Meditation for Seniors

By Hunter Mackenzie

Sleep better, heal your memory, have a loving heart, a spiritual core, no anxiety, a healthy mind and body, love your life and banish pain.

What if I told you there was a simple process backed by science which you can do in as little as 20 minutes a day which will lower your stress levels, improve your decision-making skills and relieve your anxiety? 

 

This Process is Meditation.

 

Your audio book is about 3 hours long.  I will be presenting the basics of several well-known and trusted meditation practices in overview form.  Together we will also be doing some basic exercises.  They are similar to one another, but they are not identical.  My intention is you get a feeling of the simplicity of them, and how natural it is for you to do the things involved in them.  Our body always tell us what is best for us; we are here to retrain ourselves to listen to it.  If that is all we learn from this audiobook, then we have learned a great deal. Meditation is not a philosophy; it is a practice. With meditation you're not trying to turn off your thoughts or to expunge feelings.  You learn to observe them without judgment.  And ultimately to better understand them. With practice, meditation will bring you to the realization you are not your thoughts or feelings; meditation frees you if you've been chained by your thoughts. By simply connecting with and being more aware of yourself, you develop the amazing ability to handle stress, improve your health and increase your intellect.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: lawrence nash
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201449391

Hunter Mackenzie

About the Author Hunter Mackenzie lives in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Time is split between the Okanagan Valley with its herbal accoutrements and the Fraser Valley with its commercial hubbub, depending on the season. Other books by Hunter Mackenzie • Bedtime Stories for Seniors 1 • Bedtime Stories for Seniors 2 • Bedtime Stories for Seniors 3 • Bedtime Stories for Seniors 4 • Meditation for Seniors • Jokes for Seniors

Book preview

This Process is Meditation.

Your audio book is about 3 hours long.  I will be presenting the basics of several well-known and trusted meditation practices in overview form.  Together we will also be doing some basic exercises.  They are similar to one another, but they are not identical.  My intention is you get a feeling of the simplicity of them, and how natural it is for you to do the things involved in them.  Our body always tell us what is best for us; we are here to retrain ourselves to listen to it.  If that is all we learn from this audiobook, then we have learned a great deal. Meditation is not a philosophy; it is a practice. With meditation you’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or to expunge feelings.  You learn to observe them without judgment.  And ultimately to better understand them. With practice, meditation will bring you to the realization you are not your thoughts or feelings; meditation frees you if you’ve been chained by your thoughts. By simply connecting with and being more aware of yourself, you develop the amazing ability to handle stress, improve your health and increase your intellect.

Chapter One                                Get in Touch with Your Body

The actual practice of meditation can be done in many different ways, but one type commonly used as a beginning is known as Mindfulness Meditation.  We will do some of that together, shortly. A characteristic of mindfulness meditation practice is to train your mind to be firmly focused on the present moment. It involves the act of focusing your attention on something such as your breathing, as well as taking moments to simply observe and be aware of things around and within you.  Here are a few benefits of meditation refined by 4,000 years of practice and substantiated by thousands of studies from the realm of modern science.

Meditation and your brain

Meditation is what helps you to be in a restful and recuperative state where you are not controlled by your thoughts and feelings. As a result, your mind will become better able to manage them, in a way where you just observe your thoughts and feelings, so you can make better decisions. Just as exercises make your body physically stronger, this mental exercise makes your brain stronger. It activates the parts of your brain which promote things like intelligence, empathy, and happiness.

Listen to what your body is telling you

When we’re too busy , we may not notice subtle signs from our body. For example, when we are stressed, there are early symptoms such as tightness, irritation and heaviness in the body. When we ignore these symptoms, it can lead to serious concerns such as high blood pressure. Meditation trains you to become more aware of what your body has been trying to communicate to you about your health and well-being. It’s telling you to address certain issues before it’s too late.                                                                                                            How About a Better Brain                                                                                                                               Over 50 years of scientific research has shown myriad benefits meditation has on both your brain and your body. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for meditation is it literally changes your brain for the better. Brain scans show the neuron rich part of the brain, known as grey matter, is dramatically enhanced in those areas involved with important functions such as decision making, emotional regulation and particularly memory.

Chapter Two                                The Basics

If you have never meditated , spending as little as 2 minutes a day is a great start to develop a meditation habit and experience the beauty of it. One thing to keep in mind, is meditation isn’t about trying to stop your thoughts. It’s more about being aware of them and then simply allowing them to come and go without any judgement about them. All you need to begin is a comfortable space where you are likely not to be disturbed.  Let’s do it.

Sit with your back straight at a comfortable level, either on a chair or on the floor, whichever is more comfortable for you.  Rest your arms on your thighs and let your hands go soft and heavy.  Let your shoulders go down and soft and leave them there while you breathe.

Start by leaving your eyes open with a relaxed soft focus and looking slightly down.

We are going to take one deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, gently closing our eyes while breathing out.  Now. In through the nose, out through the mouth while closing our eyes.

Keep your eyes closed and resume normal breathing, shoulders down hands loose and heavy.

Enjoy being present in the moment. Feel the pressure of your body beneath you, relax the soles of your feet, pay attention to your hands and your arms resting heavily on your legs.

Gently, bring the focus back to your breathing and with every breath, notice your body, with its rising and falling of your chest and your stomach.  Relax the soles of your feet.

If your mind wanders, if you are taken away by any thoughts, sounds or other sensations, gently bring the focus back to your breath again.

Gradually bring attention back to your body and the space around you.  Now when you are ready, gently open your eyes.

Absorb how you’re feeling.  That took us two or three minutes and already, your day is better. 

Meditation is practiced by countless millions of individuals around the world.  It is practiced under guidance, it is practiced alone in pristine isolation, it is practiced in groups and it is practiced online. There are regional preferences and cultural preferences which play into the choice of meditation made by those practitioners.  The various choices have proven themselves over thousands of years.  In our study oriented modern scientific times, meditation practices are validated by countless studies, and that is why they have emerged to be accepted globally.  In this audio book, we will have some fun exploring them, looking into their history and giving them a try.

We are in a new era of meditation.  Things which we observed and intuitively knew were good for us for hundreds of years, are now proven beyond doubt.  Academics have the need to name things and the world has come to an agreement on what certain meditations should be called.  None of them however, stands on its own without having a subtle overlap of some characteristic of the other.  The types of meditation with which I will deal are loosely described as follows.

Mindfulness

Transcendental Meditation

Bhakti yoga

Focused meditation

Visualization

Mindful movement meditation

Progressive muscle relaxation               

You will learn, within each of the listed meditations, there is one indispensable common denominator. That is breathing.

Chapter Three                         Breathing