Meditations & Guided Imagery For Weight Loss

The quietness and peace created by meditating, even once a week, can open fresh perspectives not available in your daily routine. Meditation is a lifelong personal practice that encourages new patterns and leads to healthier choices. You can use meditations and guided imagery, in addition to exercise and proper nutrition, to aid in weight loss. There are different techniques to explore and, with practice, you can learn how to take meditation into your everyday life.

Definition

Stilling the mind, focusing attention and achieving a purpose or goal is what defines meditation, according to Stephanie Clement, Ph.D., author of "Meditation For Beginners." Meditation is the practice of becoming mindful. Our thoughts have the tendency to jump around unfocused and often create self-defeating stories like "I'll never be able to sit still" or "I'm never going to lose weight." Meditation trains the mind to focus on productive thoughts, as what you think leads to your actions. Meditation opens new paths of thought and creates possibilities beyond your habitual patterns.

Benefits

Meditation is a relaxation practice that combats the stresses of everyday life. According to the Mayo Clinic, there are multiple emotional benefits that come with meditating, such as heightened self-awareness and decreased negative emotions. Because stress disrupts digestion and interferes with weight loss, the physical body also benefits from meditating because relaxation tends to stimulate proper digestion. During meditation, your muscles release tension, your mind stills, your blood pressure goes down, your pulse rate decreases and your breathing steadies.

Visualization Technique

There are many mediation techniques, and the most helpful to weight loss may be visualization. You identify a thought or pattern of thoughts that is not serving you, for example, "I hate being overweight." Take a few moments to let that thought set in, and write it down. Then set up for meditation and first focus the mind on the in-breath and out-breath. Once you are stilled, bring your focus to your thought. Visualize the thought, listen to it, and breathe in how that thought makes you feel.
Next shift your focus to one thing you can change about that thought. For example, the thought could change to "I am overweight." Let the mind follow the changed thought and record your thoughts after the exercise. Visualization meditation helps with problem solving. Sometimes our habitual thoughts lead us to feel helpless, but by shifting one word, sound, smell or feeling, new possibilities are created. You can develop actions to answer to "I am overweight" instead of the self-defeating thought "I hate being overweight."

Posture

"Sukasana" in Sanskrit translates to "easy pose," and it is the beginner's posture for meditation. The pose is not easy to sit in at first, but with practice the body builds the ability to sit easily. The posture helps the mind still, but also strengthens the body. According to Yoga Journal, easy pose relaxes the brain, makes the back stronger and stretches the ankles and knees.
Elevate your hips with two or three stacked blankets. The height gets the hips higher than the knees and allows the spine to elongate. Since meditation requires you to sit for an extended period of time, it's critical to ensure your body is set up to be comfortable. You can place a blanket under the ankles as well for cushion.
Sit on your blankets. Cross your shins in front of you and let your knees splay out to the sides. Have the outer edge of your feet on the ground. Look down and make sure your thighs and crossed shins create a triangle. Let your hands fall to the inside of that triangle with one hand cupped on top of the other.

Duration

Meditate in baby steps. As with most new routines, the most challenging part is getting started. Try meditating for five minutes and each week increase your practice another five minutes. For weight loss, the key is to join your conscious goals with your unconscious thinking. According to Clement, meditation for weight loss develops "choices that satisfy mental, emotional, and even spiritual hunger in ways that don't involve eating." The goal of meditation is to unify your entirety and support your personal goals.