Meditation is medication.
There are many ways to meditate. There has been much written about meditation by people with more skill at writing and more skill at meditating than I have, but I’ve written this anyway. A simple way is to just sit and focus on your breath in and out. Breathe in through your nose. That is important. Try to breathe normally but deeply. Count the breaths 1 to 10 then go back to 1. This gives your mind an easy way to focus on your breath.
You will have thoughts. Many thoughts. Try to acknowledge the thought, let it go rather than focusing on it and return to counting your breaths. The goal is not to control your mind or to eliminate thoughts. The goal is to observe your thoughts. Once you truly become the observer then you realize that you are not creating these thoughts. Your mind is constantly pumping out thoughts and looking for your attention. When you become the observer instead of the owner of these thoughts you have created distance between you and the thoughts. You can more easily let them go instead of being immersed in them.
The results spiral and layer upon each other. In your daily life, when you are able to recognize and acknowledge thoughts and emotions as they appear, you are also able to let them go (the same way you let a thought go while meditating). This allows you to not be consumed by them in your normal life. You do not have to be swept away by each thought or emotion that comes up. This allows you to be more present in each moment instead of being distracted. This allows you to more truly see what is really important in each moment. The more that all this happens the more your mind actually changes because it wants your attention! You may notice that you have less negative thoughts because you’ve taught your mind that they will not receive attention. That’s the spiral. All the benefits create additional benefits like a positive feedback loop.
Also, people often say “I’m not good at meditation. My mind just wonders.” Back up. How much effort did you put into your practice? What in your life have you been awesome at without sustained effort? It takes practice.
Lastly, if this sounds like bullshit there is another physical, scientifically proven benefit. Breathing in through your nose allows you to fill the lowest parts of your lungs that are not filled by mouth breathing. That activates your parasympathetic nervous system which is the opposite of fight or flight. You will receive real physical benefits from this type of meditation just by focusing on breathing in through your nose even if you don’t feel like you are making progress letting your thoughts go. ॐ
Our minds pump out thoughts to distract our attention step away observe