Stop waiting.
For the weekend.
For summer.
For things to calm down.
For whatever place of perfect non-stress you imagine exists where everything falls into place arrives – it may never come!
Improving your health and finding more peace of mind takes small, healthy choices that you can start right now. Drink one extra glass of water a day. Take a deep breath and relax your body once every hour. And if you’ve been curious about meditation or have been thinking of trying it out, do it! Just 5 minutes a day will begin to change your life. There is absolutely no reason to wait a single day to start this. No more excuses.
Sitting down once every day for 5 minutes and relaxing your body. Dropping your shoulderblades down your back and opening your chest. Focusing on the feeling of your breath. Then watching frustration arise as you notice how bad you are at focusing. Then noticing boredom creep in. Then pondering what the point of this is. Then convincing yourself you’re doing it wrong. Then being hard on yourself for not succeeding in this. Then thinking of what you need to do that’s more important than this. Then noticing that you’re clenching your jaw and relaxing it a bit. And eventually coming back to focusing on your breath. That’s meditating!
Five simple minutes of stillness in which you give yourself the time to tune into yourself, become curious about your thought patterns, focus on what you’re feeling for a change instead of being constantly controlled by your thoughts, which is so often our status quo. It becomes a chance to rest, to take a break from the demands of the outside world and come into the present moment, assess where you are right now, and give yourself the attention you deserve to stay healthy and sane.
By no means am I suggesting that your meditations will be calm and peaceful – they could be, but they can also follow along the lines of what I described above, at the beginning in particular. Either experience is still a success. What is important is that you actually sit down and intend to be present for 5 minutes. How distracted you are during that time doesn’t matter, as long as you are doing your best to be present. That’s all it takes.
This simple practice can teach you an unbelievable amount about yourself, while simultaneously relaxing your nervous system, improving your immune system and growing key areas of your brain required for problem-solving, critical thinking and short-term memory. All of that, with just 5 minutes of sitting a day. It really is that simple. Yet not easy! But nothing worth having comes easily, right?
Don’t wait any longer. There is no better day to start than today.