Modern Body Xperiment

Harnessing the Power of Meditation for Mental and Physical Harmony

• Dan and Jenni • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Embark on a journey of self-discovery with us, Dan and Jenni, as we delve into the world of meditation and uncover how it holds the key to a tranquil mind and a balanced life. Feel the stress melt away as we share our own transformative experiences, guiding you through the lush landscapes of mindfulness and the serene paths of guided imagery. Whether you're wrestling with anxiety or simply looking to enhance your mental clarity and creativity, our conversation is your gateway to a more harmonious existence. Discover a plethora of meditation styles, and find out the profound impact they can have on managing health conditions and elevating your daily focus and well-being.

This episode isn't just a deep breath of fresh insights; it's a practical toolkit for intertwining the art of meditation with the rhythm of everyday life. As we intertwine yoga's ancient wisdom with modern-day hustle, we reveal how even a casual stroll with your pet can become a meditative retreat. We cherish your presence and encourage you to shape our discussions by sharing what resonates with you. Our parting challenge is simple, yet profound: take a moment to be still, breathe deeply, and join us in embracing the power of relaxation. Until next time, keep the dialogue alive and let's navigate the tranquil waters of wellness together.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome back to the Wheel of Wellness podcast. I'm Dan and I'm Jenny. Hey, today we're going to go over something that's near and dear to my heart, something that's helped me a lot in the past. I'm going to go over meditation.

Speaker 2:

Yes, this is not so dear to my heart, but we are going to go over it.

Speaker 1:

I've done a lot of work with it. It's helped me a lot in dealing with my anxiety and different things that I've dealt with. Jenny hasn't had to delve into it as much as I have, but I really kind of enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

You have a little trouble with a running mind.

Speaker 1:

I talked to a good friend this week about meditation. I just thought this would be a good time to go ahead and get into it. Okay, so meditation has actually been practiced for thousands of years. It was originally meant to help deepen understanding of your life and the way that your life interacts with the environment around it. These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction, something that I use it for. It's also considered a type of mind and body complementary medicine. Meditation can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process may result in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

Speaker 2:

So, with that being said, the benefits of meditation they can give you a sense of calm, peace, balance. All those things are a benefit both for your emotional and well-being, as your overall health. You can also use it to relax and cope with stress by refocusing your attention on something calming. Meditation can help you learn to stay centered and keep in your peace.

Speaker 1:

And those benefits. They don't end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly throughout your entire day and your week. As a matter of fact, it may also help you manage symptoms of certain medical conditions. When you meditate, you can clear away the information overlaid that builds up every day that contributes to your stress.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so some of those things the emotional and physical benefits of the meditation can include things like gaining a new perspective on a stressful situation, which I could use that every now and then.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I mean it sometimes gets overwhelming, like I say, you get an information overload, but it also can help you build skills to manage your stress, which I need.

Speaker 2:

Increasing self-awareness is a huge one that it can help with.

Speaker 1:

It can also help reduce negative emotions.

Speaker 2:

It also can help you actually focus on the present and also increasing your imagination and creativity.

Speaker 1:

It increases your patience and tolerance and while you're doing it, it can lower your resting heart rate it can also lower your resting blood pressure, improving your sleep quality as well. Oh, definitely I know that helps me and some of the medication it interacts with illnesses that we might have.

Speaker 2:

Some of those illnesses I think you're going to go over, correct.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, research. You know there's a lot of research that's been done on this and the research shows that meditation may help people manage symptoms of conditions. It's going to help manage the symptoms and the way that you feel about the symptoms, and some of those conditions can be anxiety, it can be asthma, it can be something as overwhelming, as well as cancer, chronic pain depression, even heart disease or high blood pressure Also.

Speaker 2:

this is good for me IBS.

Speaker 1:

Irritable bowel.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sleep problems, and then even tension, headaches.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because these things, like I said, it can help you manage the symptoms. I mean, it's not necessarily going to help you. The meditation isn't a tool to cure cancer, but it's going to help you deal with cancer in the way you interact with it. So when you're doing that, you want to be sure to talk to your healthcare provider about the pros and cons of using meditation If you have any of these conditions or any of these health problems.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, meditation isn't a replacement for traditional medical treatment, but it may be useful in addition to your treatment to help you mentally deal with whatever health condition you're currently going through.

Speaker 1:

Definitely, there's a lot of different types of meditations. Meditation is really an umbrella term for many different ways to achieve a relaxed state of being. There are many different types of meditations and relaxation techniques that have meditation components. All share the same goal of achieving inner peace.

Speaker 2:

And ways to meditate can include several different things, like a guided meditation Sometimes I've done this with you, you know, at night we're trying to go to sleep guided meditations before, which actually have been somewhat helpful. I have a little more success with those, so sometimes they're called like a guided imagery or visualization. With this method of meditation, you can actually mentally see the images of places or situations you find relaxing. You try to use it as many, as many senses as possible, such as smells or sights, sounds and textures. You may be led through this process by a guide or a teacher. There's apps for this as well.

Speaker 1:

There's another type of meditation called mantra meditation. In mantra meditation, you silently repeat a calming word, thought or phrase to prevent distracting thoughts. I've done this before and it's in a sense you're going through the meditation of the breathing. Sometimes it's a box breathing four seconds, breathing in, holding your breath, four seconds, breathing out. Any time that you get an intrusive thought you can say calm, You're doing this and you're like this is so stupid. You say calm to yourself that doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2:

I need the medication, not the meditation.

Speaker 1:

in that sense, yeah, intrusive thoughts, there you go.

Speaker 2:

The other one is the mindful meditation. This type of meditation is based on being mindful or having an increased awareness and acceptance of living in the present moment. In mindfulness meditation, you broaden your conscious awareness. You can focus on what you experienced during the meditation, such as the flow of your breath. That's where I have trouble. I feel like I can't catch my breath when I do these things. You can observe your thoughts and your emotions, but let them pass without the judgment.

Speaker 1:

Being present and just being with yourself. You're engaging with who you are at that moment. It's a really good thing. Qi gong this is a practice that combines meditation, relaxation and physical movements, also with something that you find challenging breathing exercises to restore and maintain balance.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when I have to think about breathing, it makes it harder for me to breathe.

Speaker 1:

That's part of traditional Chinese medicine.

Speaker 2:

By the way, that is spelled Q-I-G-O-N-G but pronounced Qi gong, if you want to look that up. The next one is Tai Chi. This is a form of gentle Chinese martial arts training. In Tai Chi you perform a self-paced series of postures or movements, kind of like a yoga in a sense. The graceful manner while practicing deep breathing is supposed to be helpful in meditation with this.

Speaker 1:

It's about habits. I mean doing the same movement, not necessarily through each of the Tai Chi patterns. You know the pattern that you're going to be going through and you go ahead and match up the movement with your breath. It's very interesting. With that being said, you brought it up. It was awesome. Yoga. In yoga, you perform a series of postures and controlled breathing exercises to promote a more flexible body and a calm mind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you ever like sat and try to stretch and like to get close to the floor. You got to let your breath out, right? That's kind of the same concept.

Speaker 1:

And you know one thing with yoga is you know, as you go through the poses, certain poses require a lot of balance and concentration. So, with your doing your balance and your concentration and making sure that you're not falling over, you're going to forget about that busy day you have and you're going to really be focusing on that moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I'm definitely going to fall over. So that brings us to the elements of meditation. So different types of meditation may include different features to help you meditate. So what I mean by that is you may. They may vary depending on who's guidance you follow or who's teaching in class. So some of the some of the most common features in meditation include you have focused attention.

Speaker 1:

Your focusing your attention is generally the most important. It's one of the most important elements of meditation. Focusing your attention what helps free your mind from the many distractions that cause the stress and worry. You can focus your attention on such things as a specific object, an image, a mantra, or even your breathing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so relaxed breathing brings us into that right. This technique involves deep, even paced, breathing, using the diaphragm muscle to expand your lungs, and right now I'm out of breath even thinking about it. The purpose of it is to slow your breathing, take in more oxygen and reduce the use of your shoulder, neck and upper chest muscles while breathing, so that you can breathe more efficiently.

Speaker 1:

One thing when people I've always seen it throughout my life in sports or even in stressful situations people say, take a deep breath and people will lift up their chest and whereas that kind of helps your diaphragm, your diaphragm breathing, is going to be expanding your stomach to where you go ahead and expand your chest cavity. So that's the relaxed breathing. It really helps you bring a focus on your breathing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this next one is more for me.

Speaker 1:

A quiet setting. If you're a beginner, practicing meditation may be easier if you're in a quiet spot with a few distractions. That means like no television, radio or cell phones. As you get more skilled at meditation, you may be able to do it anywhere, especially in a high stress situation where you most benefit from the meditation, such as a traffic jam, a stressful work meeting or a long, long line at the grocery store.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of where I set my focus on. In the summers, if I'm really stressed out, I love to sit on the back porch and just sit there in the sun and just relax.

Speaker 1:

That's a type of meditation.

Speaker 2:

And that's the only type of meditation I can really get into. And then driving sometimes turn the radio off because sometimes you're tired of hearing all the noise. You just drive and it's quiet. Sometimes it's work, Sometimes it doesn't, depending on your traffic.

Speaker 1:

You hear the old beeping when you start to stray from your way. Now you're talking about being on the back porch. That would be like you would actually get in a comfortable position. That's another element of meditation. You can practice meditation when you're sitting, laying down, walking or in other positions or activities, just like you're driving. You just try and be comfortable so that you can get the most out of your meditation. You aim to keep a good posture during that meditation as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and have an open attitude. This is what I really struggle with. Dan is not my favorite thing, obviously, dan is very successful with that, but not so much myself, because my mind just never turns off. But for an open attitude, just let your thoughts pass through your mind without judgment.

Speaker 1:

The judgment is the hard part that people have. They tend to label the meditation and they think that they are doing something stupid or wrong and it's all just a practice. So there's everyday ways and it's interesting you bring that up at this point in time because there's everyday ways to practice meditation. You don't let the thought of meditating the right way add to your stress. That's what I do Exactly. If you want to, you can go ahead and attend special meditation centers or groups led by trained instructors, but you can also practice meditation easily on your own. There's plenty of apps to do it. You can make meditation as formal or as informal as you like, robert, suit your lifestyle and situation. Some people build meditation in their daily routine for a long time. I did that, for example. They may start, and in each day, with an hour of meditation. It's a little bit much, but if you can get five, 10 minutes in there, just starting to build on, it's going to be really good, because all you really need is a few minutes of quality time for them meditation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and sometimes what I do is I will take our German Shepherd Elsa on a walk and just know no headphones and no phone, no distraction, just her and I taking a walk and just getting out. And sometimes that's relaxing to me.

Speaker 1:

This is something that we're going to circle back on. It's always. You know, some of the ways you can practice meditation is breathing deeply. It's good for beginners because breathing is a natural function. If you don't breathe, you're going to pass out and then you're going to come back to and you're going to breathe again. But you focus your attention on your breathing. Some people have issues with it, but you concentrate on feeling and listening as you inhale and exhale. Breathe deeply and slowly.

Speaker 2:

I can breathe just fine. I just don't want to think about it when I'm doing it.

Speaker 1:

And when your attention wanders, you gently return your focus to your breathing.

Speaker 2:

So with that, you want to scan your body, right? So, when using this technique, focus attention on different parts of your body, become aware of your body's various sensations, whether that's a pain or tension, warmth or relaxation. I struggle with that too, yeah.

Speaker 1:

When you combine body scanning with breathing exercise and imagine breathing heat or relaxation in and out of different parts of your body. There was one time when I was doing some meditations that they the guided meditation was. You would imagine, like stress and anxiety, being a gold color in your body and when you would breathe then you'd be breathing in green and when you would breathe out, that would be getting rid of the gold or the yellow colored that you had in your body. So you're replacing the yellow with a green and by the end of it you'd work up from your feet to your calves, to your knees, to your thighs, to your stomach and you just work through your whole body.

Speaker 2:

So that's they say green is a relaxing color.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, green is wholesome. Green is an awesome color. It's a good thing. It's my favorite color. So, and circling back on what you talk about with walking, with the German Shepherd walking and meditating- yeah, combining a walk with meditation is an efficient and healthy way to relax.

Speaker 2:

You can use this technique anywhere you're walking, such as in a forest or a city or sidewalk, or even the mall I don't know about the mall so much for me, but being outdoors really helps when you use this method. Slow down your walking pace so that you can focus on each movement of your legs or feet and don't focus on particular destinations. Concentrate on your legs and feet, repeating action words in your mind, such as lifting or moving, and placing as you lift each foot. Move your leg forward and place your foot on the ground. Focus on sight, sounds and smells around you, and not so much the daily grind.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of like the one meditation I was talking about, where when you would be doing the meditation and some intrusive thought would come, you'd say calm, right, and so it's kind of like the same thing. You would go ahead and make sure you insert something that's being presently done that would be able to help you with that. One of my favorite, absolute favorite ways to meditate is engaging in prayer. Prayer is the best known and probably the most widely practiced example of meditation. Prayers are found in most faith traditions, especially mine. You pray using your own words. You know you can go ahead and use different quotes of scriptures that you might know, different verses of the books of the Bible, and you can go ahead and pray those things and when you're actually engaging in that, you're engaging with God and you're engaging in a spiritual way that you're going ahead and finding peace within yourself, because God is the great giver of peace for me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's so true and we actually pray a couple times a day and it does help. It helps you kind of get refocused. Read and reflect. Many people report that they benefit from reading poems or sacred texts or taking a few moments to quietly reflect on their meaning. You can also listen to sacred music, spoken words or any music you find relaxing and inspiring. You may want to write your reflections in a journal or discuss them with a friend or spiritual leader. We recently had massages done and that was quite relaxing. In the massage room they had spiritual music playing, but it was just instrumental and that really relaxed me more than the lighting or anything else.

Speaker 1:

It was the entire experience, and that's kind of like what they're talking about with meditation. It's the entire encompassing thing that you're doing that's able to give you the peace, that's able to give you the reset, that's able to calm your spirit and, obviously, when you're listening to worship music, like you were, that connects you with God and that is the ultimate peace right there.

Speaker 2:

Again also made my brain work a little bit, because I'm like oh, I know this tune. What is this tune?

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So there goes my brain. That doesn't shut off.

Speaker 1:

You know, in meditation you can focus your love and kindness, with that being the focus of it. You think of others with feelings of love, compassion and kindness, and this can increase how connected you feel to the others and to the other people in your life. That's one of the things that I do with my wife, jennifer. You know, when I'm meditating I'm thinking about a safe place or place to give me comfort and warmth. Generally, jenny is there.

Speaker 2:

Likewise when I can ever get to my mind to cooperate.

Speaker 1:

So that is just a brief overview on meditations and our experiences with meditations and our lack of experience with meditation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and again, I think these are all great things to do and I'm just not very experienced in it and I struggle with it and I'm sure some people will and do, but I do think it's important it is.

Speaker 1:

It gives you peace, it's a way to experience, it's a way to grow. If you guys are interested in it, reach out. You can email us on our website, which is wwwWELVESTpodcastcom.

Speaker 2:

We're at wellnesspodcastcom. Usually you're much better at that than me.

Speaker 1:

I know usually not tonight, but I can go ahead and help you with that and direct you if you're interested in that. If you're not, you can reach out on your own and find some meditation apps on the Apple Play Store, the Google Store, whatever that is. So, guys, we appreciate your time. As always, it's very valuable. We appreciate you guys being here with us. Please go ahead, and this is one of the things that we really thought about doing, because we have a conversation with a good friend. So if you guys have anything you want us to cover or you have any interest in anything, please let us know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and just if anything, just go and find a quiet place to relax.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's a challenge for the day. Action of the day Find a quiet place to relax, concentrate on your breathing.

Speaker 2:

Just relax Okay.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, we appreciate it. We're looking forward to talking to you soon.