How to Stick to Meditation Routine and Meditate Daily for Beginners (31 Day Meditation Challenge)
You know meditation is good for you.
You enjoy it whenever you do it.
You want to do it more.
But you’re busy and it’s hard to make meditation a habit…
Here is more information to help you start (or restart) and stick to your meditation practice.
• 31 Day Beginner Meditation Challenge
• 7 Benefits of Meditation to Motivate You - or Someone You Love - To Do It
• 5 Quick Tips How to Meditate Daily & Stick to a Meditation Routine for Beginners
31 Day Beginner Meditation Challenge
May is a great time to do this challenge since it is National Meditation Month and May 21 is World Meditation Day. But you can start this challenge at any time. All you need is 5-10 minutes per day.
Here’s how to do the challenge in 3 easy steps:
1. Watch my 2 minute video with my top 5 quick meditation tips.
2. Try the 7 different types of meditation and see which one resonates with you.
3. Stick with your preferred meditation style for 31 days so it becomes a habit.
Start this challenge by yourself or do it with a partner, family member or friend for extra accountability!
Optional: Journal before or after meditation for maximum benefits.
7 Benefits of Meditation to Motivate You - or Someone You Love - To Do It:
Reduces stress
Reduces anxiety
Improves sleep
Improves memory
Improves immune function
Increases focus
Increases creativity
5 Quick Tips How to Meditate Daily & Stick to a Meditation Routine for Beginners
1. Meditate at the same time each day.
2. Stick to the same technique.
3. Meditate in the same place.
4. Make meditation part of your daily routine.
5. Be patient and gentle with yourself.
Meditation isn’t one size fits all. Different people resonate with different techniques throughout different times in their lives.
7 types of Meditation to Try:
Breathing
Mantra / Affirmation
LovingKindness / Metta
Sensory Meditation
Guided: Morning Motivational Meditation
Guided: Evening Gratitude Meditation
Walking Meditation
1. Breathing Meditation (8 minutes)
These slow breathing techniques will help you relax the body and the mind by calming the parasympathetic nervous system. It is a great way to wind down before bedtime and to release some stress/fear/anxiety. Mala beads can be a helpful tool to support/enhance this practice.
2. Mantra / Affirmation
Focus on a mantra or affirmation that is relevant to you and/or a specific situation you are dealing with. Choose a short sentence and repeat this silently to yourself as many times as you like. My personal favorite is “I am love, success, abundance and light.” Mala beads can be a helpful tool to support/enhance this practice.
Make your own super simple mantra: I AM [choose 1-4 words from the list below).
calm • capable • courage • grateful • health • healing • here • hope • light • love • now • resilience • strength • simplicity • success • well • wisdom
3. Guided LovingKindness / Metta Meditation (10 Minutes)
This guided Metta or lovingkindness mediation in nature is intended to reduce feelings of fear, anger and frustration.
4. Sensory Meditation (10 Minutes)
A 10-minute sensory meditation that will get us out of our heads and into our bodies.
5. Guided: Morning Motivational Meditation (5 Minutes)
Do this mediation every morning to feel happier, healthier and more motivated to start your day! Optional: Journal & write down the three things you want to accomplish each day.
6. Guided Meditation: Daily Evening Gratitude (5 Minutes)
Do this meditation every evening to reflect on and feel gratitude for the day. Optional: Journal & write down the three things you are grateful for each day.
7. Walking Meditation
A guided walking/hiking meditation is ideally done outside in the fresh air and sunshine. This is a great practice if you find seated meditation to be uncomfortable or boring.
More Information on the Benefits of Meditation:
Meditation Reduces Stress: Stress reduction is one of the most common reasons people try meditation.
Meditation Helps Control Anxiety: Meditation involves slow, steady breaths which help to reduce anxiety be decreasing heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones.
Meditation Promotes Greater Emotional Health: Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation helps with developing resilience to depression and helps to create a more positive outlook on life.
Meditation Increases Awareness of the Unconscious Mind: Some forms of meditation help you develop a stronger understanding of yourself, helping you grow into your best self.
Meditation Increases Attention: Focused-attention meditation is like weight lifting for your attention span. It helps increase the strength and endurance of your attention.
Meditation Lessens Age-Related Memory Loss: Kirtan Kriya is a method of meditation combining mantra with repetitive motion to focus thoughts and has been shown to help with age related degenerative memory disorders such as Alzheimer's.
Meditation Generates Kindness and Gratitude Toward Others: Metta meditation is also known as loving-kindness meditation. Twenty-two studies of this form of meditation have demonstrated its ability to increase compassion toward others.
Meditation Helps with Recovery from Addiction: Mental discipline you can develop through meditation may help you to break dependencies by increasing your self-control and awareness of triggers for addictive behaviors.
Meditation Improves Sleep: Becoming skilled at meditation disciplines the mind and helps better control racing or “runaway” thoughts that can keep you up at night. Additionally it can help you relax the body, releasing tension that prevents restive states.
Meditation Helps Control Pain: Perception to pain is linked to state of mind and it can be elevated in stressful conditions. Discipline from meditation helps to control pain signals received.
Meditation Decreases Blood Pressure: Meditation helps to control blood pressure by reducing nerve signals that coordinate heart function, tension in blood vessels, and the sympathetic nervous, “Fight or Flight” response.
Meditation Increases Immune Function: Studies have shown that visualization meditation can increase immune responses in a short amount of time!
Meditation Improves Emotional Intelligence: Through meditation you can safely become more comfortable with emotions that have been avoided in the past.
Meditation Increases Optimism: Staying positive is important! Meditation helps to achieve an overall more positive mindset.
Meditation Buffers Against Impulsivity: Gain discipline to buffer against impulsive actions.
Meditation Strengthens Decision Making & Problem Solving: Studies have shown that people who meditate are able to better focus and score higher on cognitive tests!
Meditation Helps Manage ADHD: Meditation can be used to counteract ADHD.
Meditation Strengthens Information Processing: A meditation practice enhances speed with which attention can be directed and redirected, decreasing response time and increasing processing ability.
Meditation Increases Longevity: Meditation boosts antioxidant molecules such as glutathione as much as 41%.
Meditation Improves Neuroplasticity: The mental training of meditation increases plasticity in the brain.
Improved Visuospatial Processing: With very limited meditation training studies have shown significantly improved visuospatial processing.
Meditation Fosters Creativity: Meditation helps stimulate the neocortex, where we do our creative thinking.
Meditation Decreases Frequency of Inflammatory Disorders: Reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes have been reported in a study of meditation and gene expression.
Meditation Helps to Prevent Asthma, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Mindfulness practice helps to reduce psychological stress which is a trigger for these types of diseases.
Meditation Helps Treat Menopausal Symptoms and Premenstrual Syndrome: Was conclusion in over 20 randomized control studies.
Mindfulness Training Helps with Fibromyalgia
Meditation Changes Gene Expression: Studies have found a range of genetic and molecular differences in people who have regular meditation practice versus control groups.
Meditation Can Reduce Panic Attacks: A study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry discovered after 3 months of meditation and relaxation training, 90% of participants diagnosed with anxiety or panic disorder substantially reduced negative symptoms.
Meditation Can Increase Gray Matter in the Brain: MRI scans by Harvard neuroscientists show that the grey matter concentration increases in areas of the brain involved in learning and memory, regulating emotions, sense of self, and having perspective increased after 8 weeks of meditation and mindfulness training.Long-term meditatorsshow a larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of grey matter in other studies.
Meditation Can Reduce Boredom: Katherine MacLean of the University of California led a study suggesting that during and after meditation training, subjects were more skilled at keeping focus, especially on repetitive and boring tasks.
Meditation Can Improve Test Taking in Students: A study of students indicated that after just 20 minutes a day of practice, they were able to improve their performance on tests of cognitive skill. In some cases, the mindful students did 10 times better than the group that did not meditate.
Meditation Can Be More Effective Than Morphine: A study at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center determined that Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain (40% in pain intensity and 57% in pain unpleasantness) than morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 percent.”
Meditation Can Increase & Improve Self-Awareness: Long-term practice of meditation increases grey-matter density in the areas of the brain associated with learning, memory, self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
Meditation Can Improve Memory & Reduce Multitasking: In a study conducted by University of Washington and University of Arizona, a group of Human Resource personnel that practiced meditation and body relaxation techniques for 8 weeks reported lower levels of stress and showed better memory for the tasks they had performed. They also switched tasks less often and remained focused on tasks longer.
Meditation Helps You Deal With Stressful Events: A study conducted with 32 adults that had never practiced meditation before, showed that if meditation is practiced before a stressful event, the adverse effects of stress were lessened.
Meditation Can Reduce Emotional Eating/Obesity: Scientists have been experimenting with Meditation to help manage emotional eating, which prevents obesity.
Sources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1555415516001732
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/CABN.7.2.109#page-1
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00133/full
https://eocinstitute.org/meditation/4-top-ways-meditation-is-the-best-anti-aging-longevity-tool/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810010000681
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bianca-rothschild/the-science-of-how-medita_b_5579901.html
https://news.wisc.edu/study-reveals-gene-expression-changes-with-meditation/
Share this with a friend or family member who could benefit from meditation.
Namaste & Have A Great Day!
💖 Miranda
