How to Meditate

Meditation is a valuable tool to help you with symptoms of mental illness or the stress of daily life. Anyone can meditate, and as long as you have somewhere peaceful to sit (or some earplugs), you can do it too.

Making time for yourself

One of the most important parts of meditation is making sure that you set aside a decent amount of time to allow yourself to fully relax. If you try to rush meditation or are too stressed to properly relax, meditation won’t help you. If you struggle to find time to meditate, try doing it before you sleep or when you wake up, as this will help you unwind and set up for the day with a positive attitude.

Finding somewhere peaceful

To be able to meditate effectively you need to be in a peaceful and calm environment, trying to meditate in the Minerva Atrium wouldn’t get you very far. The best place to meditate would be in your bedroom and if you’re finding that it’s a bit too loud because of your flatmates, you can always get some cheap earplugs or put your earphones in and play some calming music.

Meditation apps

Whenever I meditate I tend to use Headspace which I get free with my Spotify subscription. There are specific meditation audios for de-stressing, for helping you if you wake up at night, and there are even sleep casts to help you get to sleep. Sometimes you can’t spend money on an app, or you’d rather test it out first to see if it works. If you’re not ready to pay for a subscription, here are some things you can try:

• Finding free meditation channels on YouTube – there are a lot of good free resources on YouTube, and you can search for guided meditation, calming music, or even how-to videos to help you start.
• Free trials – If there’s an app or service you want to try out, check to see if there’s a free trial or, like Headspace, a way to get it with your Spotify subscription.
• Books – There are plenty of meditation books and guidance booklets that you can use, why not ask the library if they have anything that could help?