Ease your way into meditation. By Bianca Gallant

If just the thought of starting a meditation practice feels a bit daunting but you want to feel the benefits, this little exercise might be just what you need.
If you slowly start to gain control of your mind and you start with short periods, meditation can actually be very easy and the benefits are well worth it.
So what are the benefits? It slows down your racing mind, it reduces stress, your body relaxes, you become more present and aware, your memory improves and you have a better connection to your intuition and slowly with consistency life becomes much better.
If you are someone who has anxiety or perhaps you have noticed you have a repetitive negative thought pattern that you battle to get out of, meditation will help you gain control of those thoughts and after some practice you can even begin to swap them out for something more positive and maybe even things that actually make you feel good!
So how do you start?
Let the trigger be; when you notice racing thoughts, negative thoughts, tension in your body or negative emotions. As you notice the trigger then, you start by taking a deep breath in and out. Then you bring your attention to what you can hear, is it near or far. What you can see, notice the colours and textures and shades of things close to you. Then bring your awareness to what you can feel, notice the temperature, notice how the clothes you are wearing feel, perhaps there is a breeze, go within what emotions are you feeling. Then notice if there are any smells, or perhaps a smell comes to mind. Now notice if you can taste anything or if a taste comes to mind. This simple exercise can take a 1 minute or 10 minutes.
This little exercise can help to bring you into the present; it’s also starts to put you in control of your mind. Often our minds go off on their own little journey and we can feel like we just a passenger but this exercise gives your mind an instruction, it says hey I’m asking you to concentrate on this right now. The mind is busy and it always needs a job, so why not give it a job that is beneficial for you. Your mind also can’t think about two things at once, so if you give it something positive to do, it can’t focus on the negativity or the negative habit and after some practice, it will become automatic as soon as something negative triggers you, you will automatically switch your brain to notice the sounds, sights, smells, tastes and sensations and change your negative habit into something more positive.
This exercise can be done throughout the day, you could be frustrated to be standing in a queue, irritated with your boss, feeling some sort of anxiety, having a bad moment, feeling sad or teary, feeling angry at something, it can be as short as a minute and you will notice the benefits when you start to practice, it also sets you up to start a proper meditation practice with much more ease.

1. Notice the trigger
2. Take a deep breath
3. Bring your awareness to your five senses and what you can sense.
4. Notice how you feel