What is Meditation?

Meditation can be defined as the conscious act of giving paramount attention to one thing or a couple of things either as a religious act or as a way or relaxing. Before now, meditation has actually been used to understand the mystical forces of life but now, it is merely used for relaxing. There is really not much talk as to the meaning of meditation as virtually everyone knows how it is done. Most times in Asian movies, we see a man sitting down, crossed legs, hands on his thighs, closing his eyes and all that stuff. Today, I’ll sorta be giving you a little bit insight as to how these things work and their benefits.

Firstly, there has been no scientific explanation to how it works. Science only tells us its benefits and what it does. Now, a study of people who were trained to meditate within eight weeks showed saw increased electrical activity in regions of the left frontal lobe, an area that tends to be more active in optimistic people. Nevertheless, science has still been unable to connect the dots between meditation and the effects it has on people.

Without much ado, lets go to the health benefits of meditation. A study proved that meditation improves people’s physical and emotional responses to stress majorly lowing blood pressure and also improving the immune system against diseases though the mechanism through which this works isn’t clear. One very good thing about meditation is that after ending a session, the effects can carry you all through the day.

Benefits of Meditation.

The benefits are quite much but I’ll endeavour to post as many as I can. Meditation does the following:

It lowers blood pressure.
It improves the immune system.
Helps with anxiety problems.
Helps with sleep problems.
Meditation activates the ‘rest and digest’ part of the nervous system which helps with stress related problems.
Meditation helps promote ‘Divergent Thinking’- A type of thinking that allows the development of many new ideas.
It helps filter out other mental processes during creative mental tasks.
Helps to increase self awareness.
It helps improve emotional stability.
It produces a sharp and clear mind with expanded consciousness.
Produces minds that stay focused on a single task for longer periods and make less switches.


Meditation has a lot of other benefits but these are the few I can lay my hands on. It isn’t a common practice amongst Nigerians, Africans majorly. Many think its fetish but believe me, its not. You can even incorporate religion into it. Prayer, for example can be used as a form of meditation. Apart from communicating with our creator, it helps us relax (depending on the kind of prayer now), gives us a focused mind, creates a sense of awareness of our mind and ‘zeros’ our mind to the creator whom we are praying to.

In my next article on meditation, I’ll let y’all know different kinds on meditation there are, and also steps to a simple short meditation exercise. Till then, stay healthy, eat well, exercise regularly and rest well. Ciao

cc seun lalasticlala dominique

Types of Meditation



Spiritual Meditation: This kind of Meditation works well with those who pray and communicate well with God. It definitely requires a quiet and serene environment with a steady concentration on a particular problem, situation and its possible solution. This type of meditation is not only relaxing but also has its physical and spiritual benefits.


Movement Meditation: This might seem tricky and intimidating at the same time. Moving your upper body in a slow circular motion, moving the arms in a slow swaying motion, concentrating on your breath patterns and the respective diaphragm movements is what does the trick here. In this type, rather than concentrate on a sound or a particular image, one tries to drive his/her consciousness towards the movement of his/her body.




Focused Meditation: The main benefit of this kind of meditation is that it definitely leaves you refreshed and lets your mind “be able to concentrate well”. As the name implies, this type basically requires you to focus your mind on a particular sound, thought, image or object without letting your mind sway away or lose focus.


Mindfulness Meditation: This is the most popular and well-known kind of meditation. It requires you to let your mind have a flow of thoughts. Unlike the focused meditation which streamlines your thoughts to a particular thing, Mindfulness meditation requires you to focus on a lot of things, not at once, but simultaneously and can also be performed during our day-to-day activities such as walking, driving, eating, etc.




Mantra Meditation: This kind of meditation might seem odd because the person meditating will be required to shout a word or series of words. The repetition of such word(s) produces a constant and familiar vibration within such person which he/she focuses his/her attention on and automatically the mind tunes itself to concentrating on the word(s).


Simple Tutorial on how to Meditate.

I shall combine all 5 types into one single method:

First is to get a comfortable spot

Choose a Mantra: A mantra is a word, so to say, which you recite while meditating.

Sit comfortably: Have a tall spine, hands on laps and don’t feel ‘too’ comfortable to avoid sleeping off.

Clear your mind and free your mind

With your eyes closed, breathe in and out deeply for about 10 times.

Take moments to observe your body: Try to direct your sense of feelings to the various parts of your body in contact with something else. Slowly and taking each of them one by one; Try to feel your palms on your laps, where your butt touches the chair, the bending of your knees and where your feet touch the ground.

You can then practice either of the types of meditation discussed above. Try to focus on your God with your thoughts, praying internally without losing focus, try to move your body in slow, steady movements that your mind can follow. You can also have an image in front of you, study each inch and detail of the object without moving too much or losing focus, pay attention to sounds around you- like the sounds of birds chirping, the sound of your breath, the sound of the stillness of air and finally, you can try humming or singing a mantra.

Just before ending, go over the fifth step, observe your body: Where your feet touch the ground, where your body touches the chair and so on.
Then finally, create an awareness of the next five tasks you are going to perform after standing up like brushing teeth, going to bathe and try as much as possible to follow the pattern which you imagined. Now, you then stand up slowly and proceed with the day’s tasks.

You can get pictorial help and further description here: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2011/jan/22/how-to-meditate-ten-steps-headspace