Learn how to meditate and to relax easily
Most people like to lose some weight in the New Year, but if you are looking to be happier and less stressed, you should look to gain more. Not on your waistline, but in your brain.
Meditation is a powerful tool to increase one’s happiness and well-being.
Lots of research shows that the brain physically changes, the production of happy hormones increases and the DMN – default mode network – of the brain (the monkey mind) switches off, which makes us feel calm and less susceptible to stress.
Recently a study by experienced neuroscientists at Harvard University found sensational results through MRI scans of the brain. The scans showed for the first time in medical history how meditation produced brain cells. Participants in the study spent an average of 27 minutes per day practicing mindfulness exercises for 8 weeks, and this was all it took to stimulate a major increase in gray matter density, as in extra cells, in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
It means that by practicing meditation, you can play an active role in changing your brain and affect your well-being and quality of life.
Meditation is very easy.
Forget about the ideas that you need to sit on top of a mountain, cross legged, for hours, hop
ing for enlightment. It is nothing like that. Even though there are people who devote their life to the spiritual practice of meditation, it is not a requirement. Meditation is just a way of focussing your mind. Nothing complicated or academic.
Concentrate and focus, which quietens the mind, relaxes your body and calms your emotions. And, grows extra brain cells.
I received an award for MOMM – Mariette’s One Minute Meditation, in 2012 and have taught thousands of people this easy and effective meditation practice.
