Meditation I have been learning and practicing the art of meditation now for 20 years, but it is only recently that I have started to do it on a regular basis.
I am finally learning the true benefits of mediation and how it can make an enormous improvement to your life and truly make you a better and happier person.
Meditation is all about finding the right balance.
It's about emptying your mind and transporting yourself to another place.
A place where you can relax and just be in the moment, without the worries or work or the stressors of life.
Meditation is about calming the mind to create a calmer you and in turn teaches you to calm your breath down, helping you to better manage your asthma.
If meditation is done correctly it can make an enormous difference to your attitude, your stress levels, your outlook on life and your breathing.
Mediation is a great way to unwind and to get some quality you time where no one is placing demands on you.
It's also a great way to improve your thinking, clear your mind and help you to solve problems.
It takes the focus off your worries and onto yourself and calming your breath down very gently and slowly.
Meditation teaches you that you can control your breathing and when you learn how to mediate properly you should be better equipped to calm your breath down, hence helping to settle your asthma.
However, I always recommend doing any alternative treatments in conjunction with your regular asthma medication.
If in the throws of an asthma attack, it's important that the first thing you do is take your medication, then you can sit or lie down and try to calm yourself and your breathing down.
Meditation should help you to feel calmer and more relaxed.
You may even find you are more in control, less aggressive and more willing to just 'go with the flow' about things you normally would stress over.
Meditation helps you to accept things better and makes you see how much stress can affect and how poorly it makes you feel.
Mediating for me makes me feel like I have had a nights sleep or an instant face lift-without the time, the cost or the pain thrown in.
I often find the answers to problems through my mediation.
I might not know it then, but certain words come up or ideas, and I just think fair enough and dismiss it for now and then when I come out of my meditative state, I'll think about them again or even write things down that have come into my head and sooner or later they make perfect sense.
More often than not if I am stuck on something, I meditate and the answer almost always comes to me.
It's like now that my head is clear and nobody is hassling me, I can think straight and actually find the solution to the problem that has previously weighed so heavily on my mind.
Mediation without a doubt is my savor and nearly every single time calms me down and makes me realize that the problem or my stressor is not as bad as I first thought.
Meditation for me is the reason I very rarely yell at my kids and nowadays I don't get anywhere near as angry as I used to.
Meditation is also the reason why my asthma has improved, even though I do still take my medication at times, it has without a doubt taught me to calm my breathing down and to stop myself from going into panic attacks and worsening my asthma.
Everyone tends to mediate differently and some may say that I don't do it the right way, but for me it works and I have seen great results from it.
I have also been practicing meditation for a very long time now and have tried many different ways of meditating and find the way I do it now to be the most effective with the best results.
Hence, I have written down my first 5 steps of learning to meditate and how to get your body into that nice relaxed state.
1.
Lie down on the ground in a quiet room, that is slightly darkened but ideally not too dark.
Lie down with your hands either by your side or resting on your chest.
It's a good idea to have your legs flat on the ground, open slightly with a pillow resting underneath your knees so as not to put too much pressure on your lower back.
I sometimes even meditate with my knees up and my feet flat on the ground.
2.
Have your eyes closed and very slowly take 3 deep breaths.
This helps to center you, to calm you and to allow you to concentrate on you and your time.
Just allow yourself to take note of your breath and how it very gently flows in and out of your body 3.
Notice how your body connects with the floor, which parts touch the floor and which don't.
If any part of you is not quite comfortable shit around a little until you are completely comfortable and starting to feel relaxed.
4.
Gently let each part of your body go.
Start moving your head from side to side very slowly to loosen it up; then allow your shoulders to sink into the floor; relax your upper back and then slowly move down to your lower back and allow all the tension to just melt away; move down to your stomach area and just let it flop and hang there; next let your thighs fall to the side slightly and feel your upper legs relax and feeling loose; your knees too can flop out to the side and sink into the pillow, lastly slowly wriggle your toes and your feet and just allow all the tension to drain away from them.
5.
Once you feel your body nice and relaxed, I now want you to imagine your favourite place.
Somewhere that is just for you and only you.
Somewhere that is quiet and peaceful and a place where you are happy to spend your time.
Somewhere where no demands are placed on you and you are simply by yourself enjoying the scenery and the quiet.
It could be the mountains, the water, a field, the beach, a special room or even just sitting in your car.
Any place that relaxes you and makes you breathe a sigh of relief just because you are there and no-one else is there to bother you.
No-one else can take this place away from you as it's just for you to spend some quality time by yourself and enjoy how peaceful life can be.