When we learn how to meditate, we are also learning how to reduce stress, calm our minds and bodies, improve our sleep quality, get along better, and feel happier. Learning how to meditate is a meaningful life skill, and it’s never too late to learn.
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Meditation has been practiced since 1500 BCE antiquity in numerous religious traditions, often as part of the path towards enlightenment and self realization. The earliest records of meditation (Dhyana), come from the Hindu traditions of Vedantism. Since the 19th century, Asian meditative techniques have spread to other cultures where they have also found application in non-spiritual contexts, such as business and health.
Meditation may be used with the aim of reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and pain, and increasing peace, perception, self-concept, and well-being. Meditation is under research to define its possible health (psychological, neurological, and cardiovascular) and other effects.
Meditation has proven difficult to define as it covers a wide range of dissimilar practices in different traditions. In popular usage, the word "meditation" and the phrase "meditative practice" are often used imprecisely to designate practices found across many cultures. The Transcendental Meditation technique recommends practice of 20 minutes twice per day, some techniques suggest less time.
- In Acem Meditation, you sit comfortably in a chair with eyes closed, practising a simple mental technique, allowing a deep relaxation to take hold of body and mind.
- You repeat a meditation sound mentally without effort, while thoughts and impressions are allowed to come and go freely. There is no attempt at emptying the mind.
- Relaxation comes naturally. Knots and ties unravel, stress and worries gradually give way to a calmer frame of mind. Afterwards you feel refreshed, energized and often more creative.
- Scientific studies of relaxation methods suggest that the most pronounced health benefits come from techniques allowing spontaneous thoughts to pass freely.
- In the long run, the inner freedom of Acem Meditation may initiate fascinating processes of self-understanding and personal growth.
It is best to meditate in a quiet and undisturbed room. Many meditate one half-hour every morning and evening, or once a day for 45 minutes. Others use the method when they feel the need. Ten minutes is better than nothing.
If you are already an adept practitioner of a type of meditation that uses a sound or a mantra, you will probably find the transition to Acem Meditation easy. Experienced meditators of all kinds who have turned to Acem Meditation have found that it enhances the long-term effects of meditating regularly.