Do you find it difficult to meditate? Do you encounter obstacles and distractions? How to improve meditation?
Almost everyone encounters difficulties and obstacles when starting on their meditation journey. Even people with years of experience face difficulties, but these difficulties can be overcome with determination, perseverance, and an open mind.
One of meditation’s purposes is to create a peaceful and tranquil mind, but to calm it requires training since it is inherently restless.
The usual obstacles to meditation usually are:
- Lack of enough focus and concentration.
- A wandering mind.
- Nonstop thinking.
- Short attention span.
Worries, fears, and doubts related to work, plans, health, and every topic under the sun occupy your attention and can make you forget your meditation.
The mind is like a busy train station. Thoughts keep coming and going.
- Various thoughts pop up in the mind and attract your attention.
- Thoughts evoke associated feelings and memories, which make you forget to meditate.
- Worries and anxieties occupy your attention; as you focus on them, they get stronger and more disturbing and disturbing.
- Noises, scents, and physical sensations disturb your focus.
However, you can learn to ignore, at least to a certain degree, the distractions, disturbances, and obstacles that prevent you from meditating and focusing your attention.
How to Improve the Quality of Your Meditation
in this article, you will find a few tips to help you improve your meditation. If you have been learning to meditate, I am sure you are already familiar with these tips, but it is always a good idea to repeat them.
Read the tips, memorize them, and practice them/
1. Make Peace with Your Mind
After sitting down to meditate, and just before you begin, tell yourself that all thoughts and all problems will have to wait until you finish meditating. Repeat these words firmly several times, so that you remember them when thoughts start to disturb your meditation.
Tell your mind that no matter how important any thought might seem, it has to wait until you finish your meditation. This will help you stay calm and ignore the thoughts that might pop up in your mind during mediation.
2. Avoid Anything that Might Distract Your Attention
When you meditate, you would most probably encounter many interruptions and distractions. Here are a few things you can do to avoid them:
- Meditate in a place, where you are alone and undisturbed.
- Close the windows and doors of your room to avoid noise.
- Take the phone off the hook and switch off your smartphone.
- Turn off the TV and the radio.
- Turn off your computer.
3. Try to Meditate at the Same Time of the Day
If you meditate every day at the same hour, it would soon become easier to meditate. The mind will automatically remember to meditate at the same hour, and you will experience less mental resistance.
Early mornings or early evenings are good times for meditation, but you can choose any other convenient hour.
4. Meditate at the Same Place
Try to arrange a quiet place for meditation. It could be a special room, a corner in a room, your office, or in a garden.
It would be a good idea to meditate in the same place, since this will make your mind associate meditation with a certain place, making it easier to meditate when you are there.
5. Don’t Eat before Meditating
After eating, the energies of the body are directed toward the digestive process, at the expense of the mental process. This is why there is a feeling drowsiness after eating a heavy meal.
Please note that hunger is also an obstacle, which can disturb your concentration. If you are too hungry, you may eat a fruit, a slice of bread, or drink a glass of water or juice a little while before sitting down to meditate.
6. Sit Comfortably Holding Your Back Straight
Sitting in a comfortable posture is important. This helps you to avoid tensing your mind and your body.
It is important to be comfortable so that your mind is free to concentrate.
You may sit on the floor, if you find it comfortable, or you may choose to sit on a chair. Do what is more comfortable and less strenuous for your body.
7. Relax Your Body
There is often, a tendency to tense the body when meditating, focusing, or doing any mental work. You need to avoid this habit.
Unnecessary physical tension tires the body and the mind, and does not allow you to focus your attention. This of course, stands in your way to meditate successfully.
You need to learn to relax your body. You can find various appropriate relaxation techniques by searching for them on the Internet.
A useful tip:
Every time you feel that you are your tensing your body, stop what you are doing and relax it to undo the tension. This need not take more than a few moments.
8. Do not Feel Frustrated if Your Mind Gets Distracted
No matter how many times your mind wanders away during meditation, just bring it back calmly to the meditation.
You might repeatedly forget your meditation and think about other matters. That’s natural for an untrained mind. Do not get frustrated or angry at your mind. Keep calm and continue.
9. Keep a Positive Attitude
A positive attitude will take you past difficulties, disturbances and obstacles. Keeping a positive attitude will help you stay calm and poised, and help you improve your meditation
These are just a few simple tips to help you improve your meditation and make it easier to focus.
For more information about this topic, read the articles about meditation at this website.
Learn how to calm your mind and improve your meditation – Read our book Calm Down the Nonstop Chatter of Your Mind.
About the Author
Remez Sasson is the founder of SuccessConsciousness.com, a leading resource for personal growth and self-transformation. With decades of experience in self-improvement and meditation, Remez has empowered countless individuals worldwide to unlock their potential.
Join him on an extraordinary journey to self-improvement, success, positivity, inner peace, meditation, clarity, and personal mastery through his articles, books, and the comprehensive resources on his website.