Mindfulness & Meditation Classes

The simple answer to this question is no. 

Meditation is all about quieting the thoughts of the mind, however, being truly thoughtless is something that very few people in the world ever achieve. 

For 99% of meditators, meditation is the practice of exercising focus, and as thoughts come into our awareness or distract us, intentionally bringing our minds back to focus. 

Thoughts will always arise during meditation, and that is absolutely normal. 

The goal is not to become truly thoughtless, but to change the relationship we have with our thoughts. 

The relationship we want to change is the importance that we give to our thoughts. 

By learning how to detach from thoughts in order to return to focus, we are learning how to detach from the meaning and the control that we give to them, which allows us to become more intentional with our focus and our attention. 

Nearly all meditation have been shown to help with anxiety relief for most individuals. So, you can try out most meditations to achieve the end goal of reduced anxiety. 

This does not happen overnight though it does require a sustained effort to see the neural pathway changes in the brain. 

You will need to meditate daily or close to daily for 4-8 weeks. It is this level of consistency that reshapes the physiology of the brain in such a way that the mind becomes more resilient to anxiety, and will begin experiencing less and less anxiety.

 This may sound daunting at first, but if you really think about it, it only takes about 15 minutes of meditation a day to improve nearly every other hour of your day by reducing anxiety, improving rest, and improving mental performance. 

 Just like any real practice that provides a good list of health benefits, meditation is something that requires some form of time commitment. 

With that being said, most research to date indicates that the majority of the benefits of meditation are available to anybody who meditates 15 minutes or more per day. Meditation can also be done in 5 minutes or less and does not need to require any amount of time that would noticeably affect anybody’s daytime schedule. Simply closing your eyes and paying attention to your breath, or your anchor of choice for any amount of time will still have a positive effect on stress, blood pressure, and focus. 

 The simple but straightforward answer to this question is yes. 

Meditation has been associated with reducing cortisol levels, lowering blood pressure, and calming heart rate. 

Each of these physiological benefits is associated with large reductions in disease and deterioration of the body. 

By reducing stress and strengthening key centers in the brain, meditation has been proven to help slow the aging process, slow age-related brain decay, reduce a wide range of diseases, and improve mental health. 

Meditation is both a good mechanism for eliminating stress in the moment, as well as in reducing the consistency of stress on the whole. 

As a result, it is a healthy practice for the mind and the body in hundreds of ways. 

Mindfulness is the broad term that describes the ability to remain present and aware of the present moment. 

Meditation is in fact a term to describe the practice of sitting during a session, with the goal of achieving and exercising the skill of mindfulness. 

In this way, mindfulness is the quality one is looking for while we sit to engage in a meditation practice of some kind. 

They are intertwined and highly related, but they are terms to describe different things. 

 Meditation and hypnosis are very similar in the sense that they are both practices utilized to achieve specific brain-wave states that are helpful for achieving relaxation and calm attention. 

Meditation is a practice used for achieving a state of focus on the present moment and can be done either in groups, alone, or with a teacher. 

The main differences between meditation and hypnosis are that hypnosis is done with the purpose of working with, and potentially reprogramming the subconscious mind, and is done specifically under the guidance of a hypnotist. 

They are both methods for working with the mind, although the medium, the purpose, and the techniques are different.