What is Guided Meditation? Benefits, Techniques & Tips

Guided Meditation

What is meditation?

While there is no universal definition for meditation, you can understand it as using a technique of focusing your attention on a particular activity (such as focusing on breathing, reciting a mantra or shlok, listening to a guided meditation) to train your mind’s attention and awareness. This can help in achieving a mentally clear and emotionally stable state.

Basic principles of meditation

Focus your attention on your breath, sound, object or a mantra
Allow your mind to produce thoughts and feelings
Accept the thoughts without judgement and analysis
Allow the thoughts to come and go
Let the mind wander. Gently bring it back and focus on your breath

What is guided meditation?

Guided meditation is a form of meditation that uses various techniques to reach a meditative state. You can practice guided meditation in the following ways:

Under the guidance of a teacher
Listening to a guided meditation audio where you are being instructed in how to meditate
Listening to meditation music

What are the benefits of meditation?

Meditation has several health benefits, both physical and mental.

Mental health benefits:

Helps in calming the mind and allows greater control over emotions
Reducing stress and anxiety
Reducing depressive symptoms

Physical health benefits:

Lowers heart rate
Lowers stress hormones
Moderately reduces blood pressure
Aids in improving sleep quality

Where do I start? How can I meditate?

The best advantage of meditation is that it is easy to start, does not need anything special and does not take up much time. There are many ways you can meditate according to your comfort.

Find a comfortable spot to sit in. You may sit on the floor in vajrasana or cross legged. You can also sit in a chair with your back straight and feet on the floor.
Select a guided meditation that you like
Close your eyes and simply listen to the audio
Follow the instructions of the guided meditation as far as possible.

Tips for meditation

Start with a “beginner’s mind”. Try not to have any ideas of what meditation will be like and what thoughts you should be having.
Let go of effort and simply be in the present moment. Try not to focus on achieving any goal of “succeeding” in meditation.
Let both positive and negative thoughts occur. Having negative thoughts during meditation is natural. Do not judge them and do not act on these thoughts.
Treat all thoughts equally and do not focus on any one thought or feeling. If you feel your mind wandering, slowly bring your focus back on the guided meditation.