Fun fact: there are 10,080 minutes in a week. Last week I spent about 1,440 of those minutes sleeping and about 8,610 minutes being stressed out and filled with anxiety like any other college student. However, for 30 minutes last week, I felt relaxed, in control of my thoughts and as peaceful as I could ever feel.
For those who may not know, meditation is the practice of focusing your mind on a single point of reference while trying to achieve peace and mindfulness. It can involve a person putting a lot on concentration on their breathing, body and mind.
Last week, I tried meditation for the first time by attending a free meditation session at Blossom Yoga here in Laramie. I was doing research on meditation for another article I was writing, and wanted to experience the practice first hand. When it came to actually doing meditation I thought I may end up feeling like Ron Swanson, but thankfully, I was wrong.
The instructor was named Miguel Chen, who has been practicing meditation for years and is also the owner of Blossom Yoga. He was first introduced to it by his mother when he was a child. Chen himself had a very peaceful presence.
His studio had a very peaceful presence as well. It was large room that was mostly empty, but with tall stacks of meditation pillows and yoga equipment against the wall. I grab a pillow and sat on it. He told us to sit in any position that was most comfortable, which surprised me because I thought you had to do that specific position you see in movies. (See Patrick below.)
We began our meditation and Chen emphasized on focusing on our breathing; interestingly enough, we did our meditation in silence instead of hearing music like I had always thought. Admittedly for the first couple minutes of this 30 minute session, I was a little jittery and uneasy.
However, within about five minutes, I felt as if I was going into a deep meditation. Any annoying or stressful thought that entered my mind I felt I had control over and I wouldn’t let these thoughts stay in my head long as I could get rid of them almost the second they entered. It was a strange feeling and although I was feeling peaceful, I also felt powerful.
At many points I felt like I could feel,well, everything. I felt like I could feel all the movement in my body, the air around me, the presence of others. It was really cool and kind of freaky- a good kind of freaky though.
After the 30 minutes went by, my body felt like it was waking up for a second time that day. This time though, it was like waking up and feeling energized and ready for anything, not like waking up and wanting to go back to sleep like I had felt just hours prior.
I interviewed Chen afterwards and learned more about the benefits of meditation. Chen told me that there are many sources showing that meditation can really help a person with issues such as anxiety and depression. On a more physical note, Chen also told me that there are studies that show meditation can improve circulation throughout the body.
I left Chen’s studio that day with a new perspective on the practice of meditation. It is an activity that I would encourage anyone to try who may be going through some anxiety, stress, depression or whoever is just a little bit curious about how it works. I know after trying it I want to keep practicing this activity and hopefully one day I can be as cool as Aang is when he meditates.