Meditation can fulfil very basic requirements of being a student. It dramatically increases concentration, focus strength, resilience, decipline and reduces stress & overwhelm while creating a background equanimity for distractions. These aspects are incredibally important for studying and everything else in life. Read on to find out how meditation helps with these. Also, read here to take a deep dive into the workings of meditation.
A Deep Look Into the Importance of Meditation for Students.
Let’s begin with the central question: why would meditation be something that interests you?
As you can imagine, being a student often involves stress, attention-diving issues, not to mention the incessant information overload. Luckily, the situation can be handled in several ways:
Concentration:
Struggling to get your head around studying? Meditation helps to condition and assist one’s brain in its ability to physically and consciously attempt.
Stress Relief:
Studies piling up, exams accelerating and the normal pace of life, something is usually bound to sustain stress. The method of reducing stress and calming the mind through meditation has been proven.
Sleep Improvement:
If it’s all that you’ve acquired do is roll over in bed worrying about your ‘Get before noon’ checklist, meditation is a veritable solution to get easy sleep.
Emotional Balance:
For example, those moments of euphoric high that follow you graduating makes you emotionally excited. Meanwhile, these extreme highs and lows of having as a student can be managed by practicing emotional intelligence.
And the best part? One doesn’t necessarily require hours to accrue the aforementioned benefits. Only a few minutes of meditative practice on a daily basis would result in visible improvement.
Decipline:
If you meditate daily, it becomes a habit. It’s actually a meta habit. When we have a habit, it bleeds into other parts of our daily life too. This one habit can make you deciplined for everything. You will feel like you have enough drive to complete the task you have started. It will not require as much effort as before.
The Science Behind Meditation: Why do People Meditate, What Changes Brain Activity During Meditation?
When you develope meditation practice, you enhance the working of the prefrontal cortex that helps you in concentrating, deciding, and controlling impulses. Simultaneously, it reduces the functioning of the amygdala, which cause fear and stress.
It has been found that meditation also increases the amount of neurons in the grey matter of the brain, improving such abilities as memory, learning and logical thinking, which are crucial skills for every student. Additionally, a meditation practice is said to reduce cortisol, which is a stress hormone and this means you can expect to be less anxious in some stressful situations such as examinations.
How to do meditation for students, how to do it effectively
There are many ways to meditate, however, I am providing a few which are specially helpful for students.
Mindfulness Meditation:
This one involves paying attention to the sensations, thoughts and emotions in your body and mind but try not to be distracted by them. Just notice or acknowledge. You can also label them mentally like “sound”, “thought” etc. Don’t get caught up in them. The purpose here is to train the mind for attention to whatever comes up, see, hear or feel it clearly and not get involved. These 3 abilities will soon work like magic for your studen life. Read more here about mindfulness meditation for students.
Concentration Meditation:
In this Type, you concentrate on only one thing for example breathing, a candle, or a sound. The activity exercises your mind to remain still which can be useful in improving concentration during studying hours. If you become distracted, bring your attention back to object of meditation. This is like traning in gym. Everytime you bring attention back, it’s a rep.
Body Scan Meditation:
This is where you image your body and systematically focus on regions whilst paying attention to any tightness and easing those areas. This is good especially to take away all stress levels after having been going on with numerous classes for a long day. It will also slow down the train of thoughts and almost finish overwhelm in the very first sit. Infact, I want you to notice your thoughts after completing the session.
Guided Meditation:
If you are a beginner and find it difficult to concentrate for long periods, there are still methods such as guided meditation. There are lots of applications and videos where a person will take you through the session.
Loving-Kindness Meditation:
This one relates to the self and also to the other, practicing self-love and empathy. It is useful in reducing social anxiety and developing a pleasant outlook. There are times when the stress makes us bitter. This technique will soften you up and will directly effect your mood and others arround you. You become like happiness transmitter.
Example Technique would be to sit with your eyes closed, think of a time when you felt love or joy. You will see mental images of that occasion or person. Now bring attention to body. See how your cheeks feel, how you lips feel, the chest and gradually, the whole body. When the feeling disappears, you can repeat it. This will also work very quickly and you will feel the effects after just one sit.
Meditation Fundamentals for Students
Despite its basic concept, a student may find it uneasy to cultivate the habit. No wrinkles on the forehead; it becomes simpler with practice. All you need to do is follow these guidelines and you will be able to meditate today:
Step 1: Find Your Reason
Before you sit down, think about the reasons why you are going to meditate. Is it for stress relief? Is it for sustained attention? Is it for a good night’s sleep? Knowing something concrete will help you remain committed to the goal.
Step 2: Create a Quiet Space
Locate a place which you know will be quiet and unobstructed for a few minutes. It may be personal space, a calm part of the library and even outdoors in a park area. The aim is to reduce interference.
Step 3: Choose a Specific Time
Meditation gives results rather only when practiced regularly. You may also wish to settle into a habit of practicing meditation at the same hour all the time. You could initiate your day with meditating as it helps in easing your mind in the morning or at bedtime just before sleeping. Even 5 minutes a day is a good start.
Step 4: Make Yourself as Relaxed as Possible during the Meditation
You may sit on a chair or on the floor but ensure that you are sitting comfortably. Your back should always be straight and your hands can be resting in your lap which is a more relaxed but alert position. It’s not compulsory to be in cross-legged position although you can if it comes naturally to you. Use a cushion to make your back straight without much effort.
Step 5: Breathing
Close your eyes and draw your attention to your breath. Breathe in slowly and deeply through your nose, then breathe out through your mouth. Notice how the out breath produces a wave of relaxation through out your body. You should concentrate on in and out action when breathing. If your attention wanders, you should not worry about that. Whenever it does, don’t get irritated but return your attention to your breathing instead.
Step 6: Start Small
You are not expected to sit in silence for hours in a day and then get amazed at results. Take five minutes to meditate and with time, you will feel comfortable meditating for longer periods.
How to include Meditation in Your Study Pattern
When you now master the using of the tool, you will also want to incorporate it into activities in which you maximize on both your academics and wellness. This is done as follows:
Morning Meditation
At the start of your day, squeeze in a few minutes to meditate. This clears your mind and prepares you for the tasks at hand. A 5-minute session in the morning can help you get ready in this case, for your studies.
Pre-Study Meditation
There is a need to absolutely clear your mind of any stray thoughts and distractions before you begin the studying process. Just minutes away from the seat should involve meditation. You can use walking meditation as a tool before going into class or you can just bring all attention to feeling in your feet while you walk. It is very powerful to align your mind.
Study Break Meditation
If it is prolonged without breaks, the constant studying is very likely to result in exhaustion. Another problem is that you need a gap to really let the nural activity work to better remember what you just studied. A simple 2 minute mindfulness period can be engaged to enhance this capacity of the brain.
Meditation Before Sleep
Studying at the end of the day can prove to be a tiring task, and hence, falling asleep takes time. In this case, a short meditation just before bed can prove more effective. Concentrate on breathing deeply or make a scan of your body to relax in order to fall asleep.
Advanced Tips for the Successful Practice of Meditation:
Once there is a good structure, another level can be attained: Extend Your Sessions: Increase your meditation time to between 15 to 20 minutes to allow the deeper relaxation stage to be fully experienced.
Try New Techniques:
Use other forms of meditation as they may be useful for you. You will have to try a little bit of every technique to see what works best for you. Ask your self if it’s making you more calm, more focused and less distracted in everyday life.
Use Mobile Applications:
Use Headspace, Calm, etc. These have 100s of guided meditation techniques. Use them only if you can not bring yourself to do it on your own.
Join a Meditation Group:
Another powerful way to cultivate the habit of meditation is to join a group. This works like magic. It makes the process interesting and builds decipline.
There are some Obstacles:
Meditation can be difficult to cultivate in the begining. You can come across few obstacles. Below here are some issues that arise, particularly to students.
“There is a lack of time.”
Meditation isn’t a very time-consuming activity, no long hours needed to be set aside. Even just 5 minutes a day can be beneficial. Find a way to squeeze it into the schedule, possibly before or after a reading session.
“I have too many thoughts”
Mediation is not turning off your brain. It is the art of learning how to have thoughts but observing them rather than losing oneself in the thought. So when your brain decides to think of something else, you would redirect your attention back to your breath.
“It is tedious”
It can feel tedious at start but trust me, once to taste high cocentration, you will be amazed. It will become self motivating factor to really strengthen your practice. You just have to cross a certain threshold of hours that you spend meditating.
“I forget to meditate”
This can also be taken care of by putting on your phone an alarm that goes off every day or try to attach it to another ritual that you already have, for example, tooth brushing or a breakfast. This would allow you to be able to incorporate it into your routine.
Final Remarks
Start small and read a little everyday about meditation to keep yourself motivated. As I said earlier, once you have done enough practice and once you started tasting focus and clarity, you will not need any external motivation. By the way, this motivation part works in every aspect of our lives. This will all become a positive feedback loop for your mind. It will become effortless and so will most of your life activities.
I wish you best of luck on your journey and I wish you to be successful and free of suffering. Thanks for your time.