My name is Julie Elder. I am an holistic therapist and yoga teacher who specialises in utilising the body’s ability to heal itself using a variety of techniques including Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy, Bowen Technique and Kinesiology. I am also a Reflexologist, Reiki master, Yogi and meditation teacher!
Creating a regular wellbeing practice is really important – both for consistency and results. My days tend to start with some breath work, followed by meditation and a cold water dip. Having this consistency brings results – it helps me maintain momentum as well as enabling me to see progress. Why not join me for ten days of FREE daily meditation this October and see what benefits you can gain!
If you’d like to join me and meditate for 10 days why not add yourself to my Facebook group OR sign up for free to my ten days of meditation starting in October!
5 Top wellbeing Benefits of Meditation include:
- Helps to regulate anxiety
- Keeps you young!
- Can help you regulate addictions
- Lowers Blood Pressure
- Helps with Mood Disorders
I always like to think of meditation as a bit like an exercise for your mind – and just as you don’t need to be strong to go to the gym, you don’t need a certain state of mind to be able to meditate!
We all hear that meditation is good for you BUT what is meditation and why should you do it??
Meditation can benefit us in so many ways. The hardest part I believe is that people think that they need to be able to clear their mind and think of nothing for 30 minutes!! If this is you then read on!
First let’s look at the benefits:
Benefits for your brain:
- Research has proven that meditation is really beneficial for our brains!
- It allows you to focus better – cognitive skills are improved. Cognitive skills are the core skills your brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and pay attention. When they work together they are able to take incoming information and move it into the bank of knowledge you use every day at school, at work, and in life.
- It allows you to be able to sustain your attention on a task AND perform better under stress! It can help with learning and improve memory and it can also help you process information more quickly. Research has shown that meditation can increase the grey matter concentration in the brain involved with learning and memory, emotional regulation and perspective taking! Memory improves, reaction times become faster and mental and physical stamina
Wellbeing Benefits
- Meditation decreases depression, it can help regulate anxiety and mood disorders.
- It can increase empathy as you are able to pick up on subtle messages from other people.
- As well as improving your ability to be more empathic it also improves YOUR self awareness! It boosts emotional intelligence (it makes you more aware of your thoughts and thought patterns and helps you become more resilient to emotional changes).
- Meditation reduces addictive and self-destructive behaviour. These include the abuse of illegal and prescription drugs and excessive alcohol intake.
Stress busting Benefits
- Anxiety, stress, depression, exhaustion and irritability all decrease with regular sessions of meditation. It also decreases reactivity to stress
- It soothes the parts of the brain that produce stress hormones and builds those areas that lift mood and promote learning.
Physical Health
- Meditation can dramatically reduce pain and the emotional reaction to it. Recent trials suggest that average pain ‘unpleasantness’ levels can be reduced by 57 per cent while accomplished meditators report reductions of up to 93 per cent.
- Meditation can boost immunity. Regular meditators are admitted to hospital far less often for cancer, heart disease and numerous infectious diseases because their bodies are under less stress!.
-
It also lowers blood pressure and promotes a feeling of calm!
-
It even reduces some of the thinning of certain areas of the brain that naturally occurs with ageing so can slow the ageing process.
So as you can see meditation can be a HUGE benefit to your life! So how DO you meditate?
Well like anything new, meditation takes practice – and I’m not going to lie it can be hard! What I would say to you though is that there is more than one way to meditate so maybe – if you’ve tried meditation before and it wasn’t for you – you could try another way to gain all those amazing benefits!
Sitting quietly forcing your mind to be clear is NOT meditation and very frustrating. The thing about meditation is that we are NOT trying to have a clear mind – what we are actually doing is trying to focus on a particular ‘thing’. That ‘thing’ can be your breath, body sensations, something external like a candle, you can meditate on sound – or even whilst you are walking.
Mindfulness is a type of meditation so don’t be upset if you’ve tried mindfulness and it didn’t work (but as I said it does take practice). The main pursuit of a meditator is to be aware of when those pesky thoughts appear, when you get distracted, even feel a bit uncomfortable but are still able to maintain – or bring that focus back to the object of choice AND you don’t actually need to sit cross legged on the floor, you can meditate on a chair, lying down – or even walking as mentioned above!
So if I’ve inspired you to have a try at meditation why not join me in 10 days of meditation – starting this October – and its FREE!!
How does it work?
Each day from 1st October at 7am (so pop a reminder in your diary) I’ll share with you a live meditation practice (either on Facebook live – or via Zoom) – this will then be sent to you via email. There are lots of different ways to meditate – some more suited to some people than others so I wanted to share with you lots of different ways in which you can bring meditation into your lives! Each meditation will be short – so not too much of a hassle to add into your daily routine – you may find mornings are good for you – or other times throughout the day but finding that time for YOU is the most important – and ensuring you won’t be disturbed! We’ll try body scan meditation, breathing, sound – and much more – there is bound to be one in there that allows you to explore further – and I am always on hand to offer advice and support.
If you’d like to join me – and meditate for 10 days join me by clicking on the link below to be raring to start next month!?
I have created a Facebook group (if you are on Facebook) so you can share your thoughts, experiences and challenges! You’ll find it HERE. If you are not on Facebook then the meditations will be sent to your inbox. All I ask is that you have a go – if staring at a candle isn’t for you, you may find your meditation mojo by focussing on your breath – and did I mention its FREE!!
If you have any questions please feel free to pop me an email at info@totallyholistichealth.co.uk.
Want to regularly find out the latest goings on at Totally Holistic Health central why not sign up to my regular newsletter !! Pop over here to Totally Holistic News to keep up to date with all the latest news, yoga videos, health advice and blogs.
I won’t bombard you with lots of spammy stuff and at the end of the day you can always request to unsubscribe!! I won’t mind!
Julie Elder