Practicing mindfulness meditation involves directing your complete attention to sights, sounds, smells, sensations and thoughts. Concentrate on senses that you do not notice on a daily basis. Paying attention to your breathing in meditation helps you focus your attention instead of letting your mind take over and control you.
Breathing is essential to successful meditation. Sit comfortably in a chair or lie down. You can also stand in a controlled position. Close your eyes when you first start this process so you can concentrate. Observe and feel the rise and fall of your abdomen and notice the inhale and exhale at a slower rate. Make note of your sensations as you inhale and exhale. Feel your diaphragm expand with each inhalation and deflate with each exhalation. At first, it is natural for your attention to wander off and this may happen often during the first few attempts at this.
When first starting on this mindfulness meditation journey, tune in to your breath at random times of the day and observe your abdomen rising and falling through three or four breath cycles. Pay extra attention to your thoughts and bodily sensations.
During times of stress, visualization meditation may help relieve anxiety. Think of your mind as a large body of water. Imagine riding waves of stressful thoughts and then allowing them to flow away from you. Allow them to flow away without dwelling on them. Constant conscious deliberation and acceptance of stressful events helps your mind open up to new opportunities. You will begin to notice the change in yourself as you continue to practice meditation and move away from the feelings of self-pity, jealousy, anger or sadness. Mindfulness helps us achieve more contentment with our lives. We accept consequences and explore opportunities instead of being in denial.
By meditating just 15 minutes a day you will see a change in the way you focus on the world around you. You may see a change in your level of patience and take your day more slowly and comfortably. This will help you to continue to become less stressed in your daily life. When feeling successful and letting your mind go, you will take this to other areas of your life. If you are in a meeting at work instead of getting stressed about an impending deadline you may instead decide to take some deep breaths and plan a step by step solution so that you are not anxiety ridden.
Also, this may bring about a complete change in your workout routine. Meditation and mindfulness practice will make you more aware of your workouts. You will notice more concentration in your Pilates or Yoga classes and less thoughts of the outside world stresses during your every day workouts. This will make your workouts even more beneficial, not just physically but also improving your emotional well-being.
I hope that these suggestions have been helpful and that you will find solutions in some mindfulness meditation practices and your everyday fitness and wellness goals. I would love to hear some of your stories……
Just Me..... 
I have been practicing meditation daily for over a year now. I went from barely being able to meditate for 5 minutes to meditating 20 minutes twice a day. Meditation has drastically changed my life for the better.
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I’m so happy to hear that the meditation is now working for you. It took me awhile to get to 15 minutes but I see such an improvement overall as I always had difficulty tuning out the “noise” around me.
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Thank you!! Now to begin my 15 minutes a day.
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Good luck. Be patient if it doesn’t work right away. A little bit more each day.
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This is a great post ! I love meditating and I love that you’re sharing your experience with it !
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I’m glad that you are benefiting from meditation. It has changed my life!!
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thank you for sharing https://takealeap.blog/
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Hope you found it helpful.
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Meditation has been helping out alot with me. I’ve definitely reduced alot of stress in my life.
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I’m glad it has helped you. It took me a long time but now that I do consistently it helps me destress.
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So enjoy yoga, really keeps the muscles from tightening.
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I have been doing Plycombo for awhile now and it combines yoga with Pilates Love it !!
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Meditation is an essential part of my life, agree with you on the beneficial impact. If interested – I share some stories on this topic also on my new blog.
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Would love to read them. Please comment with your link.
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You’re welcome, here is the last one: https://bordobardo.com/tadasana-on-integrity-and-mountains/ Would love to hear your thoughts!
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Enjoyed reading your article. Very well-written. It is so true that integrity is a relation one has to oneself and affects our morals. I recommend that all my followers give it a read !!
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Thank you!
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Great post. I really need to start meditating. It would really help reduce my stress. Yoga would also help with stress and since I’m working out most days it would help me be less sore.
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I feel a significant change in my stress levels since I started doing yoga and meditating. Good luck !!
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Great suggestions! We love yoga and have been trying to get into meditation as well 🙂
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Meditation is not easy. It takes time to be able to shut out everything around you. When you finally do, you can feel stress leave your body.
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Great post!
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Thank you. Hope it was helpful !!
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I absolutely LOVE yoga & think it had a part in transforming my life in all seriousness! But meditation, has taken me a little more practice & I haven’t yet fallen in love with it like I did my yoga practice. I really enjoy sound healing meditations so I put them on while I’m doing other things & that works for me right now, but I’m looking forward to expanding my meditation exploration!
-madi xo | http://www.everydaywithmadirae.com
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Meditation does take time so don’t give up. I also love yoga and now I take Plycombo classes which is Pilates and Yoga combined. It builds muscle tone and stretching is beneficial in improving health and fitness. Keep it up!!!
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this is really a good post.
meditation is definitely a helpful practice to keep your mind focused on the task at hand, and it also helps to tune out the external noise.
thanks for sharing this wonderful post.
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