natural health care to prevent medication complications

Posted on: 13 August 2015

When deciding how you'd like to establish a regular meditation practice to help you relax and calm your mind, it's easy to mimic what you might find in a book or online. People may have elaborate preparations for their meditation that include visual aids, music, and aromas. Some of these options may be a distraction for you. Find out what your sensory preferences are and set up your meditation area to meet their needs. Here are some tips to help you create the best meditation environment for you.

Discovering Your Preferences

You likely already know what your sensory preferences are, but may not have thought of how to capitalize on them for your meditation. Sight and hearing are the senses most often used in meditation. Smell becomes a secondary factor when setting up your meditation space, such as when using incense. The sense of taste is rarely a factor. Feeling, or kinesthetic, is a general sense that results from properly tuning into your sensory preferences.

For example:

• A visual person enjoys watching movies, reading books, and browsing photos.
• An auditory person prefers music, enjoys talking, and often listens to lectures and podcasts.

Along with your primary sensory preference, you'll also have one or more secondary preferences. You'll feel most relaxed when you focus on your primary preference and support it with the secondary one.

Setting Up the Perfect Meditation Environment for You

Once you've identified your preferences, design your meditation space to make it most comfortable for you.

• Visual preference - Decorate your meditation space with brightly colored prayer flags and banners. Candles are a good addition, especially if they are colored or have ornate engravings on their sides. Colorful mandalas framed on the wall will likely work well for you. Small figurines, such as a laughing Buddha statue is a nice touch. These are all ways to satisfy your sense of sight.

Once you've focused on your visual preference, add a hint of the secondary preference. For example, you may enjoy playing music softly in the background. You'll likely do better with music with no singing, which might be a distraction. Some highly visual people prefer to meditate in silence, with any sounds being a distraction.

• Auditory preference - You'll want a variety of musical selections repeating on a loop. A small bubbling water feature will help you focus. You may also want a musical copper or crystal bowl on which to strike a tone for your meditation. You'll be most relaxed when your auditory preference is met.

Colorful wall hangings may be too distracting for you. But you may enjoy having small figurines present in your space. Moving images will likely be very distracting while you meditate. So if you sit in front of a computer while music is playing when you meditate, turn off the screen saver or any images that could pop up and take away your focus.

• Adding Finishing Touches - Incense has long been used for healing and its calming effect. Try lighting a stick of Blue Moon incense and letting it burn throughout your meditation. If you have a sensitive sense of smell, then light the incense stick and wave it over your meditation space and put it out. The faint smell of incense in the space will be pleasant.  
• You may find essential oils to be relaxing. If applying the oils directly on you is too intense of a smell, the subtle aroma of essential oils in warm water will tone it down. Just a drop of sandalwood or palmarosa in a dish of warm water will send out a pleasant, calming aroma.