Let’s keep it simple.
It is simple. Mindfulness is simply being present in the moment. Meditation is the practice of focusing on one thing as a means of working with your mind. There’s no right or wrong way to meditate. I teach people to just focus on their breath. Take a breath in. Focus on it. Breathe out. Focus on it. Simple. It’s okay if your brain wanders off with a thought. That’s what brains do, they think. The victory is in returning your attention to your breath after your brain wanders off with a thought.
Meditation is proven to shrink the brain’s amygdala, calming the flight or flight response while the pre-frontal cortex, the part responsible for attention and concentration, grows thicker, stronger. In short, you become calmer and less reactive and better able to think.
I’ve been slowly compiling some YouTube playlists to help you understand mindfulness and allow yourself to meditate.
- What is mindfulness anyway?
- Meditations for Children
- Sleepy Time Meditations for Children
- Meditations for Teenagers
- Two to Five Minute Meditations
- Meditations for Anyone at Any Time
- Sleep Meditations
- Various Breathing and Meditation Techniques
- Solfeggio Frequencies – (What’s that?)
- Middle Earth Meditations by The Honest Guys – When I first read The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, I began to lull myself to sleep with stories I told myself about my own adventures in Middle Earth. To this day, 49 years later, I can still imagine myself listening to a waterfall in Rivendell, as one of the Riders or Rohan or among Aragorn’s army and drift off to sleep. I was thrilled to find these meditations and I’m pleased to share them with you.
Binaural Beats
Binaural beats entrain your brain to reach a meditative state without the need for practice. They’re a shortcut for those of us who need to change our brains and our thought patterns in a relatively short amount of time. Different sound frequency patterns have different effects such as deep meditation, self-reprogramming, dreaming sleep, learning, creativity, daydreaming and spiritual experiences.
Wear headphones or earbuds when you listen to binaural beats.
- Meditations with Binaural Beats
- Binaural Sleep Meditations
- Binaural Sleep Music for Children – Don’t use headphones. The frequencies are enough.
- Gamma Waves for Happiness and Thinking – Listen to these as you study!
- Quit Cigarettes with Binaural Beats
Download an App
Lots of people get themselves meditating with one of a number of easy to use apps such as Insight Timer (my favorite), Calm, Headspace, or Stop, Breathe and Think Kids. You may want to try one.
