IN FOCUS: MEDITATION: Your Personal Guide

You don't need to be religious or spiritual or interested in angels or gods or anything of a metaphysical nature to meditate. When you meditate you are awake and aware and need to be in surroundings that are peaceful and non-intrusive. Meditation is often relaxing but that's not its main purpose. You need to empty your mind and sometimes 10 minutes might be enough, but you can progress to 20 or 30 minutes to enjoy this mental and physical form of aerobics. Meditation gives increased calmness, physical relaxation, improved psychological balance, better coping with illnesses, enhanced wellbeing and mutually improved links between mind and body. Recent medical studies have intriguingly claimed that meditation can reduce blood pressure and symptoms of IBS, and is likely to help with anxiety, depression and insomnia. A matter of mind over matter or MOM, the various meditation techniques are explained - guided visualisation which originates from Buddhist monks; heart-rhythm meditation concentrating our inner energies; kundalini activating energy lying dormant at the lower end of the spine; mindfulness which also owes its origins to ancient Buddhist traditions; Qi Gong from Ancient China; transcendental meditation started in the 1960s while seated in the basic lotus position; zazen, one of the easier forms of meditation from Japan; and mantra meditation, a short phrase being repeated during a meditation cycle which may be spoken, chanted out loud or just repeated within your mind. The author explains in her quick and easy guided meditations and mindful exercises that meditation may be practiced at any time or place with ease. 144 beautifully decorated pages, colour illus.