Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Each second we are bombarded with information. Social media, television, radio, internet, magazines, sidewalk commercials and many other information that flow through our minds day after day.

Our brain is overwhelmed by this amount of information that he has to process each day. Most of it is noise. We become stressed, unfocused, we become lost.

And this is where meditation intervenes. Meditation is letting us return to the basic, it brings us calm and serenity. It brings us focus and groundedness.

Although the practice of meditation was introduced to the western civilization as a spiritual practice, nowadays it's a very common practice recommended by psychologists as well, for the health benefits.

It has been proven scientifically that meditation improves your health. Here are some of the benefits of meditation:

• Increased focus
• Increases energy levels
• Improves sleep
• Reduces stress and anxiety
• Reduces aging
• Reduces headaches
• and many more others

But, not matter how you present these benefits, some still are skeptical about meditation. Somehow, I understand them. I was like this as well. I was thinking it was silly, sitting on your ass for God knows how long and try not to think about anything.

But meditation isn’t about thinking or not thinking, meditation is about becoming more self aware, becoming more focused. It’s about getting grounded in the present.

How to meditate?

As I was writing above, many people think that meditation the wrong way. You don’t have to sit in one place, in your lotus position, and focus and concentrate on nothing.

You can meditate anywhere, anytime as long as you want. Even for one second.

Sometimes I meditate when I walk or in my bed before I go to sleep.

The simplest way of meditating is to focus on your breath. Inhale, hold it in for a second, exhale. You can start like this. And in time you can expand the time or the breathing technique of your meditation. But you just need to start, make the first step.

Do it now. Deep breath, hold it in for a second, slowly breathe out. Try to feel the energy flowing through you.

As a bonus, here is a video with the explanation about meditation of a buddhist monk

Huffington Post Video On Meditation from Steve Greenhalgh on Vimeo.

Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. – Alan Watts

Image source: Pixabay

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This post is part of 30 days writing challenge during January 2017 launched by @dragosroua. If you want to join the challenge, here's the introductory article.

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Essential skills in life is a series of articles regarding skills that I consider everyone should try to develop them. Some of them I have, some of them I'm working on. Please follow me @sstefan if you want to check the next post of the series