I Tried a Week of Meditation... Here's how My Life Improved

Listen, I'm not sure how you feel about meditation. Some people love it, some people would never try it. Personally, I always felt like it would be awesome if I could actually make myself do it, but I could never commit to it.

I've heard all the benefits, but from what I thought, meditation was just boring and I couldn't force myself to sit and be bored for 20 minutes. I didn't think it was for me.

Mental Wellness is something I know I need to focus on more in my day-to-day life, so I thought meditation was a great place to start.

So, this week I challenged myself to commit to a week of meditation. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it and noticed some benefits...

Why I Chose to try Meditation for my Wellbeing

Meditation has been known to reduce stress and promote inner peace. This week was a particularly stressful week for me, for reasons I won't bore you with. But, I knew this would be a great time to see if I really could make a difference in the way I feel through meditation.

At times where I have a lot going on in my life, I tend to have a hard time shutting my brain off. I get overwhelmed and I'm unable to focus on one thing at a time. My brain feels like a jumbled mess, so the thinking about everything actually makes me able to do nothing. I shut down.

I knew that meditation is a powerful way to stay mindful and to relax your brain. My thoughts often feel uncontrollable when I'm stressed, so I wanted to try and fix that.

How I Meditated

Meditation can seem intimidating- at least it was for me. There's so many meditation techniques I didn't know which to start with. But, meditation is actually quite easy.

The best thing about meditation is that you don't need anything except your body. This means you can do it any where at any time. After you get used to what goes along with meditation, you can guide yourself through the thoughts and intentions you need.

However, I decided to start off with a guided meditation. I pulled up a guided meditation on Youtube (there's thousands to choose from), and I completed it. If you're going to give it a try, I suggest starting the first few days with a 5 or 10 minute guided meditation, and working your way up to 20 or 30 minutes!

Meditation is supposed to be easy- so don't overcomplicate it. But, there are many different types of methods, and it's easy to find your favorite. I tried a few different kinds and I found that I love mantra meditation.

How Meditating Every Day Benefited Me

Remember how I said I can't control my mind when I have so much going on? Well, my goal was to be able to change that... and it worked.

At first, it was hard to commit to setting aside time to basically just think, with no distractions. That seems like my worst fear when I can't turn my mind off. But, after the first few times I noticed how relaxed I felt afterwards. It was almost addicting.

Through meditation, I was able to focus on being in the moment and not thinking about the millions of things I had to do this week. I tried to do these meditations when I was feeling overwhelmed, so it could calm me down, and that's just what it did.

The best thing I took away from this experience was the new habit I added into my before-bed routine. On busy weeks, I have a much harder time falling asleep because my thoughts run at a million miles per minute. But, I started doing my meditations at night, and it was crazy how much my thoughts slowed down. I was able to fall asleep so much quicker.

Another big take-away for me was that I really enjoy mantra-meditation. With mantra-meditation, you pick a phrase that means something to you, like "I am calm", or "I'm going to succeed", and focus your intentions on that phrase. You can really make it your own, but for me, it helped me feel more in tune with my reason for meditating in the first place.

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I can't say that meditation will for sure be a permanent daily thing for me now, but I do know that I will be using it as a tool for when I just need a break from my spiraling thoughts.

If you want to get into meditation, I highly recommend to just try different techniques and find one that makes you feel excited to do it! Meditation is so personal, you can definitely find one that you love. Try it out!