your discomfort than meditation. Certainly, you don’t want that, so make yourself comfortable first. Close your eyes – After finding a suitable place for meditation and sitting in a comfortable position, start relaxing with your eyes closed. Closing the eyes cut off all the distractions and allow you to be focused on meditation. Be aware of breathing – After relaxing for a while, bring your awareness to your breathing. Be aware of inhalation and exhalation. You should not try to change the breathing rhythm. Be it short be it long, you should not be bothered about it because breathing happens on its own accord. You simply are focused on your breathing. Be aware of one part of breathing – Focus on a specific part of breathing like the diaphragm, lungs, or nostrils. For example, with inhalation diaphragm expands, and with exhalation, it contracts. You can be aware of the continuous contraction and expansion of the diaphragm. Being aware of one of these parts helps you to be focused and not be distracted. Become aware of the belly – As you continue to focus, you will feel that your breathing is getting deeper and longer. That is a good sign. So now as you feel your breath getting deeper and longer, gently bring your awareness to your belly and feel your belly rising with every inhale and contraction of the belly with every inhale while eyes being closed. You simply need to be aware of the expansion and contraction of the belly. Don’t try to expand and contract it on your own. Be aware of your surroundings – It is impossible to find a place where there is no sound. Sound is everywhere, and that is what you need to be aware of. With keeping your eyes closed start observing sounds that you can hear from your surroundings but make sure you are not identifying any one of them, i.e the urge to know what sound was that. Let every sound come; you should not be bothered. You simply be aware of all the sounds that is being produced around you. Be aware of thoughts and emotions – This perhaps the most difficult part of Vipassana because thoughts and emotions are very subtle. Though if you were continuously being aware of all the points mentioned above, then you have reached a very deeper level of mind, and now it is very easy for you to be aware of your thoughts and emotions. Simply bring your attention to your thoughts. What sort of thoughts are you getting? Don’t be bothered about them. Let them come and go. If you get annoyed or try to change, they become stronger and get over you. So better you just be aware of every thought with no interest in them at all. You’ll find out thoughts start to crumble. All the points of awareness mentioned above are to be done while sitting in a meditative posture; however, Vipassana can be practised even while taking part in the day-to-day activities. You simply need to be aware of everything; that’s it. You simply do everything with utter attention i.e if you walk, walk with full attention, where you take every step with awareness or while eating, be fully aware of the taste of the food or while bathing, be fully aware of bathing, that is to feel the sensation of water when being poured. How long should I practice Vipassana to reap the benefits? With meditation, you grow every day. If you are meditating every single day, you will find out your awareness level is increasing. You will not be distracted easily, and most important, you will discover the source of inner happiness, inner joy, and inner peace, which is not material and comes from within. And with this discovery of the inner source of happiness, there’s no place remains for anxiety or any sort of stress whatsoever.   Also read: How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind

As technology has taken a great role in our lives, it has become a lot chaotic. Every single second we are feeding new information to our brain doesn’t matter if it’s useful or not. It certainly has impacted our mental health to a great extent. Now, the harsh truth is we spend very less time with ourselves or don’t spend at all. Okay let me ask you a question first, how much time do you give to yourself every day? means when do you sit silently with yourself, when you are doing nothing at all, no mobile phone, no laptop, no pet, no technology, no friend, nothing at all. Just you sitting quietly? Perhaps not for a minute, right? This is when meditation comes into play. Why should meditate? For inner peace, inner happiness, inner joy, it is very important to find some time for meditation. Make it your priority. Meditation not only develops these inner qualities in you rather it affects your overall health, boosts your concentration level, makes you strong emotionally. It is totally fine if you have never practiced meditation before. This article is especially a guide for beginners which helps you understand How to meditate correctly? Mindset – Before sitting for meditation, here are some key points that you should keep in mind. Don’t think that you are going to do some extraordinary things. If you do so, you are more likely to be distracted. Have no expectations at all. Don’t expect that meditation will change your life or it will have a great impact on your life so on and so forth. Find a place quite place where you are not likely to be disturbed or distracted. Pick the same time and the same place to meditate every day. Meditation for beginners – How to practice? How to sit – Meditation can be done in any sitting posture i.e sitting on the floor cross-legged or sitting on a chair. You just need to make sure that your spine is erect and in alignment with your head. However in doing so don’t be too stiff or don’t harden your body, be very comfortable while sitting for meditation. After settling down in your preferable sitting posture, close your eyes. Practice – Now, simply be aware of your breathing. Focus on inhalation and exhalation. Feel the sensation of the air that is entering through your nose and coming out of your nose. For beginners, it would be easier to count breath than just being aware of it. Have a count of your breath i.e 1 for inhale, 2 for exhaling, 3 for inhale and so on till 10. After reaching 10 again start with 1. Note: Don’t try to control your breath. As breathing is a natural phenomenon, it happens on its own accord. Don’t be concerned about why my breath is short or long. You just be the witness and don’t try to change the breathing rhythm. I get distracted by my thoughts what should I do? Getting thoughts is all-natural as a healthy human brain gets 70,000 thoughts in a day. The problem occurs when you get carried away with thoughts. The right approach is the moment you get to know that you are distracted, bring your awareness back to your breath and start counting from 1 again. Don’t start judging yourself that I cannot do this, this is too hard, my mind cannot focus, I am distracted and so on. I repeat, the moment you get to know that you are distracted bring your awareness back to your breath again without thinking a single thought or without judging yourself. How long should I meditate? If you are the one who has never meditated and about to meditate for the first time then 2-5 minutes are enough to start with. Sitting for a long time can be overwhelming for beginners. Tip: Set a timer of 2-5 minutes in your phone or clock already before sitting for meditation as this will remove the urge to know about the time between the meditation. You can gradually increase the time every week. How to stick with meditation habits? Start small – As mentioned earlier 2-5 minutes are great to start with. Starting with a small-time duration does not make you overwhelmed and due to a short period, you are more likely to stick with the habit of meditation. Trigger point – Find a trigger that reminds you of meditation. It can be anything like when you brush in the morning or first cup of tea or coffee or lunch or dinner. Fixing a particular triggering point is like killing two birds with one stone because first it will remind you of meditation. Second, you will perform meditation every day at the same time. If you find it difficult to understand these instructions or have any doubts, feel free to ask us in the comment section. We would love to clear your doubts. Do you like this article? Leave a comment to let us know. Read More: How to be Motivated

One of the most important concerns of people of almost all ages, especially childhood and adolescence, is to strengthen and increase intelligence. Many people think that by strengthening their intelligence, they can pave the way for success and figure out the best things for themselves. For this reason, in this article, we will review the best and most comprehensive ways and games to strengthen the intelligence of children and adults, and we will be by your side step by step to increase intelligence. In fact, in this article, you will be well acquainted with the following: What is intelligence? Ways to increase intelligence Intelligence enhancement games Foods to increase intelligence Increase children’s intelligence Types of Intelligence Tests What is intelligence? Intelligence is a set of talents that includes memory, accuracy, concentration, learning, comprehension, processing speed and reasoning. Part of intelligence is born with each person and is inherited, and the other part is acquired, which is crystallized with proper education and being in a suitable environment and educational context, and can guarantee the success of the person. The definition of intelligence is the understanding and rapid learning and reasoning of concepts and understanding of new situations and includes mental conceptual memory and all types of learning. Obviously, because of the importance of the human brain in its development and progress, everyone is looking for ways to strengthen the concepts related to it. Like the ways to boost intelligence that we are going to examine in detail below! Ways to increase intelligence Modern lifestyles play a key role in reducing the function of our brains. Exposure to toxins and chemicals, poor diet, lack of sleep and stress reduce brain productivity. The following methods do not require exorbitant costs. Just pay attention to your brain, nourish it well and do the good activity to strengthen it. The following are 6 cases. Exercise You’ve probably been waiting for this to happen since you first started reading this article. One of the ways to increase intelligence is to exercise. Exercise is not only effective in physical health but also strengthens memory. Especially concentration and movement exercises, such as yoga. Exercising allows us to focus more on our work. Have a healthy cardiovascular system and keep our energy levels high overnight. By meditating, you can use the maximum capacity of the brain and also balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Exercise leads to faster learning and an increased level of awareness, and all of these benefits can only be achieved through physical activity. Exercise stimulates nerve cells, speeds up their production, strengthens their connections, and protects them from injury; This way your brain will work at its best capacity. The importance of exercise in increasing intelligence Socializing with family and friends Socializing with family and friends and building healthy Relationships can also help us grow in intelligence, memory, and mental health. Extroverts benefit from communicating with others. Maria Brilaki says that in one of her classes at Stanford University, she learned that extroverts try to gain a better understanding of their thoughts by talking to others and that they process their thoughts through this behaviour. Maria says her teacher in class explained that she was surprised when she saw the result of her personality test because she always thought it was introverted. But the test result proved that he was one of the extrovert. From then on, Maria realized how much talking to others helped organize her thoughts, and so she accepted her new position as an extrovert. Maria had not yet realized her high emotional intelligence and did not know what great changes she could make using it. By the way, do you also have high emotional intelligence? Well, if you want to be sure, just test our emotional intelligence. Sleep at night There are proven reasons why sleep is one of the most important elements of increasing intelligence and memory. Sleeping at night improves your memory and intelligence performance and improves your performance on challenging skills. 6 to 8 hours of sleep a night makes you think better the next day. Since the greatest amount of memory consolidation occurs in sleep, it is clear that our brain is in trouble without getting enough sleep. Even a short nap can improve your recovery. Participants in one study were asked to memorize illustrated cards to measure their intelligence and memory. After memorizing a bunch of cards, they were all given a 40-minute break, half of which fell asleep and the other half stayed awake. After this break, both groups were tested. The researchers were surprised to find that those who slept performed significantly better on the test, with 80% answering correctly and those who did not sleep answering only 60% correctly. Research shows that when a subject first enters the brain. It is still fragile and easily forgotten. Especially if the brain is asked to remember more things at the same time. Here are some tips to help you sleep better: Sleep in a completely dark environment. Keep electronics and devices that generate magnetic fields away from your bed. Leave work at least an hour before bed. Do not watch TV just before bedtime. Eat a protein-rich snack a few hours before bedtime. Learn a new skill Participating in a purposeful and meaningful activity stimulates your nervous system and eliminates the effects of stress-related illnesses. Learning new skills reduces the risk of dementia and improves your health. Research has also shown that participating in activities that require brain activity, such as photography, learning to play an instrument, or building a model, improves memory performance. Of course, this is not the only way to strengthen your learning power. There are four things to keep in mind when choosing an activity. The desired activity must: Teach you new things: This activity must be unfamiliar and new to you to keep your brain active. Be challenging: This activity should be completely focused on you and keep it that way at all times. Be able