The Meditation Club

I was scanning through various articles from The Daily online, hoping to find something of interest, when the phrase freeze thoughts caught my attention. Friends and family have constantly told me that I overthink things and I often find myself stressing over oddly small concerns. So when I continued reading about the Meditation club having its first meeting on a Tuesday I knew this article was very applicable to me.

My dad supposedly does meditation, though he always seems to be napping whenever hes meditating. Ive been a little bit of a skeptic about the so-called benefits of meditation. Its difficult to believe that something so simple as breathing consistently and sitting calmly can have so many health benefits. According to the article, many students immediately felt the effects of Sahaja meditation. Students said they felt calmer, could breath more steadily and even felt light. Smita Shete, the president of the Meditation club has been practicing meditation since she was a child. Shete has even attended seminars that have connected people from all over the world: the uniting factor being meditation. Shete said shes amazed by how mediation is such a universal thing. Despite my skepticism I am intrigued.

I have always been the type of person to easily stress out. I have tried breathing exercises before but never in combination with music and movement. During the meditation session Smita Shete led the group of students through self-affirmation exercises, while moving hands around the body to help focus on clarinet music. Even now, halfway through the first quarter I am feeling the effects of stress and Im currently stressing about my two upcoming exams. By the sounds of the article Im exactly the type of person that would benefit from some meditation in my life. Shete says, Especially in college, when youre at one extreme or another, meditation helps you balance your activities and your life. Although I dont feel as if Im at the very extremes, I have had several highs and lows. Shete goes on to say that, Meditation is a good way to balance being too energetic and too lethargic. However the most important step is surprisingly not the act of meditating but wanting to meditate. By wanting to meditate a person makes it more likely to actually follow through and meditate. It seems like a fairly obvious statement but I think its very easy to get caught up in a schedule and to forget why one wanted to do all of the activities to begin with.

Not only is meditation believed to be a good way to de-stress but also is thought to be a way to awaken and focus energy inside of us. That energy can then be used to self-reflect, improve, find more satisfaction or whatever else could use more energy. Eventually when one has practiced meditation enough, one can achieve thoughtless awareness by gaining control overs ones mind and slowing ones thoughts. This sounds absolutely lovely. I could definitely use a break from my sometimes-frantically, repetitive thoughts. According to researchers quoted by the New York Times, meditation can also change parts of the brain associated with memory, stress and empathy. So its possible that meditation would also help me with my memory retrieval as well. All in all, meditation is sounding like a pretty good deal. I think I just might find myself following Smita Shete in some meditation exercises on a not-so-far-from-now Tuesday night.