When you meditate, you may clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to your stress.
The emotional and physical benefits of meditation can include:

• Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations

• Building skills to manage your stress

• Increasing self-awareness

• Focusing on the present

• Reducing negative emotions

• Increasing imagination and creativity

• Increasing patience and tolerance

• Lowering resting heart rate

• Lowering resting blood pressure

• Improving sleep quality

Meditation might also be useful if you have a medical condition, especially one that may be worsened by stress.
While a growing body of scientific research supports the health benefits of meditation, some researchers believe it’s not yet possible to draw conclusions about the possible benefits of meditation.
With that in mind, some research suggests that meditation may help people manage symptoms of conditions such as:

• Anxiety

• Asthma

• Cancer

• Chronic pain

• Depression

• Heart disease

• High blood pressure

• Irritable bowel syndrome

• Sleep problems

• Tension headaches

Be sure to talk to your health care provider about the pros and cons of using meditation if you have any of these conditions or other health problems. In some rare cases, meditation might worsen symptoms associated with certain mental health conditions.
Meditation isn’t a replacement for traditional medical treatment. But it may be a useful addition to your other treatment.

Meditation is an umbrella term for the many ways to achieve a relaxed state of being. There are many types of meditation and relaxation techniques that have meditation components. All share the same goal of achieving inner peace.
Ways to meditate can include:

• Guided meditation. Sometimes called guided imagery or visualization, with this method of meditation you form mental images of places or situations you find relaxing.

You try to use as many senses as possible, such as smells, sights, sounds and textures. You may be led through this process by a guide or teacher.

• Mantra meditation. In this type of meditation, you silently repeat a calming word, thought or phrase to prevent distracting thoughts.

• Mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation is based on being mindful, or having an increased awareness and acceptance of living in the present moment.
  In mindfulness meditation, you broaden your conscious awareness. You focus on what you experience during meditation, such as the flow of your breath. You can observe your thoughts and emotions. But let them pass without judgment.

• Transcendental meditation. Transcendental meditation is a simple, natural technique. In this form of meditation, you silently repeat a personally assigned mantra, such as a word, sound or phrase, in a specific way.
  This form of meditation may allow your body to settle into a state of profound rest and relaxation and your mind to achieve a state of inner peace, without needing to use concentration or effort.

Yoga. You perform a series of postures and controlled breathing exercises to promote a more flexible body and a calm mind. As you move through poses that require balance and concentration, you’re encouraged to focus less on your busy day and more on the moment.

          Tai chi. This is a form of gentle Chinese martial arts training. In tai chi (TIE-CHEE), you perform a self-     paced series of postures or movements in a slow, graceful manner while practicing deep breathing.

Different types of meditation may include different features to help you meditate. These may vary depending on whose guidance you follow or who’s teaching a class. Some of the most common features in meditation include:

• Focused attention. Focusing your attention is generally one of the most important elements of meditation.

Focusing your attention is what helps free your mind from the many distractions that cause stress and worry. You can focus your attention on such things as a specific object, an image, a mantra, or even your breathing.

• Relaxed breathing. This technique involves deep, even-paced breathing using the diaphragm muscle to expand your lungs. The purpose is to slow your breathing, take in more oxygen, and reduce the use of shoulder, neck and upper chest muscles while breathing so that you breathe more efficiently.

• A quiet setting. If you’re a beginner, practicing meditation may be easier if you’re in a quiet spot with few distractions, including no television, radios or cellphones.

As you get more skilled at meditation, you may be able to do it anywhere, especially in high-stress situations where you benefit the most from meditation, such as a traffic jam, a stressful work meeting or a long line at the grocery store.

• A comfortable position. You can practice meditation whether you’re sitting, lying down, walking, or in other positions or activities. Just try to be comfortable so that you can get the most out of your meditation. Aim to keep good posture during meditation.

• Open attitude. Let thoughts pass through your mind without judgment.

Don’t let the thought of meditating the “right” way add to your stress. If you choose to, you can attend special meditation centers or group classes led by trained instructors. But you can also practice meditation easily on your own. Or you may find apps to use, too.
And you can make meditation as formal or informal as you like, however it suits your lifestyle and situation. Some people build meditation into their daily routine. For example, they may start and end each day with an hour of meditation. But all you really need is a few minutes of quality time for meditation.
Here are some ways you can practice meditation on your own, whenever you choose:

• Breathe deeply. This technique is good for beginners because breathing is a natural function.

Focus all your attention on your breathing. Concentrate on feeling and listening as you inhale and exhale through your nostrils. Breathe deeply and slowly. When your attention wanders, gently return your focus to your breathing.

• Scan your body. When using this technique, focus attention on different parts of your body. Become aware of your body’s various sensations, whether that’s pain, tension, warmth or relaxation.

Combine body scanning with breathing exercises and imagine breathing heat or relaxation into and out of different parts of your body.

• Repeat a mantra. You can create your own mantra, whether it’s religious or secular. Examples of religious mantras include the Jesus Prayer in the Christian tradition, the holy name of God in Judaism, or the om mantra of Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

• Walk and meditate. Combining a walk with meditation is an efficient and healthy way to relax. You can use this technique anywhere you’re walking, such as in a tranquil forest, on a city sidewalk or at the mall.

When you use this method, slow down your walking pace so that you can focus on each movement of your legs or feet. Don’t focus on a particular destination. Concentrate on your legs and feet, repeating action words in your mind such as “lifting,” “moving” and “placing” as you lift each foot, move your leg forward and place your foot on the ground. Focus on the sights, sounds and smells around you.

• Engage in prayer. Prayer is the best known and most widely practiced example of meditation. Spoken and written prayers are found in most faith traditions.

You can pray using your own words or read prayers written by others. Check the self-help section of your local bookstore for examples. Talk with your rabbi, priest, pastor or other spiritual leader about possible resources.

• Read and reflect. Many people report that they benefit from reading poems or sacred texts, and taking a few moments to quietly reflect on their meaning.

You can also listen to sacred music, spoken words, or any music you find relaxing or inspiring. You may want to write your reflections in a journal or discuss them with a friend or spiritual leader.

• Focus your love and kindness. In this type of meditation, you think of others with feelings of love, compassion and kindness. This can help increase how connected you feel to others.

Don’t judge your meditation skills, which may only increase your stress. Meditation takes practice.
Keep in mind, for instance, that it’s common for your mind to wander during meditation, no matter how long you’ve been practicing meditation. If you’re meditating to calm your mind and your attention wanders, slowly return to the object, sensation or movement you’re focusing on.
Experiment, and you’ll likely find out what types of meditation work best for you and what you enjoy doing. Adapt meditation to your needs at the moment. Remember, there’s no right way or wrong way to meditate. What matters is that meditation helps you reduce your stress and feel better overall.

  Atoms, molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organisms (us). That is how the building blocks of life are  ordered. 

But we need to understand the most fundamental building block, the atom, in order to understand everything else that is constructed from them. 

The Newtonian diagram of an atom and what reality is are two completely different things. 

And any honest scientist would tell you that we still aren’t entirely sure what the atom looks like. Multiple models are used depending on what scientists are trying to measure. 

However, I want to bring some understanding to the scale of an atom for you and show you how atoms are actually mostly empty space.

Imagine a professional football field/stadium and in the center a grain of rice. Now imagine 5 or so grains of sand rotating around the outside of football stadium. That is a more accurate scale of what an atom consists of. Empty space…mostly empty space. 

But how can this be? How can mostly empty space make up tangible matter?

This is how: Imagine a thin rope, about a foot long, held in your hand. All you see is a thin rope. Well you can turn that thin rope into a much larger looking object. This is how:  imagine your hand holding one end of the rope and swinging the other end in a circle very very fast. What do you see? A string or a round shape? You see a round shape, a larger round shape. 

Or easier yet, do you remember the cartoon character Sonic the Hedgehog who runs very fast that his legs no longer look like legs but a large circle?

Well This is exactly how atoms work! Infinite amounts of atoms with electrons moving so fast in space that they give the appearance of a shape. Then to top it off, these countless atoms perfectly synchronize to create molecules then cells and tissues! Does that not sound completely insane and impossible? And yet it’s the very essence of existence! 

Amazing, isn’t it? We are made up of tiny particles moving through space so fast that they form “things” bigger than they really are!

Now, think for a minute, those grains of sand circling that stadium so fast that it’s giving the appearance of something much bigger than it actually is, like the thin rope being swung in a circle or Sonic’s legs! The energy and charge those tiny molecules emit as they move through space at speeds we can’t comprehend, it’s miraculous!

This is the essence of all creation. Frequency, energy! Energy making matter. 

Now let’s go back to our stadium example and talk about the grains of sand that are circling our stadium at speeds we don’t understand. Are those electrons, (aka: grains of sand), are they waves or particles? Is that sand a material “thing” or a wave created by energy? 

Not sure what I’m asking? Here’s a video link that will explain this to you! Click the image below to watch.

Scientist found that electrons can be BOTH a wave and a particle depending on the observer! Impossible and yet physicists confirm this over and over. The most basic building blocks of all that exists can change its state according to its environment… almost like magic! 

And yet it’s not magic, it’s physics! Tried and tested. We don’t fully understand the hows and whys behind these characteristics yet but, as living breathing beings, we need to respect that these miraculous characteristics are at the core of who we are.

Our environment, what we allow ourselves to be exposed to, changes who we are and how everything reacts within us all the way down to the atomic level! in fact, Dr  Masaru Emoto happened upon this phenomenon when he exposed water to different words before crystallizing it and taking photos of the water samples under a microscope. Below is a sample of some of those words and the structures of the water that ensued:

So if water exposed to words can completely change its shape, and if we, as human beings, are 70% water, just how much do you think others’ words, even our own words and thoughts towards ourselves, affect us?

Let’s recap a little:

we know that atoms change according to their environments and we also know that, in turn, molecules and cells respond to their environments, but how is that applicable to our lives? What does that mean to us?

When we enmesh ourselves in toxic thought patterns and environments, our most basic building blocks shift and change for better or worse. For many decades, even centuries, philosophers and doctors and scientists have discovered how mental well being affects the body physically, but only in the last half of this century are scientists figuring out the “how” of these phenomenons (as I’ve just tried to explain). We don’t have all the answers yet, but what we already know and what we are discovering is that severe self neglect is at the core of a lot of our dis-ease.

So why is this important to you? Because perception is EVERYTHING! Stress is everything! Your internal and external environment is EVERYTHING! You can’t embark on a healing journey without taking into account these things!

There’s an old Chinese medicine saying that expresses this:

“I’d rather eat the wrong thing with the right attitude than eat the right thing with the wrong attitude”

So you see, friends, a true healing protocol shouldn’t just nurture the body, but also the mind because your body and mind have always needed to be connected in order to function efficiently. You’re not just a physical being but an energetic one. 

Healing was always meant to be holistic.

So as I leave you with these thoughts, I want to share with you something that helped my mental health when I felt like I had hit rock bottom.

I found a video of affirmations that I listened to DAILY. I listened to these affirmations so much that they became almost like a prayer for me. Then they started to become subconscious. And when I often found myself triggered by some thought process that was harmful and damaging I would quickly go back to these affirmations to help get my head in a healthy space again.

I hope these affirmations serve you as much as they did me. I hope they can help you rewrite your subconscious messages you tell yourself daily that don’t serve you. And lastly, I hope that you can give yourself the gift of fully accepting and loving who you are, here and now. Because you deserve it. 

Dr. Emoto, a Japanese author, researcher, photographer whose Water Crystal Experiments proves that positive and negative words can change the shape of a water molecules… Thank you for helping us see how our words can not only affect those we speak but also our own water molecules. We can ALL do better!