Coping with COVID-19
There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now. But one thing is certain — Headspace is here for you. To help support you through this time of crisis, they are offering some meditations you can listen to anytime at https://www.headspace.com/covid-19
Meditation has many mental and physical health benefits such as stress relief, lower blood pressure, and boosts in immune system. Just five minutes of meditation during social distancing can offset stress.
Basic Steps for Beginning Meditation
- Once you're in a comfortable, quiet place, begin to relax your body. You can close your eyes or leave them open or half-open.
- Start to pay attention to your breathing. Notice the air moving in through your nose and out through your mouth. Don't over-breathe. Allow your breath to move naturally as you observe it.
- Breathe in and out as you connect with each inhalation and exhalation, noticing how it feels as you begin the inhalation, how it feels as you are between the inhalation and the exhalation and the sensations of your breath on the exhalation.
- Follow your breath through to a full cycle from the beginning of an inhalation, where your lungs are full, back to where they're empty.
- Notice the rise and fall of your belly; the air moving in and out of your nostrils.
- As thoughts and feelings arise in the form of judgments—wondering if you're doing this right, thinking about what you have to do later or questioning if it's worth your time to be doing this—simply observe the thoughts without added judgment and let them go.
- Once you realize your thoughts have hijacked your attention, don't struggle with them. Gently bring your attention back and focus on your breath.
- Every time you notice your attention leaving your breath, bring your awareness back to concentrating on your breathing.
- If your mind gets caught in a chain of thought (and it probably will because this is part of meditation, training your mind to be present), gently step out of the thought stream and come back to the sensations of your breath. Each time it wanders off, continue patiently bringing it back again.
- If you're aware of body discomfort, hunger pains, sensations of hot or cold or an itch, just breathe and watch them without doing anything about them. There's nowhere else to be, nothing else to do but notice your breath for five minutes.
- Sit back and observe your mental clutter: stresses at work, frustrations with family or friends, negative feelings you have about yourself. Recognize all those thoughts and slowly breathe them out through your nostrils one by one. As you exhale, free your mind of emotions and become a blank slate.
- As silly as it may initially sound, sit completely still – back straight, head and neck aligned with your back – and imagine that you're a piece of wood or a stone. Are you in a forest? By a creek? What do you hear and see around you? By "becoming" an inanimate object, you can quickly clear your mind and relax even just for 5 or 10 minutes. (Just don't fall asleep – it's easy to doze off during this one!)
- After five minutes, gently open your eyes and bring your attention back into the room. Take in the colors, sounds and textures around you. Stretch and breathe normally, noticing how much more vivid and acute your mind is and how much more calm, cool and connected you feel to yourself and the present moment.
- Once your head is clear and you start to feel at peace, imagine your mind is a wide open sky and all your thoughts are clouds moving across it. (Alternatively, you can think of your mind as an ocean and your thoughts as waves on a beach.) Rather than engage with any of those negative emotions, simply acknowledge that they're there and watch them drift away like clouds or waves.