JANA TAKES A FLEXIBLE APPROACH WITH A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
Jana takes a flexible approach
JANA Ludwig is here to tell you that yoga can be really hard and meditating in a silent room with lit candles and Tibetan music is near impossible.
The Whitfield Empower with Yoga owner said she understood the pressures on busy people to slow down weren’t always realistic.
“Nobody can really meditate,” she said.
“With meditation you’ll sit there and think about how you aren’t meant to think anything and then you’ll take a few deep breaths and start thinking about everything.”
Her advice instead is to focus on getting through one to five minutes of meditation and deep breathing every day.
“Just focus on breathing in and out of your nose, and then when your thoughts come barging in, redirect your focus back to your breathing,” she said.
“It makes you realise how much you think all the time, but it also gives you the ability to step back from those thoughts.”
She said just a couple of minutes were an achievable and admirable goal for meditation beginners.
“You don’t have to be somewhere that’s completely silent – that’s a myth,” she said.
“The idea is to be able to be calm even when the world is on fire.
“If you’re in your office and you can just concentrate on your breathing and meditate for two minutes with everything going on around you, then that’s excellent.”
She said bringing focus back to yourself was the biggest struggle for most new meditators.
“Being able to cut out the world around you is the most important thing,” she said.
“When you’re busy you can be stressed for an hour and get nothing done or you can relax for two minutes and then get on with it.”