Meditation Techniques for Teens

Meditation is a purposeful focusing of the mind. Athletes and martial artists practice meditation to enhance their performance. Yogis, Buddhist monks, and spiritual seekers practice it to attain spiritual insight. Ordinary people around the world practice it to regulate their fight-or-flight system, decrease stress, regulate emotions, and improve interpersonal relationships.
Though many meditation postures are available to you, if you are a beginner, all you need to do is follow a few basic guidelines: (1) Make sure your breathing is not constricted in any way; (2) Find a posture that won't make it too easy for you to fall asleep; (3) Meet your meditation experience with relaxed dignity.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is a process of getting to know your inner landscape. It can take several forms. Jack Kornfield, in his video, "The Inner Art of Meditation," recommends this way for beginners: Relax and watch your breath. Eventually your mind will start to wander. As it does, don't try to stop it, just watch calmly. Label the emotions and thoughts as they pass through: impatience, planning, contentment, remembering, or whatever else passes through. Don't engage the things going on in your mind; just watch and label. Doing so gives you a new perspective on your day-to-day thoughts, enabling you to get caught up in them only if you chose to do so.

Mantra Meditation

Mantra meditation focuses on a word or phrase. The mind is a little like a hyperactive monkey running loose in your living room. It bounces from distraction to distraction, running over everything that gets in its way. Focusing on a mantra is like giving the monkey a toy to occupy it for a while. If the mind is focusing on something, it's less likely to try to focus on everything.
Project Meditation says that your mantra doesn't have to be the classic "Ommm." It can be a word or phrase that means something to you, perhaps something from your religious background, or a suggestion to yourself like "relax" or "courage." Clear your mind, relax and breathe. In time with your breath, perhaps on the exhale, repeat your mantra either aloud or in your mind. Doing so helps bring your mind to focus.

Heart Breath

The heart breath is a form of meditation with verifiable physical benefits. To do the heart breath, relax and breathe on a ten-second cycle--five seconds in, five seconds out. As you do, breathe a positive mental state into the region of your heart. That state might be calm, appreciation, gratitude, or compassion. Feel that state filling your chest as you breathe.
What happens to your body when you do the heart breath is profound. Your heart rate shifts to become more "coherent." In other words, if you were to plot your heart rate variability on a graph, you'd see a smooth, regular, sine-wave like pattern. This change in your heart rhythm then influences other rhythms in your body, including blood pressure and brain waves. All the systems of your body begin to work together more closely, making you more creative and intuitive.
If you want more information about the heart breath and its effects, investigate HeartMath.

Compassion Meditation

Compassion meditation builds one of the traits most central to humanness: the ability to empathize. Begin like any other meditation by relaxing and becoming aware of your breath. Then let your mind drift toward someone you love. it could be either a person or animal. It could be someone who is ill or struggling, someone you know in the military, someone you are estranged from, someone you want a deeper connection with. Gradually, let yourself drift inside this person's perspective. What would it be like going to work, being with family, dealing with the things this person is dealing with. See the world through this new set of eyes. Feel with a new heart. Stay there for a while before coming back to your own perspective. As you do, feel free to say a prayer for this person or express a wish for their well-being. As you finish your meditation, return to your breath to quiet your mind and emotions and center yourself again in your own perspective.

References

• "The inner art of meditation [video]; Jack Kornfield; 1996
• Project Meditation: Healing Mantra Meditation
• Heart Math: The Science Behind the emWave® Technologies
• Healing with Awareness: Compassion Meditation