by Adam O'Neill
Copyright © 2019 by Althea Press, Emeryville, California
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Cover and Interior Designer: Darren Samuel
Art Producer: Sue Bischofberger
Editor: Nana K. Twumasi
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Illustration © 2019 Darren Samuel
Author Photography © 2019 Anya Woods-O’Neill
ISBN: Print 978-1-64152-395-0 | eBook 978-1-64152-396-7
Contents
Introduction
The Meditative State
PART I: Cultivate Calm and Relaxation
1. THE CLASSIC RESET
2. PRESENT AND COMPLETE
3. YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
4. WEIGHTLESS
5. CANDLE FLAME
6. SMOOTH TUNES
7. THE SOUND OF OM
8. WALLFLOWER
9. PET TONIC
10. RAINFALL
11. AROMATHERAPY
12. PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
13. OBJECT OF DESIRE
14. WANTING NOTHING
15. NO WORRIES
16. FEELING YOUR FEELINGS
17. TRUST
18. YOU ARE TRUSTWORTHY
19. WATER PRESSURE
20. TOP OF THE WORLD
PART II: Release Stress
1. FULL OF LIGHT
2. EYE OF THE STORM
3. SUPER THOUGHTS
4. TWO INCHES TALLER
5. ALTERNATE REALITY
6. CHILD’S POSE
7. FOUND SOUND
8. SMILE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT
9. A TINY WALK
10. FRENEMY
11. GETTING REAL
12. GIVE IT AWAY
13. EXPERT IN BEING YOU
14. DON’T KEEP GOING
15. FORGIVENESS
16. WHAT TRULY MATTERS
17. CHIMES
18. A WALK IN THE WOODS
19. FULL OF GRATITUDE
20. THE LAUGHING HEART
PART III: Drift Off to Sleep
1. PINNACLE
2. BED IN THE FOREST
3. WARM FEET, COOL HEAD
4. SATELLITE VISION
5. A CUP OF TEA
6. DEEP BELLY BREATHS
7. DINNER PARTY
8. FINDING SILENCE
9. LIGHT AS LIGHT
10. GET COMFORTABLE
11. FLOATING
12. BIRTHDAY SUIT
13. TONUS DISSOLVER
14. SELF-LOVE
15. BELLY FULL
16. CORPSE POSE
17. SUPINE COBBLER’S POSE
18. EVERYTHING IN PLACE
19. 40 BREATHS
20. HEART OF GOLD
RESOURCES
REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Introduction
Welcome to Meditation for Relaxation. This book can change your life, if you let it. That’s not hyperbole. Meditation has been around for thousands of years, and its benefits have been documented, studied, and researched for half a century. The teachings of ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts and the many recent rigorous research studies agree: Meditation can improve your quality of life.
Although meditation has religious roots, the practice of meditation is not inherently religious, and it will not conflict with your faith or beliefs (or lack thereof). If you are new to this practice, think of it like this: As much as we rely on them for the amazing things we do and fascinating lives we lead, our minds also tend to control us. Our minds manage, often poorly, how we experience and react to the world. Chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and the myriad side effects of those conditions, including sleep deprivation, are often exacerbated by the ruminations, fantasies, and obsessions of our minds. Meditation lets us take some space from these thoughts and fixations in order to find more peace, clarity, awareness, and calm.
Meditation has been a part of my life since before I was born. My mother is a certified yoga teacher who has been teaching yoga and meditation for more than 40 years. She meditated and practiced prenatal yoga when she was pregnant with me. My mom practiced yoga, chanted, and talked about yogic philosophy and the benefits of meditation so frequently that my brother and I groaned and grumbled. To her credit, she never imposed her yoga or meditation practices on us, though she did encourage us to try them. When I was a high school and college athlete, Mom always told me to “use the breath,” her shorthand for tuning in to the present moment, to improve my mental preparation, focus, and performance. Despite her influence, I didn’t find my own authentic connection to yoga or meditation until I was in my midtwenties.
At the time I was doing physical therapy for sciatica related to a back injury. At the beginning of a session, the physical therapist asked me to do a stretch I immediately recognized as a yoga pose. The therapist asked me to do another, and then another, each position nearly identical to the yoga poses with which I’d grown up. These stretches were a revelation: Had I been doing them all along, they probably would have given me the flexibility, strength, and body awareness to have avoided my injury. If only I’d listened to you, Mom!
In the following six months I thought a lot about why I hadn’t practiced yoga and meditation. I thought about my brother, my dad, my uncles, friends, and teammates—all of the men in my life who could greatly benefit from yoga and meditation, but who would likely never try them. It eventually oc
curred to me that the word “yoga” as it was used in mainstream culture was not fully resonating with men. A lightbulb went on. In the 12 years since, yoga and meditation have become the primary focus of my professional life. Along with my cofounder Robert Sidoti, I’ve been committed to making yoga more appealing and accessible to populations worldwide (not just men) with our company YFM: Yoga. Fitness. Mindfulness., where we offer video-streaming content via our website YFM.tv as well as our popular Broga® (“yoga for bros”) classes. The best part of my job? Hearing from our members about the profound impact yoga and meditation have had on their lives.
One of the most powerful revelations meditation can bring you, and the one I hope to share with you here, is that you do not have to feel as stressed, anxious, worried, or exhausted as you do. As you engage with the practices in this book, you’ll develop a healthier relationship with your thoughts. By detaching from your thoughts, you’ll begin to let go of the obsessions and worries that often bog you down and stress you out. You may see shifts in how you go about your day, resulting in reduced stress. After practicing meditation for several consecutive days, or weeks, you may feel improvements in your general state of mind, including greater calm, freedom, control, and better-quality sleep.
I know meditation can feel a little awkward, uncomfortable, and challenging at first. This is totally normal and understandable. I share some tips to help reduce friction as you get started, but here is the number one secret: You simply have to give yourself the time to meditate. Make time for it, commit to the practices, and everything else will follow.
Let’s get started.
The Meditative State
Before we dive into the practice, let’s take a moment to understand meditation and its proven benefits for relaxation, stress reduction, and sleep. I encourage you to spend some time with this section. In it, you’ll find important context, tips for getting the most out of this book, and the essential core principles of meditation. Without this foundational understanding, you may find the meditation practices frustrating or confusing, and that’s the last thing I want. Having a basic comprehension of the simple principles of meditation will only make the practices and your experience more rewarding.
IT’S TIME TO RELAX
Do you ever feel like you need an extra hour? Better yet, an extra day? Do you feel like life is moving faster than you want? Like it’s difficult to keep up? Or like you can keep up, but there isn’t enough time to do the things you actually want to do? Are you worried about the future? Do you feel anxious, uneasy, exhausted, or a combination of all three?
If any of these feelings resonate with you, don’t worry—they’re all too common in our modern culture. We are continually pushed by our ingrained personal expectations and mounting external responsibilities. And though we like to believe that the television shows we binge-watch and the devices we’re attached to help us relax, they only serve to entertain us (at best) and add to our overwhelm.
This perpetual cycle, which I call “over-stress, under-rest,” often leaves us too awake to sleep, but too tired to do anything productive. In fact, chronic stress and sleep deprivation are now epidemics in many countries around the world. This cycle can lead to major health problems, addictions, and troubled relationships. If we don’t make changes, we could be left with years of blurry, mindless repetition. But life doesn’t have to be this way.
As you will learn in the coming chapters, simple, accessible meditation practices can help you relax, find calm, and improve the depth and duration of your sleep.
MEDITATION AND RELAXATION
Research continues to show that meditation offers significant benefits to our mental and physical health by creating a positive cycle of improvements—better sleep leads to a better mood, leads to higher emotional resilience, leads to feeling more relaxed, leads to better sleep. This section reveals the proven benefits you can expect to experience by practicing the meditations in this book. Improvement in any one of these areas can have a substantial long-term impact on your quality of life.
Stress Reduction
Multiple research studies show that meditation reduces stress. A 2014 analysis by JAMA Internal Medicine representing more than 3,500 participants in multiple studies found that regular meditation produced improvements in several types of negative psychological stress, including anxiety, depression, and pain. Moreover, a 2013 study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison concluded that an eight-week meditation program reduced stress-induced inflammation in participants. Additionally, a 2014 analysis of more than 600 research papers representing nearly 1,300 participants concluded that meditation reduces stress, especially among those with the highest levels. And that’s just the beginning.
Improved Sleep
Our stores of melatonin, the hormone associated with restful sleep, are most depleted by stress. Meditation both reduces stress and assists the natural melatonin production mechanisms of the body, meaning it can help you fall asleep faster and sleep longer. One 2012 study from a team at Rutgers University found that meditation increased melatonin levels in some participants by 300 percent.
Restful Meditation
Anecdotal evidence has shown that even short periods of meditation can have the hormonal and neurological benefits of two to three times the same amount of sleep—meaning it’s possible for you to meditate for 20 minutes and feel as rested as you would after an hour of sleep, without the grogginess. This isn’t to say that you can meditate instead of sleeping, of course (though some dedicated practitioners report needing less sleep as a result of meditating consistently over long periods of time). You still need your sleep, but with short bursts of meditation you can experience many of the benefits of deep sleep and get better sleep (when you aren’t meditating).
Heightened Awareness
In addition to heightening your awareness of what is happening in the present moment outside of your body and mind, meditation helps tune your awareness to the sensations, emotions, and sources of stress and tension within your body and mind. This heightened awareness has many immediate and long-term benefits.
For example, if you have undesirable habits that are triggered by physical or emotional stress, meditation will help you develop sensitivity to both the stressor and your default response. This sensitivity can give you more control over your choices. For instance, when you feel the 3 p.m. slump, you can choose to not have that extra cup of coffee in the afternoon. Or you can pause in the evening and decide not to have a bowl of chocolate ice cream before bed. Both of these mindful choices would improve the quality and duration of your sleep, thus reducing your stress. Heightened awareness also increases sensations of joy, gratitude, and wonder. The more aware you are of the good things around and within you, the more you will enjoy them.
Reduced Blood Pressure
The American Heart Association reviewed a number of studies on meditation and its effects on blood pressure and discovered some evidence suggesting that meditation can help reduce blood pressure. There is a known physiological response to stress reduction, which we know meditation supports. However, meditation should not be viewed as a primary method for treating hypertension. If you are concerned about high blood pressure, discuss it with your doctor. In the meantime, know that meditation won’t cause any harm, and it may actually be meaningfully helpful.
Equanimity
As we go about our busy days, it’s inevitable to encounter people and situations that make us feel annoyed, frustrated, angry, sad, jealous, or irritated. But what if you could react differently to these triggers—or not react at all? What if you simply observed the wrongdoing, the inconvenience, the irritant but didn’t internalize it? Chances are, that moment—and the subsequent moments throughout your day—would be much more pleasant for everyone involved.
Practicing meditation helps you develop the ability to recognize that the emotional stressor or trigger is not the reaction. They are separate, and therefore your reaction is under your control—you can choose to let so
mething stress you out, or not. You’ll never be able to change all of the crazy stuff that happens in life, but you can change how it impacts you. Developing this ability through regular meditation helps you alleviate stress in real time so you can save your energy for more important and more enjoyable things.
YOUR THOUGHTS DO NOT DEFINE YOU
From the moment we have consciousness, we begin trying to figure out the world around us: where to find food, how to get love, how to feel safe. As we whiz through our formative years, we’re trained to think “faster,” “deeper,” and “harder” to solve the problems of life. By the time we become adults, most of us have a codependent relationship with our thoughts, in which our thoughts have too much power over our state of being. We come to believe that our thoughts are true and that they define us. Meditation helps us untangle this relationship.
A Busy Mind
Whether we notice it or not, our minds are constantly whirring away, trying to make sense of complex emotions, to create order, and to get approval and praise from others or running through completely made-up scenarios and worrying over them obsessively.
As this sequence carries on, we fly through each passing moment, completely missing the fact that it is the only moment in which we actually live, that each moment is profoundly rich with sensation and space and calm and insight. By living in our thoughts, we also often miss out on the experience of living in our bodies, of experiencing what it feels like to be alive, in this moment, right now.
Meditation helps us recognize that our thoughts are creations of our brains, that we can observe them with objectivity, and that we can choose how they impact us.
Meditation Is Not . . .
You may have certain images in your head about what meditation looks like, who can do it, and what it’s all about. I encourage you to let go of any preconceptions you have about meditation. (I’m not going to ask you to try to levitate.)
You do not need to be a certain type of person, wear any specific type of clothing, travel to the Himalayas, chant, or pray in order to meditate. You only need to give yourself the time suggested for each practice and then follow the process.