Does meditating really help?

i know it sure does help me, a good place to start would be learning about Chakras and which ones do what, most people have a hard time just getting there self grounded let alone moving on to the next stage…

You’ll also need to learn breathing exercises, this will help in calming you down to where you can actually meditate properly and focus…

One way of understanding meditation is in terms of neuroplasticity. When they do MRI scans of monks who have been practicing for years, there are actual structural changes in brain activation.

The concept is called “downward pressure,” referring to the idea that the content of thoughts have a physical effect on the physical mechanism of cognition. You can significantly change brain response, but it happens very slowly (i.e. over the course of years).

Meditation is the practice of learning to recognize your responses and make active choices rather than playing out rote patterns. Different practices are appropriate for different backgrounds and personalities.

I’ve done zazen off and on for ten years, but starting a yoga class once or twice a week about four months ago is already connecting me to my body in a whole new way. Maybe if you start doing yoga you won’t be the least flexible person in the world anymore. ☺

Frankly, it’s probably a bit late for it to help with this particular round of stress. Regular meditation does teach you how to not compulsively engage thoughts as they arise, which is what we’re especially prone to do during periods of stress. But, as @will mentioned, this mental retraining is a long and gradual process. Trying to pick it up now would be like taking up running because you’ve signed up for a marathon next weekend. This particular round of stress won’t be much better if you start meditating now, but if you keep at it you may find that your future stress doesn’t take quite the same toll.

Meditation is more easily learned when the demands on your attention are less urgent. Just get through your exams, and then start a simple breath-counting practice. This is a near-universal way of learning how to let thoughts come and go, come and go, without giving them power.

Good luck on your exams!

Yes, but it requires patience. And good instructions.

Here are some very basic instructions on meditation, including breath-counting.

I don’t think it’s to late at all really, you could start today and be feeling better about yourself in just a few minutes, meditation is not just about breathing, it’s also spiritual.

Meditation is super-helpful. It’s funny, when one is most busy is when one most needs to just stare into space for ten minutes.

Sometimes what also helps is to pretend to meditate. Tell everyone you are going to go meditate, but then just go to your room and pretend to meditate. Play with lint, stare at a wall, just do nothing (but think of random thoughts) for ten minutes or so.

It’s about as short-term-calming as meditation, though if you can get your shit together enough to really sit and stare and not-think on a regular basis, that’s great too!

If you’re not flexible you NEED Yoga!!! If you start now while you’re young you can loosen up a bit before you start doing the old man shuffle!
I don’t know why someone would record that video, But it does demonstrate what happens if you don’t make an effort to be strong and flexible while you’re young.

You could try placebo-ing but, it seems a little harder. Also, try breathing exercises, scheduling, and knowing when to and how you personally relax.

Can anyone guide me through doing this? haha I don’t think I just sit there, relax, and breathe, right?

@allergictoeverything ; You start at the top of your head and deliberately relax every muscle in your body. Focus on your forehead, your jaw, your neck, your shoulders, your upper back, your arms, your fingers your lower back, your butt, your thighs, your knees, your ankles, your toes. Give each body part a minuet or two’s attention to just release it. Then tell yourself that you’re letting all the tension release out the end of your toes like a tube of tooth paste.
Of course, this is better if you have a trained professional or massage therapist or Yoga instructor walk you through it, but it is possible to do it on your own.

You’re using the breath as an anchor for your attention, so that your attention doesn’t keep gravitating back over to the buzz of thoughts. Posture is important because it affects attention, particularly keeping the spine erect. If flexibility is a problem for you, just sit in a chair with some extra padding under your hips, so that your knees are lower than your hips. Don’t collapse back against the back of the chair; find the position of your torso where it feels balanced, both fore and aft and side to side. Reach toward the ceiling with the crown of your head. Keep your eyes open but oriented slightly downward. Fold you hands on your lap, against your belly. Your belly and chest should be out, your shoulders back and relaxed, your lower back slightly dished in, your head pulled back so it rests directly over the spine, and your mouth closed. Then relax as much of your musculature as you can without losing this position.

Now focus your attention on the breath. The counting is just a way of assuring that your attention hasn’t wandered too far from the breath. Breathe normally, and count each inhalation and exhalation until you get to ten, then begin again at one. You count silently, but let each count extend all the way through the inhalation or exhalation.

As you’re doing this, thoughts will continue to run through your head, and you attention will want to go to them and examine their contents. Your challenge is to be aware that the thoughts are there, but to keep the attention pinned to the breath. If you do this, the thoughts will simply arise and then leave. If you engage them though (as you will from time to time because that’s your habit), They will pull your attention away from the breath and lead it down a long succession of thoughts. You’ll know when this has happened because you will have lost the count. In this case, just start back at one with the next inhalation or exhalation.

If it ever gets easy for you to keep the count over, say, twenty minutes, increase the difficulty by counting only on the exhalations. If this becomes easy, drop the counting altogether and just let the attention rest with the breath.

Try to do this for a minimum of twenty minutes a day.

Twenty minutes a bit extreme for a newbie imho, but heck what i do i know :)

If you have exams soon, I’d say, keep it simple.

The best thing I can think of is just to slow down whatever you are doing—just ever so slightly—and breathe. (This is basic mindfulness). So when you are typing, just type a little slower than u..su..al… The act of slowing down should make you aware of different sensations and thoughts and calm you down.

Later, when you have more time to investigate, then go on to the exercises Harp suggests; but for something just to calm you down, I’d suggest just slowing down, being aware of where you are holding tension, and breath into that part of the body.

And don’t forget to completely exhale!