Meditation in Singapore – Top 3 Benefits of Meditation

By Vikas Malkani

14th September 2016

Meditation shows you how you function, how you create your life experience and even how to choose what you want your life to be. In other words, meditation is the fastest path to understanding the mind and taking charge of your life!

The benefits of meditation are many. It works on the physical body and also goes deeper to the emotional and mental levels of the practitioner. Those who continue to learn and grow with meditation find emotional and spiritual benefits too.

Learning the ‘Meditation Made Simple’ class at SoulCentre is easy, and the meditation techniques can be practised anywhere to see quick benefits.

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Even a few minutes a day of meditation practice brings about very important benefits. Here are the top 3 from my perspective –

1)  Meditation reduces stress and improves health problems - Up to 70% of health problems are psychosomatic, that is, they have a mental origin, so it is easy to understand how control over our thoughts that meditation brings can help many of these disorders.

Meditation releases stress, which then causes our muscles to relax, including the muscular walls of our blood vessels. This means more blood can pump through the vessels and there is less resistance to the overall flow. This means less blood pressure.

In contrast, high blood pressure is recognised as a major factor in producing heart diseases and heart attacks.

2)  Meditation develops a whole-brain perspective - Studies show meditation has a balancing and harmonising effect on the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

Our left hemisphere is responsible for our logical thinking. The right side is responsible for feelings. Due to fast-paced modern life, many of us tend to operate more from the left hemisphere. We think too much and analyse too much, at the expense of our feelings.

Meditation allows us to have the right balance of logical analytical thought and emotional feelings, thus helping develop a ‘whole brain’ mind-set.

3)  Meditation creates happiness, compassion and gratitude - One method of meditation is mindfulness, which is all about living in the moment, rather than focusing on past regrets or future worries. Naturally, this creates feelings of relaxation, gratitude, joy and happiness. One becomes more patient and compassionate with the practice of meditation. 

Relaxed blood vessels allow increased blood flow to all body parts. Increased blood flow to the brain means we feel fresher and can think more clearly.

Meditation also reduces the production of the body’s stress hormones. Studies show that hormone levels in those who practice meditation regularly are similar to those in people up to ten years younger. This is one of the reasons why meditators look and feel younger.

With regular meditation, we tend to fall asleep quicker and our sleep is deeper. This means we get a better quality sleep and wake up feeling fresher and more alive. We also feel more energetic and calmer throughout the day.

Vikas Malkani is an internationally renowned teacher of meditation classes, and the best-selling author of The ‘Little Manual of Meditation’.

For attending a meditation class with Vikas Malkani, connect to us at : info@soulcentre.org

Inner Stress Relief – How to manage your Stress? By Vikas Malkani

The word 'stress' originates from the French word 'estrece' meaning 'narrowness' and is used to depict a limiting or constriction of your power and abilities. You have the feeling of being emotionally and mentally stressed out when you think you have too much to handle.

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Anything viewed negatively has the potential of causing stress in your life regardless of what the thing may be. However, what makes one person stress-full may be quite an ordinary event for another. The secret to releasing stress is to realize that stress therefore is created not by the event or circumstance itself but by the way we respond to what happens to us in any moment of our life. We are the creators of stress and it we alone can provide the solution to it.

In essence, stress is the result of the way you think. And if you develop the ability to change the way you think, you will have in your hands the power to eradicate the stress that you feel.

Here are 3 easy ways to manage the inner stress you may encounter ;

1. Act, then Detach

Trying to control every moment and outcome of your life causes more stress and disharmony than any other process.

Take the action the present moment requires, and once the action is done, stop clinging to the results. After your best is done, step back and wait for the results to arrive, then respond to them.

It’s the constant clinging and worry about the results that is the primary creator of stress.

Do your best, then Let-go, and become stress-free.

2. Meditate

You always have two choices in every situation – either curse the darkness, or light a candle. Meditation helps you to train your mind to choose the more positive attitude, always, regardless of the situation.

Negative thinking produces stress and thinking positively releases it. Remember that stress arises out of the way you think, and since meditation is the skill of training your mind, meditation is also one of the most effective antidotes to stress.

Find a good teacher, and learn to meditate. And whatever the situation, keep your mind focused on the positive outcome you want to achieve, rather than the negative outcome you want to avoid!

3. Chunk it down!

Do things one at a time. Don’t be too concerned about how much there is to do, or how overwhelming some of the tasks seem. Just get one thing done at a time, again and again. Keep your mind focused on the one action you can take now, and do what’s in your power. One step at a time you can climb the highest mountain, and one step at a time you can accomplish the greatest task.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So chunk it down and you will accomplish more with greater ease.

SoulCentre is Asia’s Premier Centre for Meditation, Mindfulness & Stress-Management.

For details of our training programs, connect to www.soulcentre.org

How to manage post holiday stress?

The holiday are over and it's time to get back to the daily routine, which for many of us does not fill us with glee.

Do you have that feeling that life has to be more than simply working to pay the bills?

Is your inner voice shouting out all the things in your daily life that you do not enjoy, all the mundane and boring tasks that have to be done?

It is chattering non-stop and robbing your happiness and peace?

As you go about your daily activities are you constantly thinking of the fun times you had on holiday – of the freedom of walking on the beach – of the relaxed evenings with no e-mails / phones or agendas, waking up with nothing to do apart from have fun….

If you can relate to the above then the chances are you are starting to feel stressed inside, and it's time to take action to stop this before it becomes real.

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A few tips from our resident stress experts at SoulCentre:

• Accept reality - Understand that whatever is happening in your life at this moment is a choice you made – so do not fight with it – simply accept it, this way you will be able to manage the situation in a more calm manner.
• Do not focus on the past - The holiday is over; it was fun at that moment in tIme, however it is now in the past. If you live this moment wanting what has passed, then you will become unhappy in this moment. Once you realise this then you simply focus on this moment with awareness and see the positives in this moment.
• Count your blessings and focus on what is good at this moment in your life - You were able to take a holiday and to travel to a lovely place; this is truly a blessing that many cannot afford.
• Plan in “me time” – simply get out your diary and block in at least 2 hours a week as “me time”. During this time do whatever you desire as a treat to yourself.
• STOP – look at the thoughts in your mind - Are they positive and serving your happiness? If not then change them; no one wants to be unhappy, so choose positive thoughts that serve you. For example you can think about planning a future break, you can think about the faces of those you love, about nature, about your favourite food… Whatever it is simply switch and focus on what makes you feel happy.

At SoulCentre we keep you stable in the storms of life.

We teach techniques and provide tools that support you in life.

We tell you stories that stay with you forever and ones where simply by hearing them you understand the lessons of life.

Life is a gift – Celebrate it!