Let us explore a cheap method that will help you as an entrepreneur to upgrade your mind and create a sustainable business. This practice is called meditation. Meditation relaxes your mind, your body and releases tension and stress. It is very simple, prevents restless thinking and makes it easier to enjoy great sleep. There are different kinds or methods to meditate and here are some of them – Mindfulness meditation, Focused meditation, Movement meditation, Mantra meditation, Transcendental Meditation and many others.
Wikipedia’s definition of meditation
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state (wikipedia).
Why should you meditate?
Let us apply common sense. You wash or take a bath daily or regularly. You change your clothes often. You brush your teeth. You eat and go to the toilet. All these are practices you now know helps you clean your outer and inner physical body space. They make you feel refreshed. But remember, the mind, spirit and soul is most engaged to keep you conscious and able.
With the world we live in today, there are a million and more distractions, information and external attitudes that create stress. We worry about the next idea, the next project, the bills to pay, broken hearts and many emotional issues. All these pile up in our minds, in our soul. They are stressors and energy drainers. How best can you clean your mind, soul and spirit?
Meditation alongside your prescription.
Don’t take these health issues for granted. Apply meditation alongside your medication. When you are constantly under stress, the level of your cortisol is a lot higher than it should be. Cortisol is a stress hormone. Cortisol provides the body with glucose by tapping into protein stores in the liver. In normal conditions this is good if it helps your body to fight or flee a stressor.
However, elevated cortisol over the long term consistently produces glucose, leading to increased blood sugar levels. High levels of cortisol are related to fatigue, headaches. anxiety or depression, weight gain, increased blood pressure, low libido, erectile dysfunction or problems with regular ovulation or menstrual periods. Read further to learn how meditation works and how to start today.
Meditation helps you to reset daily. Read further to find out some scientific and religious backings about meditation.
Some very key elements to a great meditation
- Environment: Find the right space for you. If you do not have a space, create one. It can be your bed, if you truly have no space to create a meditation area. If you have space, read beneath so see how I created my space.
- Time: This is one of the most challenging elements. I advise you to meditate first thing in the morning. At least, it should enter some of your early morning practices if you can. 5 minutes is often ok for a beginner. Consistency is more important. Read on as I explore more about time to meditate.
- Posture: Seriously, you have to find what works for you. Many people sit, but the most important thing is that you are very comfortable. I choose to lay down.
- Method: Breathe technique, mantra and many more methods can be used. Find what you prefer.
- Ending: Always receive some time to tune back into space. If you close your eyes, allow some time to get up after opening your eyes.
How should you meditate? Can you meditate in Lagos?
It is not easy to prescribe a certain type of meditation for anyone. In fact, I strongly do not advise you to. Try out a few methods and find which works for you. It is important because your environment and state of mind is very different from the one of someone else. For example, when my kids were very small, It was almost impossible for me to develop a meditation practice. Or when I lived in a very small apartment, I had literally no space to meditate like I would want. This meant I had to develop a practice around the single usable coach in the living room. Which meant I had to wake up very early before the living room got crowded. Now, my kids are older, I have my own space, so I can actually set up my own meditation area.
If you have lived or visited Lagos, you might be quick to say no! Especially if you have experienced the traffic from Island to mainland at 6pm LOL. But since meditation is basically easy to do, I strongly advise you cultivate the habit of meditating very early in the morning while still at home. Meditating in the bus, at the back seat of your car if you have a driver or at the office, might become challenging as the day runs by. There are so many external factors to distract you out there.
Some people can meditate after work at home, but I can barely do that. Simply because everyone gets back from their day and may want to share one or two things with me as a mum. I am sometimes even very tired and do not have the motivation to relax in deep calmness. But there is another trick. You can meditate for 20 minutes right before bed. When you are already in bed, ready to sleep. Like all lights out, kids in bed. Plug in headphones and some meditation music if you like. Light the candle next to your bed if that helps. Spray the room freshener or slice some fresh lemons if that tunes you in and get on with it. But remember to put off the candle before your sleep!
Next week we’ll continue this session with meditation as we explore science and spirituality on meditation. In part 3, I will share my own simple method everyone can try. Let me know your thoughts on meditation. Let me know your thoughts on meditation. Have you ever tried to? What works for you? For example, I love to close my eyes during meditation. Share your comments and questions. Remember to subscribe to my newsletter for more practices on how to refresh your mind and improve your wellöbeing as an entrepreneur. More information will be published on my YouTube channel, so do not forget to subscribe if you are on YouTube.
I wish you a happy and peaceful meditation,
Joana
