What is the best meditation for you?

Image by Holger Feulner

With a lot of styles of meditations popular today,most of the individuals are confused about what meditation to choose and what is best for them. Following are some kinds of meditations that help in the holistic enhancement of one’s life.

Loving-Kindness meditation

Designed to promote feelings of compassion and love, this meditation helps in improving the happiness by cultivating the attitude of love and kindness towards everything, including a person’s enemies and sources of stress. To practice this meditation, the individual first places the concentration on the breathing and slowly tries to open the mind towards receiving the love and kindness bestowed on him or her. The individual also sends out messages of love and kindness to the whole environment around, which includes the individuals, situations and every single creature around. It is effective in controlling anger, frustration, resentment and interpersonal conflict and is linked to increased positive emotions and reduced levels of depression and anxiety

Body scan or progressive relaxation

Progressive relaxation or Body Scan meditation is a meditation technique that focuses on every single part of the body. Either the various parts of the body are willfully tensed and relaxed one by one or else the relieving of the tension in various parts of the body is visualized. This meditation style usually starts at one end of their body, usually their feet, and work through the whole.This helps in promoting calmness and relaxation and is extremely effective in dealing with chronic pain. It can also induce sleep easily.

Mindfulness meditation

This style of meditation turns even mere existence to bliss. This meditation neither dwells in the past nor is concerned about the future. It involves living the present moment, savoring its utmost taste.

The wide range of researches made on mindfulness meditation has brought out many positive effects of the meditation and this include reducing fixation on negative emotions, improving focus and memory, reducing impulsive emotional reactions and improving relationship satisfaction. There have been studies which have proved the health benefits of this meditation which includes keeping the blood pressure under control

Breath awareness meditation

With benefits including reduced anxiety, improved concentration, and greater emotional flexibility, breath awareness is a type of mindful meditation that encourages mindful breathing.

Kundalini yoga

A physically active meditation, kundalini yoga blends physical movements with concentrated breathing and mantras. This style of meditation has both physical and mental benefits which include improved physical strength and reduced levels of pain, anxiety and depression.

Zen meditation

Also known as Zazen, this is a part of Buddhist practice which is usually studied under a teacher because this kind of meditation involves specific steps and postures. The meditation involves finding a comfortable position, focusing on breathing, and mindfully observing one’s thoughts without judgment. This kind of meditation requires more discipline and practice it helps in relaxation and enlightenment in a new spiritual path.

Transcendental Meditation

This kind of meditation is based on rising above the normal levels of human existence to a spiritually higher level of existence wherein the being transforms into pure bliss. The practitioners usually focus on a mantra or a repeated word or series of words which is determined by the teacher based on a complex set of factors, sometimes including the year the practitioner was born, and the year the teacher was trained. Practitioners of transcendental meditation have reported both spiritual experiences and heightened mindfulness.