Fortunately, the mind can be used as a tool to create a feeling of relaxation in the physical body. In turn, relaxing your body frees you to use your mind more efficiently to affect positive changes in your life.

Sometimes it is helpful to check in with your physical self and take note of how you are feeling. You may not even realize certain areas are tense until you bring your attention there. This technique is designed to help you pinpoint areas of tension and release the stress from those areas until your whole body feels deeply relaxed.

The Sand Bag Technique

Find a comfortable resting position in a place where you are not likely to be disturbed. Feel free to lie on the bed or floor, or to sit upright or recline in a chair.

After reading the rest of these instructions, you should practice this technique with your eyes closed for better results.

Slowly inhale through the nose, and exhale just as slowly.

Bring your attention to your physical body. How are you feeling? Is your body calm? Do you notice any areas of tension? Acknowledge these areas and begin.

Imagine your entire body as a heavy bag of sand. Now, visualize each part of your body is its own individual sand bag, tied tightly to keep it closed. The muscles in your feet are sandbags, and so are your calves, your thighs, and each area of your body.

Bring your attention to your left foot. Feel the heaviness of the sand in that sandbag that is your foot. It is so heavy you almost couldn’t lift it even if you wanted to.

Now, watch the sandbag untie itself. Watch as the sand slowly spills out until the bag is empty. Feel the weight of your foot change as the sand pours out of it slowly and smoothly. Feel every muscle in your foot relax and become weightless.

When all the sand has emptied out and your foot is completely relaxed, notice the difference in feeling between your left foot and your right foot. Notice how the left foot feels light and airy while the right foot feels heavy and weighed down.

Sense the difference between that lightness of your left foot and the heaviness of the rest of your body.

Bring your attention up to the calf of your left leg and repeat this visualization. Watch the sandbag of your left calf untie itself and allow the sand to gently flow out of it until it is completely empty.

Repeat this process for each section of your body. Don’t leave anything out. The more muscles you visualize releasing the sand from in this way, the more relaxed your physical body will become.

By the time you finish practicing this technique, you’ll feel peaceful and relaxed in both body and mind.

This technique takes very little time, can be done while lying in bed before falling asleep, and will work for just about everyone.

The Daily Rewind Technique

A Daily Rewind is a swift and painless way to clear all the clutter out of your mind in preparation for sleep and dreaming. The technique simply involves a quick mental replay of the events of your day. You can do this in one of three ways:

1. Start at the beginning of your day and mentally replay the events of the day until you reach the end.

2. Start at the end of your day and mentally replay the events backward until you reach the beginning of your day. You don’t have to imagine everything moving backwards as if you’re rewinding a video. Just start with the last event before bedtime and review it, then proceed to the event prior to that one and review it, and so forth.

3. Write about the events of the day in a journal.

As you mentally replay the day’s events, you don’t need to recall every little detail or replay every action or every conversation in a minute-by-minute recount of the day. Replay each event calmly and objectively and then move on to the next event. The entire process should take only a few minutes.

Also keep in mind the point is not to get caught up in regret about how the day went but instead to simply acknowledge each event that occurred throughout the day and release it. Don’t get stuck replaying a situation over and over in your mind and thinking of all the things you could have done differently. As you replay your day, let go of any mental attachment, anxiety, or concern about the events. The goal is to perform a quick review of your day so you don’t spend the night tossing and turning, dwelling on the “should haves” and “could haves”. If you clear out the mental debris now, you’ll sleep deeply and peacefully.

Use this time to relax your body as well. As you mentally replay the day, check your body for any tension associated with the memory of the events. Consciously release the tension and relax.

This technique may also be used while listening to the Insight CD or MP3 for deeply refreshing sleep.

1. Get into a comfortable position. You can do this technique while lying in bed or on the floor or while reclined in a comfortable chair, wherever you are most comfortable.

2. Close your eyes.

3. As you lie there, visualize your body, wherever it is that you are at this moment. See yourself lying there on the bed or sitting in your chair.

4. Imagine your entire body is filled with darkness. Picture your body as a vessel filled with black smoke, clogged and muddy.

Try to be as detailed as possible with this visualization. In your mind, take a good look at your body and really see the darkness fill up your entire body. See it filling up your head and neck, your core, your limbs, down to your toes and out to the tips of your fingers. Everything is dark and murky.

5. Bring your awareness to your breath. Inhale deeply through your nose in the slowest, calmest manner possible. As you inhale, imagine you are inhaling perfectly clean, pure, white light. Inhale and visualize the white light as it begins to fill your body.

Again, be as detailed as possible during the process of visualization, and take your time. Your first breath — depending on how long or slow it is — might be enough to bring that white light to just a portion of your head, maybe even to just one of your ears. This is perfectly okay. You’ll get much better results if you take it slowly and don’t rush through the technique.

6. As you exhale in the same calm and relaxed way, imagine the dark smoke within your body being released — forced out — through the long, slow breath. Visualize the smoke leaving every finger, traveling up your arm, through your neck and out of your mouth with your exhalation.

7. Continue inhaling the clean white light and exhaling the dark black smoke that was filling your body, until every bit of your body is beaming with the white light and there is no longer any darkness remaining.

The more vividly you can imagine this happening, the more profound an effect it will have on your sense of well-being and your peaceful state of mind.

If you focus on breathing steadily with long, slow inhalations and even longer, slower exhalations, there is a good chance you will fall asleep before you’ve finished the visualization. As your breathing slows, your heart rate slows along with it. It is perfectly natural, and you will likely have a very restful and rejuvenating night’s sleep because of it.

Unfortunately, many people never realize meditation doesn’t have to be quite so complicated. They give up because sitting in the lotus position is too uncomfortable or because they can’t stop the constant stream of thoughts going through their mind or for any number of other very legitimate reasons. They miss out on all the rewards of meditation — better sleep, reduced stress, improved health, deeper self-awareness, and a whole host of other benefits.

That’s why we’ve decided to begin a new series of articles devoted to everyday meditation. We’ll offer simple techniques you can incorporate into your day with very little effort, along with suggestions for how to turn daily tasks into a form of meditation.

I’m going to begin with one of my favorites, a technique so easy little children do it all the time. I can almost guarantee you’ve done it at least once in your lifetime, and most of you probably have done it hundreds of times.

It’s called coloring.

Yes, you read that correctly. Coloring. Before you laugh and dismiss the idea, stick around long enough to learn how coloring can be turned into a meditative activity.

You don’t need to be an artist to make this technique work. In fact, you don’t need any artistic skill whatsoever. All you need is a few minutes and a willingness to stop worrying about whether or not your doodle turns out to be a masterpiece. Remember when you were very young and drew stick figures and rainbows and crooked houses and didn’t care what other people thought? Embrace that feeling for a moment and release any inhibitions.

What you’ll need:
1. A table or desk or other flat surface to work on.
2. Crayons or markers.
3. A coloring book, or plain paper, or lined paper, or colored paper, or whatever else works best for you.

How to Turn Coloring Into a Meditative Experience

Sit comfortably and take a few deep breaths. Pay attention to your body, especially around the neck and shoulders, and release any tension in the muscles. Give yourself a moment to relax.

Once you’re settled, pick up a crayon or marker and start coloring. Move slowly and rhythmically. I recommend drawing or coloring circles and spirals first to get your hand moving in a circular motion because it can become rather hypnotic.

Don’t worry about staying within the lines, or about whether or not blue and orange look good next to each other, or about any other trivial details. Enjoy the process and don’t attach yourself to the end result.

Let your mind wander freely. Continue to move slowly. Simply relax, take your time, and fill the space with color.

Do this for ten or fifteen minutes.

Voila! You’ve meditated.

If you want to take this technique a step further, you can use coloring books filled with designs that are especially suited for meditative coloring. If you’re interested, here are some suggestions:

1. Roger Burrows Images: The Ultimate Coloring Experience
2. Power Mandalas Coloring Book by Klaus Holitzka
3. Coloring Mandalas 2 by Susanne Fincher

If you want to take this technique yet another step further, you can make your own designs and color those instead. The images you see throughout this article are designs I made using a Spirograph and then colored later. I find the process of creating the designs very meditative, and coloring them is equally meditative once you learn to let go and not worry about how the end result looks. The technique sometimes produces designs that resemble a mandala, while at other times the designs look more like something out of a physics textbook. Either way, it’s a fun and very relaxing practice.

If you’d like to color some spirograph designs, you can download a few of them we made specifically for this article. Right-click here and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” to download a zipped file containing three spirographs you can print and color in with crayons or markers. (The file is approximately 208 KB.)

Stay tuned for more articles in our Everyday Meditation series.

Meditation doesn’t have to be complicated, doesn’t require you to subscribe to any particular spiritual belief, and doesn’t necessitate sitting cross-legged on the floor and chanting mantras. It can be as simple as sitting in a quiet room and focusing on your breath, or counting your steps while walking around your neighborhood. You can also turn everyday activities like washing the dishes or vacuuming the carpet into a meditation.

There are many different forms of meditation, making it easy for everyone to find a style that best suits their lifestyle. At the end of this article, we’ll provide a few simple meditation techniques, including one method that will allow you to meditate deeply without even trying.

But first, let’s talk about the top five reasons you should try meditation.

1. Your health will improve

No matter what your age, meditation is one of the easiest ways to improve your health. Research at the Medical College of Georgia found that meditation lowered blood pressure and reduced the risk of heart disease and stroke. Additional studies have demonstrated meditation can reduce chronic pain, decrease levels of stress and pain in cancer patients, and reduce symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia.

Other studies have indicated meditation may reduce the levels of cortisol, a hormone that in high levels can weaken the immune system and slow down healing. Results from a small study conducted in 1998 with patients suffering from psoriasis lesions indicated meditation can speed up the body’s natural healing process. Some studies have even suggested meditation can help in the prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.

2. You’ll sleep better and dream more vividly

Less than half an hour of meditation per day can quickly translate to deeper, more refreshing sleep. Many meditators report sleeping fewer hours yet waking up feeling much more energized.

The sleep benefits of meditation may also help sufferers of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Research has already shown a deficiency of slow-wave sleep is present in most CFS patients. Deep meditation that promotes heightened Theta and Delta activity in the brain can help to compensate for the lost time in the Delta state during sleep.

Regular meditation can also enhance your dream life. The frequency of vivid dreams increases, and most meditators report enhanced dream recall. If you practice lucid dreaming, meditation may give you the edge you need to achieve your first lucid dream.

3. You’ll feel less stressed

Stress reduction is by far the most popular use for meditation. There are countless studies demonstrating the stress-reducing effects in healthy individuals as well as in patients suffering from a variety of illnesses.

Meditation is no longer just for adults either. Researchers at Stanford University and UCLA are exploring the use of meditation and mindfulness techniques with children to reduce stress and anger, and a study conducted by Kaiser Permanente found that meditation also improved mood disorders and depression in teenagers.

In addition to the physical benefits it provides, a daily meditation practice can help you relax not just while you’re meditating but throughout the rest of the day as well. Most meditators also notice they become less reactionary and are more easily and calmly able to handle situations that previously would have caused them stress or tension. An increase in self-awareness that constantly grows in the background of your perception helps to bring a new sense of calm and well-being. This personal insight also allows you to identify negative patterns in your life and integrate a more positive and productive approach, which in turn eliminates many of the underlying causes of stress.

4. Your mental clarity will improve

Meditation has been linked to increases in concentration, heightened awareness and attention to detail, and improvements in your ability to maintain focus for longer periods of time.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have discovered meditation literally alters the structure of the brain, thickening the regions associated with attention and sensory processing. Other research into meditation and biofeedback techniques has demonstrated increases in the subjects’ ability to remain focused on specific tasks, reductions in reaction time, and improvements in psychomotor response.

A recent study at the University of Wisconsin suggests not only that attention can be improved through meditation training, but also that meditation can cause lasting changes in how people allocate their mental resources. The results of the study showed that neural resources were used more efficiently in subjects who practiced meditation.

5. You’ll boost your creativity

Meditation can trigger heightened Alpha and Theta activity in the brain, states of mind often associated with creativity. Some forms of meditation also promote synchronization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, another factor that has been identified in electroencephalograph (EEG) readings during moments of inspiration and during participation in creative activities. In a study conducted with 362 students in Taiwan to determine the effects of meditation on creativity, attention, IQ, and anxiety, the greatest improvement was observed in creativity.

Forms of meditation that involve visualization or guided imagery can be extremely useful in increasing creativity by providing the mind with a set of ready-made mental images to work with.

Two Simple Meditation Techniques

Now that you know why you should try meditation, here are two very quick and easy meditation techniques. The great thing about these techniques is that they can be done anywhere.

Belly Breathing
This technique is designed to relax the body by teaching you how to breathe as deeply as possible. Even a few short minutes of this techique can help you relax tremendously.

Counting the Breath
This technique involves giving each breath — both inhalation and exhalation — a specific count. It is terrific for focusing the mind and increasing relaxation.

How to Meditate Deeply Without Even Trying

If you’re experimenting with meditation for the first time, or if you’ve tried it but can’t seem to reach a deep state of meditation or relaxation, try using the Insight Program, which uses a unique audio technology that works with your brain to automatically guide you into a deeply relaxed, meditative state. The Insight Program is endorsed by many health practitioners and is already used by thousands of people around the world. Nearly all listeners report deep meditation, reduced stress, improved sleep, and a variety of other benefits.

This exercise also has the added benefit of stimulating activity in both hemispheres of the brain. By reversing your actions and by maintaining an awareness of each action as you perform it, you’ll trigger synchronized activity in the left and right hemispheres. Whole-brain synchronization is often seen in EEG readings of the brain activity of people who have practiced meditation for many years.

For one week, try performing all your everyday tasks in reverse. If you always put on your right shoe before your left, force yourself to stop and think, to become aware of what you are doing, and to put on the left shoe first instead. If you always step into your pants with the left leg first, try it in reverse instead. If you always take the milk out of the refrigerator before you get the cereal out of the cabinet, force yourself to stop and deliberately do it in the reverse order.

While you’re performing the actions in reverse, take note of any resistance. Does it feel odd to perform the action in the opposite way? Do your mind and body seem to rebel?

Keep up this reversed behavior throughout the day. Pay attention to the actions while you do them and consciously make an effort to do them in reverse. Obviously not every action may be done in reverse, but the simple act of forcing yourself to take note of what you are doing will improve your moment to moment awareness.

For the entire week, before you do anything, become aware of the action and become aware of how you perform it. It isn’t as easy as it sounds. We go through most of life on autopilot, performing everyday actions without paying much, if any, attention to what we’re doing. This exercise encourages awareness by training you to become aware of little things that usually go unnoticed.

Stay tuned for more tips and techniques for developing your awareness.

A large part of it is time management. We all have the same 24 hours to work with. It’s truly a matter of using every moment to its fullest. When you manage your time effectively, the unavoidable daily stressors become much easier to handle because you’ve removed so many of the smaller ones that can make the day so hectic.

Time management takes commitment and a bit of effort but there are many small and easy things you can do to get started. Each one may only add a few minutes to your day, but soon the minutes add up to hours, you find you have more time than you once thought you did, and everything seems to flow much more smoothly.

Add just one of these tips each week and you’ll quickly be on the road to less stress and a lot more time:

1. Plan ahead, but stay in the moment. It’s easy to become stressed just thinking about all the things we need to get done, but worrying about it only takes more time off the clock and gets us no further ahead of the game. Use tools to plan in advance, but try to be present in each moment when the time comes. Being focused on the task at hand will allow you to complete it more effectively and efficiently. The only way to get things done is to do them. Enjoy the doing. Make every moment count!

2. Get enough sleep. Sleep is vital to our health and well-being. Loss of sleep affects the body both physiologically and cognitively and can lead to compromised immune and endocrine systems, increased susceptibility to illnesses like diabetes and hypertension, and impaired alertness and motor performance.

Allotting yourself more time for a sufficient amount of sleep may seem counter-productive at first; however, when you function on a restful and complete night’s sleep, you will likely find the resulting increased mental clarity and ability to focus does indeed save you some time! A clear head can do wonders for time management.

If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, try our Insight CD or MP3 to help you sleep better and eliminate insomnia.

3. Learn to say “No.” If you over commit yourself, you will constantly feel stressed. Be realistic when setting goals and making plans. Delegate where you can.

4. Write everything down and keep it together. Keep a notebook, calendar, or daily planner with you at all times and use it. Avoid writing things you need to do on small slips of paper that you might lose or forget about. If everything is logged in one place, the information is right at your finger tips whenever you need it.

5. Take advantage of the evening. Before hitting the pillow at night, take a few minutes to pick what you are going to wear the following day and set it aside. If you exercise in the morning before work, do this with both your workout clothes and the clothes you’ll wear to work afterward. These are simple decisions but not having to make them in the morning is a great time-saver, especially if you are not a morning person.

If you drink coffee, invest in a coffeemaker with a timer and prep it the night before. It takes less than five minutes to do before you go to bed. You can wake up to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, roll out of bed, and pour yourself a cup!

6. Log it as you go. Affix a grocery list to the refrigerator or somewhere in the kitchen. Whenever you run out of something or find that you are missing something, write it down that very moment. When it’s time to go shopping you won’t find yourself sitting there with a blank sheet of paper thinking, “Now what was it we needed to get this week?” You’ll save yourself multiple trips to the store and also will eliminate the purchase of items you didn’t really need, reducing impulse purchases and putting less stress on your budget at the same time.

7. Double up on dinner. If you’re making dinner at home, make double the amount you need and save half in the fridge or freezer. You’ll have lunch or dinner for another day without having to cook or dirty the pans all over again.

8. Don’t handle your mail twice. It’s so easy to grab the mail out of the mailbox, flip through it for what’s vitally important, and then set the rest somewhere to deal with later. Then at the end of the week (or month) you have a big stack of junk mail to deal with and you have to find the time to sit down and go through it all.

Instead, take a few extra seconds and go through it right when you take it out of the mail box. Shred what needs to be shredded and file what needs to be filed right then and there so you won’t have to make time to sift through it all over again at a later date.

Before imploring the reader to participate in these ongoing experiments, which are monitored and documented on McTaggart’s website, she provides an enormous amount of detailed information regarding related research studies, involving everything from plant-life to humans. If you’ve ever wondered if there really is proof that our thoughts can affect our reality, this book is a great place to start.

At first, we felt her detailed account — what seemed to be a thorough explanation of every possible study having anything to do with thoughts or intent that was ever conducted — was somewhat excessive. It makes up quite a chunk of the book. However, after reading through to the end, it became understandable why McTaggart chose to document all of this information in one place prior to describing the nature of her current experiments. The huge amount of previously documented research lends credence to the theory that our thoughts and our intent can change things, which makes the fact that we can then participate in experiments ourselves to further such research that much more exciting.

McTaggart provides specific exercises in the book to help you become more grounded and focused, and thus more effective when using your thoughts and intent, both in your own life and in the experiments should you choose to participate in them. The exercises are practical and easy to understand and implement.

All in all, we were impressed by The Intention Experiment. We found it insightful and innovative, and would recommend it for anyone interested in the scientific side of our consciousness.

Book Details:
336 pages
Released: 2007
Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 0743276957

Seat yourself in a comfortable position, or lie down on the bed or floor. With relaxed concentration, focus on the idea that your entire body is performing the duty of your lungs, breathing air in and out. Inhale and exhale slowly.

As you inhale each breath, imagine you are breathing in the air through each and every pore in your skin. Imagine your entire body as a dry sponge, soaking in the energy of the air through your pores.

As you exhale, imagine you are pushing out all the impurities. As you inhale, imagine you are soaking in clean healthy energy.

Continue with this breathing technique for several minutes. The technique will be most effective if you focus on involving your entire body in the sensation of breathing.

We recommend that this technique be used in conjunction with the Insight CD or MP3 for relaxation, stress reduction, deep meditation, and many other benefits.