How to keep a cool head in a pandemic? Learn to meditate…
As downloads of calming apps soar, Eleanor Steafel finds out how we can make peace with our own minds
Iconsider it one of my greatest failures that I cannot meditate. I’ve downloaded the apps, I’ve tried to find my inner calm during the lying down bit at the end of yoga. I’ve never actually taken a meditation class, but, much like playing an instrument or gymnastics, I’m pretty certain I’d be rubbish at it. Until this year, I’d come to the conclusion usion that meditation was simply for other people. But if there was ever ver a time to give it a proper go, it’s 2020. 0.
Anxiety levels have gone e through the roof, with Nuffield Health alth reporting in June that around und 80 per cent of British people working king from home feel lockdown has had a negative impact on their mental health.
In the midst of the chaos, s, meditation apps have seen a huge rise in demand. The Calm app was downloaded 3.9 million times mes in April, while rival Headspace ce had
1.5 million downloads. Even n Prince Harry is a fan, and said this s week he feels meditation is “key” to o handling negativity.
Calm aims to help users relax, meditate and sleep better using a variety of techniques. Its “sleep sleep stories” are supposed to help people drift off, with John Mcenroe, actor Matthew Mcconaughey and basketball star
Lebron James among the narrators. But is your phone the best place to start?
Here, then, is your quick-fire guide to how to meditate.
Do your research and work out why you want to meditate
For cynics, it may help to really understand what it could do for you. Coach Shirley Zerf says that meditation has been proven to have profound health benefits if practised regularly. “It can literally change the way we function,” she says. “It can take depressed people and make them well, it can make you clearer, it can make you more empathetic. It does all kinds of things, physiologically, to the chemicals within your body and your heart rate and blood pressure.
“You have to say: ‘I’m doing this because it releases stress and it makes your body function better.’”
Zerf, who runs meditation courses in west London, says there is no one that couldn’t benefit from trying meditation right now. “Eventually, it gets to the point where there’s nothing left to do but actually make peace with your mind. That’s what meditation is.”
Cut out anxiety: losing yourself in your thoughts can ease stress and help sleep
Don’t get fixated on switching your thoughts off
Aiming for an empty brain is counterproductive. Jillian Lavender, who runs the London Meditation Centre, says this is one of the biggest misunderstandings about meditation. “A lot of people say ‘my mind’s just so busy and I could never sit down for 20 minutes.’ If you’re sitting there trying not to think, it’s not going to work. Rather than trying to achieve a “blank” mind, Zerf says it’s about training yourself to notice your thoughts and bring yourself back to your breathing. “What people think is going wrong is that they keep losing themselves in their thoughts, but that’s how you do it,” she says. “It’s like training a dog. If you take a dog for a walk in the forest, it’s allowed to run off but you just keep calling it back.”
Start small
Zerf advocates starting with just three minutes. “You brush your teeth for three minut minutes a day and we wouldn’t dream of goi going without that. But meditation, which is our mental hygiene, we do nothing with,” she says.
All you ar are required to do is to sit with your ey eyes closed, “observing your mind”. Cons Consider it a three-minute treat for yourself, like having a cup of tea. “You’re not t trying to fight something. It isn’t a chore chore, it’s about getting your mind on boa board,” adds Zerf. “We’re not talking abou about going for a run at 6am in the middle of winter, we’re talking about sitti sitting for a few minutes and just letting everything settle.”
Playy white noise in the background backgro
Many exp experts recommend playing music or a mantra during the meditatio meditation itself. Lavender says in her pract practice, a mantra is used “like a vehicle vehicle” to focus the mind. “It pulls the mind into these super sub subtle states. And then – as is the mind, so is the body. And the body gets to rest very deeply.” Zerf says even a Youtube video of white noise would do the trick. “Something you like – the sea or rain – so that if your mind wanders, you have a sensory thing to come back to.”
Do it every day
Meditation works when you do it regularly. Zerf tells clients to stick Post-it notes everywhere reminding them to meditate. “It’s much more important to make it a habit than to do it for a long time. People think: ‘I’m too busy for this, it doesn’t do anything.’ But I say to people we’re talking 100 days before any changes can be seen in your life.”