Six Effective Techniques to Help Your Thinking with Meditation
Proven by neurophysiologists: what we focus on can directly change the activity and structure of our brain. The main thing is to know how to use this understanding to improve your life. Inite has compiled simple meditation techniques to help you make qualitative changes in your mind’s content. Alternate between these techniques on your own and with the Inite app, and choose the one that works for you.
1. Breath observation
This is one of the most straightforward techniques, which is very popular with beginners. But experienced meditators also favor it since its effectiveness is tested for thousands of years.
How does it work? Conscious breathing is one of the simplest methods of connecting the mind to the body. This process is directly related to our emotions. When we’re frightened or nervous, we breathe unevenly, quickly, and superficially. When we’re calm, we breathe smoothly and easily. And it works the other way around, too! By observing our breathing, we are engaged in the present, calming agitated thoughts and emotions, increasing attention, and boosting the chances of pleasant insights.
How to meditate: Sit in a comfortable pose with your back straight (don’t tense it up too much). If desired, you can close or half-close your eyes. Breathe slowly and with focus. You should fully concentrate and spend each inhale and exhale feeling the air entering you, filling your lungs, and how slowly it exits. For maximum effect, engage your abdominal and diaphragm muscles: your abdomen should inflate when you inhale and deflate when you exhale.
2. Gratitude meditation
How do you quickly channel your emotions and thoughts into a calm, creative direction? Begin your meditation with gratitude! You can ( and should) practice this positive feeling for people, situations, or experiences in your life that are important to you and your growth.
How does it work? Gratitude gives us additional resources because in difficult moments, it is easy for a grateful person to remember the most pleasant moments of life and to lean on them. At the same time, we get rid of negative attitudes and redirect our thoughts in a positive and productive direction.
How to meditate
Perform this practice in the morning and evening. Take a comfortable sitting or lying position. Focus your attention on the moments in life for which you are grateful. After meditation, write down at least five points (by the way, the Inite app will additionally reward you for each separate idea).
In the morning, you can read again all the things for which you were thankful yesterday and repeat the practice. It is no longer necessary to generate new objects of gratitude: it is enough to observe the ones that you have already introduced into your mind.
3. Mantra meditation
Mantra is one of the most common elements used for meditation and one of the most powerful. Originally, it was a sacred word in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Eastern thinkers believe that mantra is a particular form of speech that significantly impacts the mind, emotions, and even the world around us. Some mantras have a literal meaning and can be translated, but most of them, traditionally, have their value mainly due to the quality of sound.
How does it work?
Mantra reciting helps one enter a special state of consciousness in which the practitioner clears their mind of intrusive thoughts, images, worries, and anxieties. That is, first of all, the mantra helps one go deeper into the meditative state. In addition, the vibration of the sound created by the chanting also affects the body. This manifests as a sense of relaxation, a release of tension, and the rise of energy and power. And a semantic mantra tailored to your request will help focus the mind around a specific idea.
How to meditate
Choose a mantra according to your request. If you want to focus on a specific thought, you can choose a mantra from your native language. It can be a single word (e.g., “Love,” “Harmony,” “Power”) or a short sentence that carries the message you want to push into your psyche. Repeat the word for a few minutes and observe how it affects the way you feel.
If you want to take a more traditional approach, choose the right mantra from Eastern meditations. There is no need to translate it: you will need precisely the correct pronunciation and intonation of the mantra because the point is to reproduce that specific sound vibration. Listen to it on the recording beforehand. You can also meditate directly on the recorded mantras, singing along to the words. By the way, the Inite team plans to embed the most influential mantras directly into the app in the nearest future.
In the beginning, it’s better to recite the mantra out loud so you can concentrate on it as much as possible. Then you may switch to whispering and then to mental chanting, spelling the mantra in your mind. The more you recite it, the more noticeable the effect will be.
4. Mind observing meditation
The essence of this technique is that you try to simply observe the process of emergence and departure of thoughts that arise in you without being involved in the process of thinking them over. The technique has been used for more than a thousand years in yoga and Buddhism, and in recent decades it has entered the range of interests of modern science as well.
How does it work?
First of all, this practice develops a centered position of perception. Most of our problems in behavior and communication have to do with being “captured” by thoughts, feelings, or desires of some kind. And when we are in a centered, aware position, it is easier for us to notice the activation of such harmful programs and not succumb to them. Being able to detach ourselves from the flow of disturbing thoughts helps to significantly reduce their impact on our emotional state. And the most valuable and meaningful thoughts will not go anywhere but instead will be filtered and fixed.
How to meditate
Sit in a comfortable pose. You can devote the first couple of minutes to observing your breathing to relax. Then move on to the observation of thoughts. The goal is to be aware of them but not to get involved in thinking over them. Thoughts will come and go, you just watch this process. If you get involved, be aware of this, step aside again and become an observer.
5. Visualization
Traditional meditation apologists often separate meditation and visualization as different concepts, as the second one is rather about targets than observing. If, for example, you had to prepare yourself for an important event or imagine your goals, that’s more like visualization. Nevertheless, elements of meditation are always present in this process — attention to calm breathing and body relaxation contribute to a clearer and more vivid vision.
How does it work?
Visualization meditations help develop the imagination. However, this is not its main purpose. This practice is a good psycho-training, which gives the meditator the ground for introspection: the study and transformation of the images that arise during visualization, comparing them with one’s mental states. Associative images help a person to find both repressed questions and deep values. And targeted visualization of realized goals helps to literally “probe” the way to their realization and come up with important ideas.
How to meditate
Visualization is usually performed after relaxation. The visualization techniques are very varied and tailored to the meditator’s intention and purpose. If you have not yet developed much visual imagery, use recorded guided meditation: there are many on the web to meet any request. Closing your eyes and sitting in a comfortable pose, follow the images provided by the instructor. In time you will learn to generate such images on your own.
6. Meditation on inspiration
A free meditation practice for which there are no strict guidelines. The main thing is to choose an object that evokes your mental uplift and focus your attention on it.
How does it work:
We temporarily clear the mind of unnecessary things and fill it with what is our motivation and source of positive emotion. After all, the rule of “Don’t look where you don’t want to get but look where you need to get” is valid not only in road traffic.
How to meditate
The object of meditation can be both something external (for example, an object of art, music, or a beautiful landscape) or internal: your positive thoughts and emotions. If you choose the second option, it can be the same visualization of something again: imagine, for example, what you would like to share with others or mentally focus on your strengths. While in this state, notice how the chosen object or thought responds in your mind and body.
Record your steps in Inite!
Inite is a meditation app that helps you keep track of your practice’s regularity and progress. Turn Inite on whenever you want to devote time to meditation: the app will track the time you spend in silence without your phone in your hands. And insights that come to your mind during or after your practice won’t disappear in vain; you’re saving them in the app and getting motivating rewards in the form of Init tokens. The app’s functionality is constantly evolving: we aim to become the number one meditation app suitable for all kinds of practices devoted to mind observation and growth.
