CONWAY Ellen Schwindt will be offering a Music as Meditation event on Sunday, May 7, at 5 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church on the corner of Pine and Main Streets in North Conway.

Schwindt is holding the idea of emergence in her mind as she practices for meditation this time. She will play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," an adagio by Haydn, some new violin music and some improvisations from her recently performed double concerto. Come expecting resonance and who knows what will emerge.

Schwindt began Music as Meditation as a way for her to share her newest music with listeners and to share a meditative spirit with attenders. The series has blossomed into an opportunity for community musicians to share music with each other. Free admission.

Music as Meditation takes place on first Sundays of each month.

Call (603) 447-2898 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.

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Ellen Schwindt to offer Music as Meditation May 7 - Conway Daily Sun

Hosts: Dr. Gregory Jenkins & Alicia Dukov

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On this episode of My Doc & Dukov, Alicia and Gregory reflect on meditation and gaining serenity from your core outward.

chakra (in Indian thought) each of the centers of spiritual power in the human body, usually considered to be seven in number.

Literally our core is like a USB cable that were plugging in to the source. Alicia Dukov

How do you strengthen the centers in your brain to lower stress?

You wanna work both sides of the brain with things you havent done before. Dr. Jenkins

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Dr Gregory Jenkins has continued to provide the Santa Clarita Valley with his high level of medical service, working as medical staff leader at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital and currently sits on the Medical Staff Executive Board and is dedicated to improving the care and quality of Santa Clarita hospitals.

Dr Jenkins believes that all doctors should work to help raise the standards and quality of their local hospitals and he makes sure to be an example of this and started his own private practice 26 years ago where Dr. Jenkins is able to continue to work to provide Santa Clarita residents with high level health care that is always improving and growing in scope and scale.

Gregory Jenkins MD has been recognized by voters in local publication as one of the best in Family Practice, Best Internal Medicine and Best Urgent Care. As a founding partner of his previous practice in 1988, Dr. Jenkins philosophy and commitment to concerned, excellent medical careconveniently available everyday and supported by staff who have served patients with superior customer service for 24 years.

Alicia Dukov is a Doctoral student of Clinical Psychology. As a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern on the brink of licensure, Alicia has spent her past 5 years of clinical internship experience predominantly treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She is currently formulating her doctoral dissertation on her clinical case studies and the use of Left-Right Brain treatment interventions to address the growing need amidst this population for new, innovative techniques.

Alicia is also the founder of letitluce.com, a growing online community dedicated to empowering men and women of all generations to let loose the light of their authentic selves and gain awareness of self love. With the intention to bring people home inside, the movement offers meditations, tutorials and articles sparking awareness on the human journey toward wholeness and the great potential that lay inherent within us all.

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Hosts: Dr. Gregory Jenkins & Alicia Dukov - KHTS Radio

At some point last year, I started to feel like I was losing my mind. It wasn't something I could pinpoint, exactly; no one event that had pushed me beyond my capacity to rationally think or feel. I just became gradually, incrementally aware that everything was more difficult; that sometimes, I felt as if I could barely function at all.

I knew I wasn't the only one to feel this way. For many Americans, 2016 represented the disintegration of the foundational narratives, ideologies, and institutions that had formed many of our ideas of who we (and the country) were. Each week brought news of police shootings, financial scandals, state surveillance breaches, and international terrorist attacks. Each month broke its previous temperature record, signaling the impacts of climate change as fracking and domestic fossil fuel production increased. And after sixteen surreal months of steadily escalating, mind-warping coverage of the presidential election, the ticket had been narrowed down to two rich white people, both of whom were embroiled in endless controversies, and both of whom had thoroughly demonstrated their dedication to money above human beings or the planet.

Read more: Inside a BDSM Dungeon with a Hillary Dom and a Guilty, Diaper-Clad Trump Voter

Reading the news made me feel awful, though I noticed that I had developed a compulsive addiction to checking content streams; I would find myself scrolling through social media feeds with little to no recollection of how long I had been there. And while it was clear that the internet was only feeding my feelings of fear and despair, there seemed to be a startling lack of other places to go. The subject of politics had swollen to encompass everything about the contemporary human experience and was absolutely inescapable across virtually all forms of media. As The Atlantic put it: "Donald Trump so permeates the collective consciousness of the country that it is hard to imagine now living in a world without him."

What was the world like before? I felt like I could barely remember. In this world, it seemed clear that emotional distress was a near-universal condition. How did we end up here? I felt there was something inside myself that was no longer accessible; a way of being, maybe, or the simple ability to sit calmly for a few minutes, feeling intuitively that the world would last.

On the night of November 8th, watching the election results come inthe electoral map reddening, the PBS news correspondents in a kind of psychedelic disbelief alongside memy mind finally lost its footing. I signed up for a ten-day silent meditation course the next day, hoping that a severance from the world, however brief, would bring me a little clarity.

I arrived at the Dhamma Manda meditation center in Kelseyville, California two months later, with little idea of what to expect and only a vague idea of what meditation even was. While I intuitively felt it had something to do with clearing the mind, I had no understanding of the techniques involved and an enormous amount of skepticism that my mind could be cleared at all, or ever again. In the time since the election, the country's (my) panic and outrage had only intensified; if my mind felt frayed before, the 24-hour news cycle had since obliterated it.

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is a traditional meditation technique from India offered entirely by donation at Dhamma centers throughout the world. As our course facilitators explained that evening, we would train ourselves to literally see things as they are, not as we wished they were, which would allow us to cultivate acceptance and compassion. (This sounded particularly handy, as many of my thoughts at that point seemed to rotate around the idea of how the world should be.) We were to commit to complete silence, abstinence, and sobriety for ten days, learning to focus our attention only on the subtle sensations of the body and allow our deeper thoughts and feelings to resurface naturally.

I glanced around at the other women seated around me, listening attentively from their folding chairs. We would not speak to each other, or even make eye contact, for a week and a half. We would not read, write, or use a phone or computer. By the time we reentered the world, we would have a new commander-in-chief. We were all there, ostensibly, to experience something that we could not otherwise experience without leaving our jobs, lives, and families for over a week. I scanned their faces, wondering if they felt as fucked up as I did.

The daily Vipassana schedule is rigorous, and we were to follow it as strictly as possible. The morning bell rang at 4 AM and meditation commenced shortly thereafter. Meals were served at the same time, twice a day, with little variation on the menu. For dinner: tea and fruit, only. There were a couple hours allotted to resting, and a little path up in the hills behind the bunk houses where we could take walks during breaks. The rest of the day, nearly ten hours of it, was reserved for sitting in silence.

The course techniques are based on the teachings of S.N. Goenka, who passed away in 2013. We received instruction from video recordings of him each night. These discourses covered many topics, ranging from addiction and anger to relationships and non-attachment. It became clear that, above all, the main task set before us was to look squarely at the state of our reality without judgment or reaction. Observation without reaction, Goenka explained, was the real key to discovering lasting happiness and peace.

Almost immediately, however, I learned that reactions are the predominant feature of the contemporary mind. Each day, hundreds of times per day, we are presented with opportunities to have them. If we encounter something positive, we react with craving and desire; we want more of it. If we encounter something negative, we react with anger, hostility, or aversion. Either way, we develop an unhealthy relationship with something that we have no control over; if we do not receive more of the positive, or if we are forced to encounter the negative, we become miserable.

I also realized that the ways in which we interact and share information with each other only increases these opportunities for reaction. In fact, as we scroll through our content feeds, we are prompted to react: to like, share, ignore, report or reply. We register hundreds (thousands?) of emotional reactions each day, many of which go largely unprocessed. Imagine the range of micro-emotions you experience from a single social media session. In Vipassana meditation, they teach that these unprocessed reactions are stored in the subconscious mind and body, and as they accumulate it can become more and more difficult to understand how we really feel beneath it all.

During the first few days, I found I couldn't focus on my own breathing for more than a few seconds without encountering some of these unprocessed reactions. I relived my anxiety over the election, saw fragments of other people's racist or sexist Twitter arguments, and replayed troubling news segments in my head. I discovered that the name "Donald Trump" was seared into my brain. I saw it even when I closed my eyes, the way the outline of the sun will remain behind your lids even after you stop looking at it.

"Such a wild mind!" conceded the VHS likeness of Goenka one night, to my great relief. While this validated my experience, I felt my mind was too wildthat it had been electrocuted out of a positive thought-cycle by news headlines and streams of content that profited from my emotional exhaustion. Though I had initially sought out meditation to connect more deeply with myself, I felt like others were taking up the bulk of my mental space with their feelings, photos, opinions, and judgments. I feared that my own thoughts were buried forever beneath a sea of unprocessed digital content, one that would prevent me from ever achieving mental clarity again.

A week in, though, I began to get the hang of the technique. My mind became stronger and more able to focus, and I watched these stored images and traumas recede from my mind. Slowly and incrementally, I learned to clear away the debris and connect more deeply with my own thoughts and feelings. It was the most difficult work I've ever done; I encountered a lot of unprocessed emotion and faced some hard truths about who, where, and how I was. But as I went deeper, I felt much of my physical pain and anxiety disappear, I slept better, and for the first time in months I felt the stirrings of positivity: optimism, energy, creativity, hope. Most of all, I felt compassion for myself, and for everyone struggling to exist in this strange time, and beneath all that messaging.

Even before attending a Vipassana course, I'd been concerned about the effect that media was having on my ability to control my emotions and focus my thoughts. It's been shown that too much screen time leads to gray matter atrophythe literal shrinking of areas of the brain that handle emotional control and cognitive processingand at a time when many journalism outlets rely on sensational headlines to stay relevant, seeking out information on the internet can be an emotionally exhausting affair. I found that meditation can not only rebuild the parts of the brain that are deteriorated by screen addiction, it can also provide the necessary space to process many of the media images that would otherwise be stuck in our subconscious, blocking access to our own intuition and creativity.

While many Americans are deeply affected by troubling news reports, social media arguments, and clickbait journalism, the stress and anxiety of these messages continue to affect women, people of color, and the LGBT community disproportionately. Even if we're not directly impacted by the violence that takes place every day, reports of (and comments about) ICE raids, sexual assault, racially-motivated police shootings, and travel bans can all trigger past emotional traumas and cause members of these communities to fear for their safety.

Read more: Higher Learning: There's a Yoga Class Where You Can Smoke Weed

Amy Keo, a first-generation Cambodian-American living in Portland, Oregon, started a bi-weekly meditation group called Radical Meditation for People of Color to provide a space for marginalized people to work through their feelings. She told me that at their first gathering over a year ago, she received a hugely positive response. Over thirty people from various communities, backgrounds, and orientations came together to meditate. "We all started crying at the immediate sight of one another," she recalled. "For many people, just the sight of there being thirty people of color in one room was so powerful."

Keo's aim is to reclaim the many conversations surrounding identity, trauma, and healing around communities of color. A different facilitator directs the meditation each week; sometimes the group talks, other times they sit in silence. Keo acknowledges that it can be difficult work. The process of re-engaging with stored trauma through meditation can trigger a lot of intense emotion. Still, she sees and feels the positive benefits working within the group. "A lot of folks of color are ready to start doing their healing work," she said. "It takes too much of a toll to live in a society that dehumanizes them and threatens their bodies."

Black Women for Wellness, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to providing healing resources for black women and girls, is also incorporating meditation into their community empowerment sessions. For many black women, Iyatunde Folayan, a representative from Black Women for Wellness, told me, even acknowledging the need for help can be a difficult cultural hurdle to overcome. "We see ourselves as very strong, and the system also sees us as having this ability to endure," she said. "Many times, we are not even recognizing that it is okay to ask for help, and that help is sometimes needed, as opposed to just trudging through." Folayan says that meditation has been a key component to their sessions, allowing participants the space and time to sit with their thoughts and see what comes up. Often, she says, just being part of a supportive community is enough.

The day before I spoke with Iyatunde, two clips were circulating around the internet. One was of Bill O'Reilly mocking Democratic Representative Maxine Waters' "James Brown wig." The other was of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's blatant dismissal of April Ryan, one of the few black female journalists in the press briefing room. "We are seeing played out on television what many black women experience in their daily life," Folayan said. "And this is at the highest level."

The meditation work that Black Women for Wellness does, in part, tries to undo much of the damage caused by these images of racism, sexism, and violence that regularly circulate through the media. Folayan describes how she has seen women come together to support each other, to receive help without judgment, and to learn how to stay healthy at a time when their identities are often under attack. "We have always had to fight and we will continue to do that," she said, "but it's vital that we learn how to renew and restore ourselves."

Before experiencing Vipassana for myself, I didn't really understand what meditation could do. I had no idea how much I needed help, and how impossible it might have been for me to receive it had I not attended.

I also got the opportunity to sit with and meet powerful women, to suffer in solidarity with them, and to come out on the other side of our own hard work laughing. That, to me, is resilience. After we had left the center and resumed our normal lives, one of my fellow meditators, Isabela, wrote to me about how grounded and energized she felt. After struggling with an eating disorder and body image issues for years, spending conscious time with herself had strengthened her sense of self-love. "Considering the current political climate," she wrote, "we have to treat each other and ourselves well."

Right now, it's especially easy to become overwhelmed, depressed, exhausted and cynical. There are infinite, valid reasons to feel this way. Meditation does not teach you to ignore the realities of our world; it teaches you to acknowledge and empathize with these realities, as a means of moving forward truthfully. Establishing positive patterns for consuming information, processing emotion, and healing your own body can be an act of resistance in itself.

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What Happened When I Tried Meditation to Get Trump Out of My Head - Broadly

Free of Burden

Theres little debate in the science regarding the benefits of meditation. According to research published in theJournal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,meditation has beenlinked to reduced feelings of depression, anxiety, and physical pain. Other studies have explored connections betweenmeditation and

Other studies have explored connections betweenmeditation andimproved focus, lowered blood pressure, strengthened memory, reduced fatigue, andwell, the list goes on and on.

But theres a problem. At its core, meditation sounds like the easiest thing in the world: Clear your mindand think about nothing at all. However, meditatingcan be far more difficult than simply breathing in and out for a few minutes. Reaching a meditative state actually takes a lot of work, and truly clearing your mind is far from easy.

However, scientists assert that using proprioceptive input (also know asdeep touch pressure (DTP))to ground your body is helpful when attempting to reach a meditative state. Research has shown that this kind of pressure results in a reduction in cortisol levels and an increase in serotonin production, decreasing yourheart rate and blood pressure.

Thus, the relaxed physical state that comes from peroprioceptive input can make it easier to achieve a calm mental state thats conducive to meditation, and one of the most effective ways to get this proprioceptive input isby using a weighted blanket.

Thegravity blanket is filled withpoly pellets in an evenly distributed grid pattern that is engineered to be roughly 10 percent of yourbody weight. This added weight allows the gravity blanket to applyspecifically targeted pressure to various points throughout your body in order to reduce the aforementioned cortisol levels and increase your serotonin production.

As Amber Martin, an occupational therapistfrom Utica College, notes, peroprioceptive input is good for pretty much everyone and anyone. It can be very calming and organizing. By helping youreach a state of peaceful relaxation more quickly, Gravity Blanket makes it easier for you totake advantage of every valuable moment of meditation before you have to return to the busy world outside your mind.

Though researchers estimate that it has beenaround for more than 5,000 years, meditation has recently found itself the subject of intense scientific focus. Scientists have used all the tools in their arsenal, from fMRIsto EEGs, to uncover the science behind this practice and determine how productive it really is in relation to the human body.

Theyve reached some interesting conclusions about the positive benefits that it provides. As Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, notes, meditation literally transforms your brain: We found differences in brain volume after eight weeks in five different regionsin the group that learned meditation, we found thickening in four regions. Studies by other scientists have shown that meditation can help enhance attention and emotion regulation skills. Gravity Blanket can help you get there, and significantly help your mind and body as a result. You can learn more about the science behind proprioceptive input, and select a blanket, here.

Futurism has partnered with Gravity Products LLC to bring you this exclusive product.

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No, Meditation Isn't Overrated. Here's How You Can Use it To Change Your Brain. - Futurism

Some corners of corporate America have long had a culture that wears its long and grueling hours like a badge of honor.

Now a group of executives is trying to change that by opening up about how they each found balance in their own lives and by making wellness a priority at their companies.

Ive found in a culture like Wall Street, people are obsessed with how many hours people work, said Barry Sommers, CEO of Wealth Management at J.P. Morgan Chase, during Fortune 's second annual Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego on Tuesday. Way too many people are getting out of there as fast as they can because theyre totally burnt out.

Click here to subscribe to Brainstorm Health Daily, our brand new newsletter about health innovations.

Sommers decided to take his health into his own hands a decade ago after someone hed known personally and professionally for 30 years started doing transcendental meditation. It transformed this persons life, he said. I saw a different person.

Sommers now has being doing transcendental meditation 20 minutes two times a day for a decade. And he prioritizes sleep, getting seven and half to eight hours every night. I changed my schedule and lifestyle, he said. When I do a dinner, well be at the restaurant at 5pm, not at 8pm. He said his kids make fun of it, but he wakes up every morning incredibly happy. If theres a problem at the office, his employees know to call the house and his wife will wake him up. But rarely is there anything so important that it cant wait until the morning, he said.

This goes completely against mainstream assumption that J.P. Morgan is the boiler room of burnout, said Arianna Huffington, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, who moderated the panel.

Over at Levi Strauss, CEO and president Chip Bergh has focused on pushing exercise for his employees. I always saw a connection between what I was doing for my own health and fitness and performance, said Bergh, who has run triathlons and marathons.

Levi Strauss was in turnaround mode when Bergh joined after 28 years at P&G . It was his belief that the whole human drives performance so he implemented a program that focuses on every aspect of employee life. The company subsidizes gym memberships for its employees who work at headquarters, and now has about half of them signed up. Its one of the things that's helping to contribute to us driving healthcare costs down, Bergh said. He tries to model good behavior by making it clear when he leaves the office at lunch to work out.

Deborah DiSanzo, general manager of IBM Watson Health, sets boundaries for herself and hopes her team follows suit. I try to make a habit of not emailing on the weekend, she said, adding that its parts of the companys goal to create a culture of health.

DiSanzo's health and work like collided five months after she took on her role at IBM when she received a cancer diagnosis. She struggled to get a consistent storyline from multiple doctorsthey all gave her different information about the size of the tumor and the type of surgery and treatment she should have. She turned to Watson, who had been trained by the oncologists at Memorial Sloan Kettering, entered her data, and followed its recommendation. Shes now in remission.

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Sleep and Meditation Key to Top Performance, Execs Say | Fortune ... - Fortune

New York Daily News

Just 10 minutes of meditation can help anxiety New York Daily News Daily, mindful meditation can prevent your mind from wandering and is especially effective against repetitive, anxious thoughts, a new study says. The research, conducted by the University of Waterloo, showed that an advanced awareness of the present ... Study Finds Meditation Improves Attention in Anxious IndividualsVoice of America Just 10 minutes of meditation does wonders for your brainDaily Mail Brief Meditation Practice Can Relieve AnxietyPsychCentral.com Mental Floss -9Honey -International Business Times all 17 news articles »

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Just 10 minutes of meditation can help anxiety - New York Daily News

Another unarmed black person this time a 15-year-old in Texas was killed this weekend by a police officer. When incidents like this occur, they can lead black Americans to feel a frustrating mix of despair, anger and hopelessness.

Dr. Candice Crowell, a professor at the University of Kentucky, was intent on creating a way for black Americans to cope with these devastating news stories. She created theBlack Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Trauma to help them attend to their spiritual health.

The 17-minute guided meditation was released in August 2016, less than a month after the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, which Crowell said increased her interest in creating the audio. The meditation contains positive affirmations that were inspired by feelings of unworthiness Crowell picked up on from those around her.

I based [the affirmations] on messages I had heard directly or indirectly from clients, students, friends, colleagues and personal [feelings] that try to undercut black humanity, she told HuffPost via email Monday. The meditation provides the counter message to those.

She said the audio has been used at colleges like UCLA, Emory University,University of North Carolina at Charlotte and University of Iowa, as well as in several private practices.

Crowell said meditation has been an integral component of her well-being: Meditation has helped me sleep well, express more gratitude, practice patience and concentrate.

Where her work in the field of psychology is concerned, BLMs teachings have played a critical role, and she made sure to credit the movements three co-founders.

The BLM movement has been a healing, affirming balm and a catalyst for me, as a researcher, professor and healer, she said. I incorporate activism into all of these roles because I remain inspired by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullorsand Opal Tometis work, as well as the many leaders in this movement. Their courage is empowering and world-changing.

Crowells next meditation audio will be dedicated to helping white allies practice greater sensitivity toward black Americans.

Often, white people do not create the space to center non-white experiences as worthy of love, life, health and happiness, she said. This would inform their continued growth as allies, while also offering a psychological and physiological benefit to them.

You can listen to Crowells Black Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Traumahere.

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This BLM Meditation Can Help People Cope With The Tiring Cycle Of Oppression - Huffington Post

Black men make up only6% of the United States population, yet 35% of unarmed people killed by police in 2016 were, you've guessed it, black men.

The numbers continue to rise and the latest victim to be killed by a police officer was 15-year-oldJordan Edwards in Texas last Saturday. So far this year, he is the youngest to be killed by police.

At the rate at which we are inundated with incidents of police brutality in the news, its fair to say, and research has also proven, that there is a heightened sense of fear and anxiety in the black community that stems from post-traumatic stress syndrome brought on by the trauma of police violence.

While the black community has a lower risk for many anxiety disorders, they have a9.1% prevalence rate for PTSD compared to 6.8% in Whites.

Dr. Candice Crowell, a professor at the University of Kentucky and a counseling psychologist, believes its imperative that black people tend to their mental health during these troubling times.

So she createdBlack Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Trauma, a 17-minute guided meditation audio to help listeners calm their anxiety and find peace.

(Image: Kirsty Latoya/Instagram)

The mediation also emphasizes positive affirmations to refute the worthless narrative being played out. In an interview with theHuffington Post, Crowell reveals how her meditation was inspired by the work of Black Lives Matter.

"The BLM movement has been a healing, affirming balm and a catalyst for me, as a researcher, professor and healer."

On her website, she expounds on the positive effects of meditation in confronting oppression."

"Racial trauma exacts a psychological and physiological toll on people of color, and those involved in the Movement for Black Lives are especially vulnerable to hourly personal, emotional, and physical racist attacks.

Guided meditation is one way to assist in calming a heightened state of distress, affirming ones value and humanity, and recentering with love for Black people."

Crowell will also turn her attention to helping white allies of the movement with her new meditation. Take a listen to Black Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Trauma below or head over to iTunes and download the "How to Love a Human" podcast.

Read More-> Solange Pens An Open Letter On What It's Like To Be Black In 'Predominantly White Spaces'

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There's A Black Lives Matter Meditation Podcast To Help You With Racial Trauma - Konbini US

Jean Chen Smith, Correspondent 12:03 a.m. ET May 2, 2017

Create a safe and inviting space.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In recent years, the benefits of meditation have been acknowledged not only by spiritual leaders, but also by scientists and researchers alike.

The Dalai Lama says meditation can change your life and celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to pro athletes praise the positive effects of meditating. Meditation has been in existence for more than 2,500 years as way to connect with your inner self and the world around you.

A study done last year by UCLA found long-term meditators displayed better-preserved brains than non-meditators as they aged.

There are over 23 types of meditation styles, so just where does this leave the average person looking to begin meditating in Monmouth County? The good news is that the offerings for meditation are rich in the county alone, there are many different mediation resources.

RELATED: START RIGHT NOW ON PATH TO GOOD HEALTH

Recently, I connected with Jared Martinsen, who teaches meditation at his house every Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

Jareds experience with meditation began 18 years ago in Corvallis, Oregon. He attended a guided meditation and emerged from it with an unforgettable experience, which led him to continue his practice.

Find a private space free from distractions to begin your meditation practice.(Photo: Getty Images)

The first time I went there, I had an experience where I saw a white haze in the room at the end of the meditation. I thought, what is this?

I thought I had something in my eye, but it didnt go away when I rubbed them, he said. I was agnostic and didnt really want to believe in anything strange, but I felt so loving and peaceful that I had to come back and try some more. Over the years, meditation completely changed my life from being extremely shy and having a hard time relating to people to having more friends and dating.

FEEL BETTER: DON'T SUFFER THROUGH ALLERGY SEASON

If you are brand new to meditating, Jared suggests meditating with a group of people or a class.

You might need to find people that you connect with, so try a couple of groups, he said. Have a daily practice, even if its just five minutes a day at a set time. Just a habit like brushing your teeth.

Create a safe and inviting space with items that calm you.(Photo: courtesy of Jean Chen Smith)

Meditation is not about not having thoughts. Its about being aware of yourself having thoughts, he said. Meditation is about becoming more aware and training the mind. Focus the mind on something more interesting than thoughts.

MORE: GET IN SHAPEWITH CROSSFIT

Meditation for beginners

Create a quiet and safe space. Make sure there will be no distractions from family and/or pets. Sit down on a pillow or cushion, relax and

rest your hands on your lap. You can sit on the floor cross-legged or on any chair with your feet resting on the ground. It is not necessary to force yourself into a lotus position if you are not used to it. However, it is important to sit upright and find good posture.

Close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and deeply. Begin by taking a few slow and deep breaths inhaling with your nose and exhaling gently from your mouth. Dont force your breathing-begin to breathe slowly and deeply.

Kids are fueled by imagination, and yoga can help them grow. Video by Kelly-Jane Cotter

Become aware of your breathing. Become aware of each breath that you take in through your nose and be mindful of each breath that you exhale with your mouth.

If you find your mind straying away from your breaths, gently bring it back. Dont beat yourself up if your mind wanders - whats important is to realize and bring your attention back to where it should be. As you develop meditate more, you will find it easier to concentrate.

Meditation does not need to be long - when you are ready to end the session, open your eyes gently and breathe several long deep breaths before slowly standing up.

Jean Chen Smith is a freelance writer, social media consultant and Pilates studio owner in Corvallis, Oregon. Jean, a marathon runner, is passionate about health, fitness and fashion, which is the reason she started her lifestyle website, http://www.projectcloud9.com and Pilates studio http://www.studiocloud9pilates.com. Email her at info@projectcloud9.com or follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

MEDITATION CLASSES

Find a private space free from distractions to begin your meditation practice.(Photo: Jean Chen Smith)

CREATING A MEDIATION SPACE

Privacy: Find a space that is safe and secure away from the rest of the family. Preferably it is a room in which the door can be closed to prevent disruptions. This is your time.

Space: Make the space pleasant by placing a comfortable cushion for sitting on or bringing in a chair to sit on. Place items nearby which relax and calm you such as plants and or spiritual items, if applicable.

Music: Some people like the relaxing sound of music in the background such as a stream or nature sounds. It is up to you whether you prefer silence or some meditation music. There are many CDs available for the purpose of meditation.

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Meditation for beginners - Asbury Park Press

In our day-to-day work with people who stutter here at the American Institute for Stuttering, we often introduce our clients to various aspects of mindfulness. We describe mindfulness as a calm awareness of what is happening now, internally and externally, without judgment. The application of mindfulness in stuttering therapy has broad implications, but can range froma simple focus of noticing more about a difficult situation, to a daily practice of greater mindfulness. A personmight, for example, apply mindfulness throughout the day in order to become more aware of where they carry tension and/or pay attention to how their automatic thoughts fire.

Based on the experiences reported by our clients, and our own personal experiences exploring mindfulness, we know that it is a skill that requires practice. Sometimes it just seems toodifficult to get out of the emotional haze of the stuttering moment. For many of our clients, this struggle with mindfulness leads them totry meditation. Specific to the social experience of stuttering, meditation can be useful in flexing the mindfulness muscle in preparation for difficult stuttering moments.

If youre hoping to become more mindful, and considering meditation, here are a few basic considerations:

Below is a list of resources for guided meditation that we often recommend to our clients. They are not specifically designed for people who stutter, but are a very helpful way to start practicing mindfulness.

For many of our clients, this is a good starting point for trying out meditation for the first time, especially when they are looking for something free. In this guided meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn, you are first asked to lie down and then you are guided through a detailed, 30-minute, body scan. Caution, he encourages you to try to stay awake. If you do this one before bedtime, that might be hard to accomplish.

We love his Energy Awareness Meditations album but hes also got a website with a free 20-minute guided meditation, and several podcasts.

Calm: Meditation to Relax, Focus & Sleep Better (iTunes Google Play)

Calm has a bit of free content and large library of meditations with a paid monthly membership. We like the ability to select the background sound/imagery (e.g., babbling brook, fireplace, rainforest, beach sunset, etc.). It also offers a good introduction to daily meditation with a 7-day program.

Buddhify Modern Mindfulness for Busy Lives (iTunes Google Play)

This app currently costs $5. It is designed to provide targeted guided meditations for various life activities. It asks you what you are doing, and offers a handful of shorter (~2 min) and longer meditations (7-10 min) for each.

The Mindfulness App: Meditation for Everyone (iTunes Google Play)

A good, easy to navigate meditation app offering both free and paid premium content. Its useful for advanced meditation, but great for beginners as well.

Sitting Still (iTunes Google Play)

This app is targeted specifically for teens. It is made by the folks who make the Mindfulness App. Similarly, It offers a mix of free and paid guided meditations.

Headspace (iTunes Google Play)

Headspace offersboth free content and an optional monthly membership. We love the buddy system option, if youre interested in trying this out with a friend. This app has a very current, modern look. It might be a bit cartoonish for some, but we like it. The also have an article on their site discussing meditation and stuttering.

Omvana Meditation for Everyone (iTunes Google Play)

This app offers a lot of customization (background, length) for each meditation and a variety of meditation experts, in case you want to experiment listening to different voices.

Insight Timer Meditation App (iTunes Google Play)

The most noticeable feature of this app is the sheer amount of free content, and we lovehow the app brings a sense of community to the experience.

Looking for more information on mindfulness and meditation and the application to stuttering? Check out Dr. Ellen-Marie Silvermans book, Mindfulness & Stuttering, or an ISAD Article she wrote. StutterTalk has published a few episodes on this topic as well one with Dr. Michael Boyle and another with Dr. Paul Brocklehurst.

Like a meditation resource that isnt listed here? Share it in the comments below!

The American Institute for Stutteringisa leading non-profit organization whose primary mission is to provide universally affordable, state-of-the-art speech therapy to people of all ages who stutter, guidance to their families, and much-needed clinical training to speech professionals wishing to gain expertise in stuttering. Offices are located in New York, NY and Atlanta, GA, and services are also available Online. Our mission extends to advancing public and scholarly understanding of this often misunderstood disorder.

Read more from the original source:

Meditation resources to help in your stuttering journey - American Institute for Stuttering (blog)