Meditate for better health

On July 2, 2022 Seniors Today hosted the weekly Health Live webinar with Dr Monika Das, a regular guest and speaker on our forum, who spoke on – Meditating for better health.

Dr Monika Dass is a Chartered Psychologist, a Chartered Scientist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, UK. Professionally, she has counselled over 12,500 individuals in a span of 20  years and has published several papers in both Indian and international journals.

A trained pianist and vocalist from the Trinity College of Music, London, Dr Dass has influenced many lives with the joyful learning of music. She has been actively involved in several popular musicals such as The Sound of Music, Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and so on…with her expertise in developing children through drama. She firmly believes that any extracurricular activity can help tap into one’s potential and bring out the best in an individual.

Meditation is a practice that takes time to get hold off. It is natural to get distracted easily but do not lose hope or heart. 

These are few things you should keep in mind when you are planning on beginning meditation: 

1. Concentrate on your breathing 
2. Concentrate on your third eye which is said to be between your two eyebrows. 
3. If you can, it is preferred if you sit up straight, not with your back taking the support of a chair, preferably 
4. Keep your hands facing upwards, placed just where your legs fold.

Meditation has got nothing to do with changing your inner world, you enter a world where you do not attain peace and happiness just like that, it has to be worked on. So even if you manage to meditate for a couple of minutes everyday and discipline yourself to meditate at a particular time everyday, it will help. 

Benefits of meditation: 

1. It helps reduce stress, undoubtedly. Your stress hormones, cortisols, reduce 
2. Your sleep patterns improve 
3. It helps lower your blood pressure
4. It helps with anxiety and depression 
5. It also helps with cloudy thinking and overwhelming thoughts 
6. It promotes emotional health 
7. Heightened sense of awareness 
8. It improves your attention span 
9. In case you are suffering from age related memory loss, it will certainly help to improve that 
10. Meditation generates kindness 
11. It helps fight addictions 

And the best part about meditation is that you can do it anywhere and everywhere 

This was followed by a guided meditation class conducted by Dr Das 

1. Sit up straight with your arms on your thighs and your palms facing up with your eyes closed 
2. Immediately as you close your eyes, move your gaze upwards towards your third eye and just stay focused on your third eye. 
3. Let the thoughts that are going through your mind, go through 
4. Concentrate on your breathing 

Before starting your meditation you can also do a small exercise that is the “double breath out” where you exhale loudly through your mouth twice before inhaling again. 

You can do this 3-4 times before starting your meditation. 

1. Keep your eyes closed and focus on the change in your body and your breathing.
2. Let your thoughts flow, do not try and control that. Understand the various sensations in your body. 

vii. Keep your gaze focused on the third eye and slowly keep breathing in and out. 

viii. Feel the change 

1. Open your eyes with a wide big smile 

If you cannot sit up straight, you can lie on the floor with a pillow to support your neck and you can perform the same activity in shavasana 

If you have difficulty taking and holding deep breaths, you can do the same with normal breaths. It should not be forced breaths. 

It is okay to meditate at any time of the day. 

Meditation does not have a minimum or maximum time of duration. It depends on you and is subjective.

Seniors Today is also holding a Healthy Mind forum with Dr Das which is a WhatsApp group that you are all welcome to join.