Meditation is one of the best practices for achieving well-being and stress relief. It’s one of the best self-care practices anyone can do, it’s especially important for individuals dealing with chronic stress.
Benefits both the mind and body, having the right state of mind also increase confidence and work output. Benefits of concentration meditation are…
- Lower blood pressure
- Improved blood circulation
- Slower respiratory rate
- Less anxiety
- More feelings of well-being
- Less stress
- Deeper relaxation
Today’s concentration meditation is a very versatile self-care practice. Beginner-friendly but can still provide a challenge for those who already meditate. I call it “Cube Meditation”.
We will focus our minds and learn to control wavering/negative thoughts. This can give you a great boost in concentration, It can also help complete tasks and achieve goals faster.
Think of your mind as a computer, every action (thought) needs to be processed, stored and/or deleted. Having too many processes such as copying, transferring, moving files slow down a computer. The same can happen to our minds with too many negative thoughts.
I’ve divided our meditation into two parts if this is your first time meditating really focus on the first steps. Let’s meditate.
First: Center Yourself
- First find a comfortable position (laying down, sitting on the floor/chair)
- Close your eyes
- Take deep breaths, feel your lower abdomen expand ( 5 sec. inhalations and 6 to 7-sec exhalation). We exhale longer to help calm our nervous system and overworked minds
- Continue for a few minutes and focus on your breathing pattern
- Being able to just focus on one thing at a time is key
- Take each step at your own pace especially the next set of steps
Tip: remember to keep your back neutral, slouching or leaning back can compromise the breath and lead to tension at the neck.
Second: Cube Meditation
- First, bring all your different thoughts together. Slowly removing each, one at a time. (as you practice it’ll get easier to keep a clear mind)
- When ready, the next step is to focus your mind on creating a mental dot. This dot will be the base for our cube, keep all other thoughts away.
- Next, imagine the dot stretching and becoming a line (my mind always tries to envision a pencil turning the dot into a line if anything similar happens just breath and focus on the line).
- Next, imagine 3 more lines appearing and turning our singular line into a square.
- Finally, the square starts becoming 3 dimensional, becoming a cube right before our eyes. Can you see all the different sides? can you open the cube? is there anything inside?
- The final step is bringing our lovely cube back into a square, then the square back into a line, and from a line into a dot. we center ourselves again, our minds should be cleared and focused.
Some parts will be easier than others, with practice each step can be performed. Take each step slowly, and if you find any parts difficult re-center yourself and try again later.
Pushing yourself through it can become frustrating, defeating the purpose of this meditation.
Meditating doesn’t need to time-consuming either, just 5 – 10 minutes can help clear your mind. The “Cube Meditation” always helps me clear my head and gives me focus to complete the task faster.
Ultimately giving me more time to take care of myself and live a little more stress-free. Let me know what you lovely people think and if this meditation helped in any way.
I personally love guided meditation, but sometimes it’s hard to find the time to go to a workshop or go to a meditation class. That’s when I found Seven Minute Mindfulness.
Seven Minute Mindfulness is designed to help quickly release stress and mental clutter, sleep better and make space for calm, clarity, and creativity.
The program includes 10 special mindfulness audio sessions, which combine guided mindfulness scripts, imagination prompts, and ultra-relaxation music.
Quickly activate the natural relaxation response, release tension, and encourage inner wellbeing and clarity. Perfect for me and anyone wanting to learn meditation in the comfort of their homes.