Meditation and Mental Wellness

As a college student, I frequently spend more time trying to balance my google calendar than reflecting on my own thoughts, worries and feelings. This practice eventually caught up with me during my second year of college, when I identified that I was feeling easily burnt out as a result of neglecting my own mental health.

I realized then that it was unsustainable to ignore my emotions and began searching for feasible ways to start prioritizing my mental health. A friend recommended Headspace to me, introducing me to the practice of meditation. Once I began implementing meditation into my daily fitness routine, I began feeling significantly less stressed and more adept at tackling my school work and various other commitments. And perhaps even more importantly, meditation helped me to reconnect with myself. As a result, I have been able to focus more energy on building more meaningful and fulfilling relationships with friends and family.

Amidst the isolation and anxiety brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now more important than ever to practice wellness. Meditation is an easy way to stay in touch with yourself amidst the whirlwind of today’s world, and can be combined with yoga or pilates if you are looking to break a sweat at the same time. In addition, meditation takes little time out of your day, can be done from the safety of your own home and has incredible mental health benefits—have I mentioned that yet?

You might be wondering, what exactly is meditation? The origins of meditation date back 50,000 years ago, when the practice developed as a ritual used in a variety of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Today, meditation is still used for religious worship, but has also developed into a secular practice used for wellness and mindfulness.

Here are some terms of eastern foundation that play a significant role in the practice of meditation: karma, swadharma, dharma, buddhi, samskara, vasana, kriya, viveka, vairagya and sannyasa. Karma is the summation of an individual’s actions—in both their own life and in previous states of existence—that act as a deciding factor in their future. Swadharma is one’s own unique role/talent in life, and dharma is a moral code that governs all things. Buddhi has to do with intellectual faculty, which is further developed in samskara and vasana—two terms that describe how our individual ideas come together to form impressions, dispositions, hopes and wishes. Kriya is a type of meditation that focuses on breathing patterns and viveka is a practice of deciphering between the real and unreal, the eternal and temporary. Lastly, vairagya and sannyasa are vital components to detach from materialism. There are many other terms you may encounter while practicing meditation, but these terms will suffice as a general introduction to the practice.