The word “meditation” is everywhere – from music for meditation to meditation chairs and benches, but each of us perceives this word in a different way.
When you hear this word, the first thing that’s more likely to pop up in your mind is sitting 30 minutes in the lotus position and saying and doing nothing.
Sounds boring, right? If this is the major reason you don’t meditate, then read on. We will teach you to meditate without meditation. Not only will it help you to find balance in your life, but also be aware of your body and everything happening around you.
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1.Try walking meditation
Also called kinhin, a walking meditation is simply a very long walk where you move continuously and slowly, staying aware of everything happening around you.
If you’re tired or happy, just walk continuously and enjoy the beauty of the nature. This will clear your mind and help your body relax as if you’ve been meditating for an hour.
Be sure you choose a large and safe place for your walking meditation.
2.Dance it
Meditation and dancing may have nothing in common at the first glance. However, dancing is an excellent meditative activity as well as a full body exercise.
You don’t need to take any dance classes and dance like a pro. All you need is a people-free room and a song that gets your body to move. As soon as you let go of your ego and dance like a weirdo with no one watching you, you’ll drop all worries about how you look and what others think of you.
You’ll become more aware of your body and the ways it can move. Dancing is an effective stress-fighting method and it’s an added bonus.
3.Clean it
The chores you do each day around the house work just the same like meditation. They key is to approach house cleaning in the correct way. Whether it’s vacuuming a living room, doing laundry, washing a car, or even mowing the lawn, any cleaning chore helps to stimulate ideas, combat depressive thoughts, and let your body connect to the inner self. Not to mention, that it’s a fabulous exercise.
As strange and ridiculous it sounds, repetitive tasks, such as house cleaning take a tiny bit of brainpower, allowing your brain to take over to trigger your senses.
That’s one of the reasons you might listen to the music, chat, or daydream while doing the chores. When cleaning, be sure to tame your overthinking, keep your mind empty, and fully focus on the chore you’re performing at the moment. This way, your brain will react in a similar, healthy way to meditation.
4.Laugh until your belly hurts
Seriously? Definitely! Belly laugh is considered the most popular meditation alternative these days. Not to mention, the easiest one. While a smile makes you feel good and stimulates your well-being, a belly laugh keeps your emotional balance in check. It helps to banish stress, lift your spirit, boost creativity, fight depression, and even strengthen your immune system. No matter what makes you laugh, do it till your stomach hurts.
5.Master a gratitude habit
Meditation is all about appreciation of life. The attitude of gratitude fosters alertness, awareness, and enthusiasm, as well as helps to get rid of a host of negative feelings, including jealousy, sadness, anger, and irritation.
The statistics show that a gratitude habit helps to reach goals faster and keep the success level high. Plus, Berkley’s study found that people who are grateful for their lives are more loved than those with negative feelings.
Starting a gratitude diary is a wonderful meditation alternative that takes just a few minutes to complete and offers the benefits similar to one meditation session.
It’s also a useful bedtime habit that aids in fighting sleep disorders and waking up with a grateful and happy heart. Once you get into a habit of feeling thankful for your life, start spreading your gratitude feelings.
Volunteer at a shelter, send a lovely message to your parents or friends, or help your coworker with a complicated project. Help shouldn’t be about money only. By helping others, you’re helping yourself first.
6.Mindful standing
Also called standing meditation, mindful standing promotes a bigger sense of internal stability and can even ease a lower back pain. As with any other meditation alternative, start with a short period of time.
You won’t believe what a 5-minute mindful standing can do to your mental health. Begin with standing in a straight posture about shoulder width apart, with your feet pointing straight forward. Once you’re in the position, perform a fast full-body scan by reducing tension and by providing every part of the body with awareness and calmness.
7.Moving meditation
Qigong, or moving meditation, involves the usage of rhythmic movements to center and focus the mind. Moving meditation helps to control, keep, and heal the energy force of the body and is a widely-used therapy for women facing substance abuse.
Qigong combines a low-impact workout and meditation that aim to improve blood flow, combat stress, anxiety, and depression, and boost the energy levels. Moving meditation is mostly used as spiritual, physical, and mental exercise. The thing is, movement makes it easier to concentrate and focus on being, letting the mind connect with your imaginative and creative deeper self.
8.Tai Chi
This is a type of moving meditation that doesn’t actually feel like a meditation session. The ancient wellness practice, Tai Chi helps to align energy in both mind and body.
According to a traditional Chinese medicine, when chi, which stands for the life force, is disrupted, you start suffering from numerous illnesses and diseases. Tai Chi helps to ward off those mishaps as well as aids in strengthening the memory and improving the brain work. Some random studies have suggested that Tai Chi can help to ease the symptoms of fibromyalgia.
9.Slow down your daily activities
We live in a hectic world where people trying to accomplish long to-do lists as soon as possible. We practice multitasking and get stressed when we fail to handle all the activities in a day.
This lifestyle is devastating and can lead to serious mental disorders. If you don’t feel like meditating to maintain good mental health, try slowing down your activities.
In the Buddhist Zen tradition, people call this form of meditation Samu work meditation. Whatever you do, focus on your thoughts and feelings and stay mindful about this activity. Despite a slow pace, this meditation alternative can actually help you get more done throughout the day.
10.A fixed-gazing meditation
Even though a fixed-gazing meditation is considered as one of the most ridiculous meditation alternatives, it boasts a plethora of great benefits. It involves staring at a certain or fixed object while standing or sitting.
Also called Trataka, a fixed-gazing meditation has been proven to alleviate headaches, banish stress, improve the eye health, and boost concentration and memory.
Whether indoors or outdoors, take a few minutes to gaze on natural objects, such as a flower, tree, stone, moon, stars, insects, or a lit candle. Since it might be difficult to gaze on those objects for too long, start slowly with a 20-second gaze time and gradually increase this time to 15-20 minutes. Try to do it alone, without any distractions.
11.Standup paddling
When you paddle, you get immersed in the “oceanic feeling.” This sense helps to dissolve into the bigger external world, forgetting about this world’s troubles, worries, and stress.
A standup paddling also helps to gain that feeling of the balance and inner peace, providing the benefits that a regular meditation session does.
12.Swimming
If a standup paddling is too hard for you or you have no opportunity to practice it, try swimming.
Not only is it a great exercise, but also a simple way to master endurance and reduce stress. If you can’t swim, taking a warm bath for at least 15 minutes without distractions is a great way to meditate without meditation.
13.Music
It’s not about listening to your favorite songs; it’s about enjoying the sounds of nature or calming and soothing musical instruments, such as violin, piano, harp, cello, and flute.
There are plenty of relaxing sounds and music on YouTube, choose your favorite melody and listen to it before sleep or when you are stressed. Be sure no one will disturb you at this moment.
14.Coloring
Gone are the days where only kids colored the pictures. Today, coloring books for adults are becoming more popular. Coloring requires patience, presence, and concentration. It helps to ease the daily tension and stress, and stay calmer in a tough situation.
Meditation is essential in the modern world. But oftentimes it’s hard or boring to sit with closed eyes and find that balance and peacefulness. These mediation alternatives will bring a lot of relaxing moments into your life and help you discover your inner self along the way.
