With frenzy being the default mode of many modern families – Work! Soccer! Travel! Ballet! – maxed-out moms and dads are turning in ever-increasing numbers to lifestyle changes that can help improve well-being and also bring down the stress level.
Various health regimens boast the benefit of building healthier bodies, but how many have proven stress-relieving properties for the brain as well? Enter meditation. With the constant stream of technology and media distractions, not to mention those head-spinning family schedules that compete daily for our attention, learning how to focus and calm the mind can be a skill with significant benefits for both mental and physical health.
While yoga – popular now even beyond urban, health-inclined Northeast and West Coast enclaves – widely appears on gym menus, meditation, practiced around the world for thousands of years, is still a burgeoning practice in much of the U.S. So what exactly is meditation and how can it improve health?
As defined by Psychology Today, meditation is “the practice of turning your attention to a single point of reference. It can involve focusing on the breath, on bodily sensations, or on a word or phrase known as a mantra.” According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation may help relieve anxiety, depression, pain and insomnia. Transcendental Meditation, an “evidence-based technique for inner peace and wellness,” cites hundreds of published research studies conducted at the likes of Harvard Medical School and UCLA Medical School that prove its technique’s effectiveness in improving health outcomes such as lowered blood pressure. It offers to connect people with certified TM teachers for one-on-one or group instruction via its website (tm.org).
And while there are many different techniques, including mindfulness, Transcendental, compassion and mantra, among others, most practices fundamentally involve mental focus in a quiet location, making it ideal for parents with limited time and also possibly limited resources.
Getting Started
Westchester Family asked a local expert for some tips for meditation beginners. Nina Nagy, who teaches Foundations of Mindfulness: Insight Meditation at the Wainwright House in Rye, also teaches at New York Insight Meditation Center. She has been practicing Vipassana (insight) meditation for the past 15 years. Nagy says, “Meditation is about seeing clearly the reality the way it is rather than through how we wish for it to be. … Anyone who is truly interested in getting to understand the roots of why they suffer and is willing to do the work will benefit,” she says. “Research shows that even in six weeks, some alleviation of stress can happen. The benefits, however,” Nagy adds, “accrue in greater depth through long-term work and perseverance.” She offers the following points for novices.
- Start off slowly: “In a beginner’s class (about one and a half hours) we sit for 20 minutes, there are questions and answers, then we walk for 15 minutes and then there is a discussion on some aspect of meditation.”
- Focus the mind: “The mind needs to be brought to some stillness through concentration. Concentration helps us see and penetrate. Vipassana, or insight, helps us see the play of phenomena and our relationship to it.”
- Be real and let go: “It is valuable to know that [meditation] is not a quick fix and that in order to address the causes of stress, it will take time, self-honesty and commitment. The mind begins to open and let go of its small-mindedness and the heart opens to the world at large.”
Once a meditation technique has been mastered, it can be performed pretty much anywhere – for free. So the next time you’re feeling stretched so thin you’re ready to snap, take a moment and take a break, for your health’s sake.
Terri Prettyman Bowles is a Westchester-based writer, editor and content producer.