Is Meditation best for depression?

If you're feeling a bit skeptical for no reason, you’re not alone. you'd probably even feel sadder when some people easily recommend that depression will improve if you merely “Smile more!” or “Think positively!”

Depression can involve an excellent deal of dark thoughts. One may probably feel hopeless, worthless, or angry at life (or even himself) and meditation may seem somewhat unreasonable to a depressed person. But meditation teaches you to concentrate on thoughts and feelings while not passing judgment or criticizing yourself. Moreover, it involves increasing awareness of thoughts and experiences.

Meditation doesn’t involve pushing away these thoughts. Instead, it helps you to observe and accept them, then permit them to pass through your mind. In this way, meditation can disrupt cycles of negative thinking.

Say you’re sharing a peaceful moment alongside your partner. You're feeling happy and pampered. Then the thought comes to your mind, “They’re about to leave you alone and go away,”  and then this thought overpowers you and keeps bothering you. What should you do? Feeling hopeless and stressed?

MEDITATION can surely help. It can assist you to -

• Notice this thought

• Observe the risks associated with the thought

• Acknowledge that it’s not the only risk

Meditation can make it easier to concentrate on your emotions as they're easily accessible, especially, when you start experiencing negative thought patterns or notice raised irritability, fatigue, or less interest in the things that you would normally love to do.  This is the time one should choose to engage in self-care for things from getting worse.

How shall I do it?

Meditation can feel discouraging if you’ve never tried it before, but it’s fairly easy and comfortable, once you start practicing it

These simple steps can assist you to get started:

1. Get comfy

It’s typically helpful to sit down in a comfortable position when you initiate learning meditation, but if you feel like standing up or lying down, that works, too.

The keys to feeling comfortable and relaxed. Closing your eyes will also help.

2. Begin alongside your breath

Take slow, deep breaths through your nose for a few seconds

Pay attention to:

•  How you breathe in, that is inhalation…

•  How do you breathe out or exhale

• Feel the sounds of your breath

Your thoughts could take your focus away from your breath, and that’s pretty normal. Just keep redirecting your focus to the breathing process whenever you catch yourself puzzling over any other thought.

3. Move from breath to body

Eventually, start shifting your attention from your breath to the various components of your body to perform what’s known as a body scan.

Start your body scan wherever you want to start. Some people start with their feet, whereas others like to begin with their hands or head.

Focus your awareness on your body, moving from one part to another as you continue to breathe slowly and deeply.