3. Reasons to meditate To enhance concentration – Mediation can help to clear your mind and increase your ability to sustain attention, thereby making you more productive. Stress/anxiety relief – Meditation can teach you how to detach your mind. By learning to do so, we can focus on living in the here and now without worrying about the past or the future. Better health – Meditation can lower blood pressure, increase oxygen in the body, assist with pain management, and improve sleep patterns. Knowledge of self – Meditation enables us to have a deeper understanding of our inner self and can even assist with helping us form positive, connected feelings towards other.

4. Meditation Techniques. Meditation involves concentrating on something to take our attention beyond the random thought activity that is usually going on in our heads. This can involve a solid object or picture, a mantra, breath, or a guided practice.

5. Typical objects can include: a mandala a flower a candle a picture of a person in a meditative state

6. Mantras Mantras are sounds which have a flowing, meditative quality and may be repeated out loud or inwardly. For example: OM Considered “the king of mantras”, “Om” is the sound of infinity and immortality. RAM This mantra is the name of God. It engenders God consciousness, truth, righteousness, and virtue. OM TARA Tara represents the female energy. Mantras with “Tara” are said to evoke compassion, strength and healing.

7. Breathing Techniques The breath is also a common focal point. Typical breath flow is a slow-paced series of deep inhalations and exhalations, where more breath is expelled on the exhale than taken in on the inhale.

8. Guided visualizations can also be used to bring one into a meditative state. Click the picture below for a sample guided meditation. Guided Visualizations

9. A short explanation of how it would be used in teaching, client sessions, or professional activities. Presentations such as this one are ideal for use during faculty/parent meetings, guidance lessons, during group counseling activities, or when presenting to peers at a conference or lecture series. PowerPoint presentations serve as great visual reinforcements of the topic at hand, and not only help to highlight the key points of complex topic but can help to hold the audience’s attention. Incorporating the use of other media types into a presentation, such as video or audio, further helps to keep the audience interested and engaged.