Yoga Teacher Training: How to Focus During Meditation

Monday, September 18, 2017

How to Focus During Meditation

By Sangeetha Saran

Meditation has long been regarded as the ultimate tool for mindfulness and relaxation. According to Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital's Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the practice can help people struggling with anxiety to deal with distracting thoughts in a positive and effective way. Because people with the mental health disorder can't tell the difference between nagging worries and problem-solving thoughts, engaging in mindful behaviors such as meditation help.

Here are some tips that help with focus during meditation:

Don't force it. When you're new to meditation, it can be very hard to sit still and focus for any length of time. That's why it's important to give yourself an attainable goal. For example, start out with two minutes of meditation daily for a week. Then gradually add time to your meditation practice by five-minute increments. Before you know it, you'll be meditating like a pro because you've allowed space in your schedule and your heart for mindfulness.

Make it the very first thing you do when you get out of bed. By making it part of your daily routine, you're sending a signal to your brain telling it that your practice matters. You're then able to focus on meditating without rambling thoughts filling your brain. You know that just as soon as you're done spending time on your meditation cushion, you'll be ready to start your day's To Do List. No matter what else happens throughout the day, you'll have taken some much-needed time for yourself.

See your thoughts as fleeting and your feelings as temporary. Treat what you're thinking and how your feeling as it comes up. Understand that you don't have to respond to them in the moment. Instead, accept that you've had these thoughts or feelings. Explore why they've come up during your meditation practice. Write down a few solutions to every issue that you're facing. This forces you to be proactive instead of reactive. You'll then be able to focus on meditating knowing that you have the option to problem solve after you're done with your meditation session.

You may not be able to control your thoughts when you first start meditating. After learning a few tricks, however, you'll feel your worries slip away. Being able to quiet the mind is a skill that anyone, no matter what their age, can learn.