The High Vibe Guide
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Whether you're a seasoned venturer or just starting out on your journey to radiating a more positive energy, my episodes will provide a wealth of inspiration, tools and wisdom to guide you in creating a more vibrant and positive life. It is possible. I have lived and breathed this journey. Let me explain how you can do it too.
The High Vibe Guide
29. What Really Happens When You Start Meditating Consistently
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Have you ever wondered what happens when you start consistently practicing meditation? I'm 9 months in to my practice, and I'm starting to feel some real magic. Join me today as I delve into the real benefits of meditation, and what you can expect to feel in the short-term, as well as the long-term. You really can transform your life with this one simply practice. Tune in and discover how to get started today.
Welcome to the High Vibe Guide, the podcast where I demystify the concept of raising our vibration. I'm Jenna, a yoga teacher, mum of three and passionate advocate for helping others to just feel happier. Let me explain to you how we can all live more contented and fulfilled lives and how it's so much easier than you think. So, guys, I feel like it's been a little while at least, since I spoke to you properly about meditation. I know it probably hasn't been that long at all. I think I do manage to slip it in every single chance I get. But, but something has happened to me recently. I'm coming up to about nine months now of practicing living a higher vibrational life. You know, when I had my light bulb moment, I realised I wanted to start living life to the fullest, and at that point I started practising everything that I spoke about in my first few episodes. I really go into my favourite high vibe activities and these are the things that I try to incorporate into my life every day. Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't, and I still don't, manage to get all of them into every day. That for me wouldn't be realistic or achievable, but the main ones for me were the following three gratitude, kindness and meditation. For me, these are the main pillars of living a high vibe life, according to jenna miller. If I keep these three things as a constant, I can then scatter my other high vibing activities across my days, or I can interchange them. But for me it's all down to gratitude, kindness and meditation, and it's meditation that I want to go into again today.
Speaker 1:Now. I have always dabbled I think's the right word with meditation for over the years. My mum was always a big advocate for us practicing meditation when we were younger, so I was introduced to it quite early. I got into it quite heavily again during my yoga teacher training and then I lost it. Basically, I lost it. The more children I had, the more and more I lost it. And lack of time was always my main excuse and I need to emphasize the word excuse, because that is exactly what it was especially because meditation takes no time at all. It's actually been proven that three minutes a day is the minimum amount of time needed for benefits to be experienced, so lack of time is just not a legitimate excuse. But nine months ago around nine months ago I made the commitment to bring it back into my daily life and boy. Boy am I glad that I did Look.
Speaker 1:There is a reason that meditation is being introduced more and more into our society and it's becoming more and more understood and well known and more easily accessible. I was listening to Jay Shetty recently I think it was in conversation with Stephen Bartlett, so it must have been a a diary of a CEO podcast episode and Jay was just talking about how he just feels so inspired to spread the message of how simple practices like meditation can really change a life. And that's also one of the reasons he said that he partnered up with calm you know the mindfulness app because calm's founders when he met with them, he really felt they had the same passions to make this, this ancient practice, available to the world. Because the amazing thing about meditation is is that every single person on the planet can do it and also reap the benefits from it, and all from the comfort of your own home and for free. Yes, obviously you can subscribe to various platforms, you can go to classes and workshops, you can be guided and led through the practice, but really you don't need any of that and I think we only feel reluctant because it's a long game. It's not like taking a pill, or even just like feeling the endorphin rush after an intense workout, or feeling the high at a live music gig or something I'm trying to think of examples where you can experience that immediate happiness or joy or excitement. But we live in a world of quick fixes and instant gratification where it's the norm to have a finger constantly pressing on that dopamine button in our brains. Relaxation after your first few meditation practices, and even into the first month or two, you might notice that calm and that peace getting stronger. The true power of meditation you won't start to experience for at least a few months and let's face, in this day and age that puts a lot of people off. We have forgotten how to be patient as well as persistent. Today I can literally see it in people's faces when I talk to them, especially some yoga students of mine not all of them, but when I'm talking about the true benefits of meditation, when I then reveal how long it might actually take when they ask me, I can see there that little spark of interest just dim. I can literally see them switch off to it because I don't think the practice of meditation is sexy or fashionable or necessarily cool.
Speaker 1:Most people think it's boring and a lot of people, myself included, find it extremely difficult to get started. Because it is difficult in the beginning. The mind is not used to stopping, we aren't used to being bored, to just noticing the present, and doing so without judgment, without criticism. That is one of the hardest things to do not being critical of yourself and your thoughts. When the mind does start to wander, when it can't be quiet, when it can't be still, it's very difficult and we very quickly come to the conclusion that we are not very good at meditation. And because this is normally decided very early on, before the real benefits have had a chance to shine through, we give up and come to a secondary conclusion that meditation just doesn't work for me. This is the one I hear the most, because people think that they really have given meditation a real college try when they haven't even scratched the surface.
Speaker 1:Now, meditation has this cumulative effect. So the more consistent you are in your practice, the more you will experience its benefits. The more you will experience its benefits, and I think these benefits manifest differently over time. So what I've done is I've broken these down and I've put them into short-term, medium-term and long-term benefits. Now, obviously, these aren't set in stone. Different people will experience things in different ways, but this is the breakdown of what I've felt and what I'm feeling, and what I can see myself feeling the longer that I continue to practice, from what I've read and from what I have learned from people that I've spoken to who have meditated for a very, very long time.
Speaker 1:So, firstly, let's get into the short-term benefits Now. When I say short-term benefits, I mean benefits you experience within a few weeks to a few months, within a few weeks to a few months. Okay, so it's not maybe the first one or two times you've attempted meditation, but what you will definitely experience, firstly, is reduced stress and anxiety in your day to day, because when we meditate regularly, it helps calm the mind and by doing this you are reducing the production of all those stress hormones and this then leads to immediate feelings of relaxation and decreased anxiety and mindfulness. Meditation has been shown to reduce stress within a few weeks of consistent practice. So, again, this might not be within the first few days, but within a few weeks of practicing consistently. And remember, it doesn't have to be for a really long period of time, it can just be a few minutes a day.
Speaker 1:Secondly, you will experience, in the short term, improved focus and concentration. An amazing thing that meditation does is it trains the mind to focus on a single point of attention, and this is improving your overall concentration and cognitive function. So, like I said, even short periods of meditation between three and ten minutes a day can enhance attention and reduce the mind from wandering so much. And this might be incredibly subtle at first, maybe not even quite enough to notice For me. I think it's actually only with hindsight, now that I'm kind of like nine months in, that I believe this to be true and that I experienced this in those first few months.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, the third benefit of short-term meditation practice is enhanced emotional regulation. Meditation helps us to become more aware of our emotions, so this then leads to better emotional control and less reactivity. So you might start to notice that you feel more balanced and less reactive to stressful situations. You maybe even notice you have a little bit more space, a little bit more time before you actually respond. You actually respond and you might find that space increasing ever so slightly. That is a very interesting situation to find yourself in. If you have felt this, allow yourself to feel some real reassurance because you are on your way to some serious personal growth, my friend Right. So that's kind of a summary of the short-term benefits I think you will feel in the first few months. Okay, medium-term, and by medium-term, these are the benefits I think you will experience kind of several months into a year. So I'm kind of putting myself in this bracket right now.
Speaker 1:But the first one, the first benefit you will start to notice, is increased self-awareness and mindfulness. Now, this was a slow burner for me, but I started to realise this real heightened sense of self-awareness which allows me to understand my thoughts and my behaviours better. You might start to become more mindful about your habits and even start to make conscious changes to improve your life. Here you're in much more of kind of an internal analysing mode, constantly looking at your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviours, but not necessarily in a stressful or kind of an overthinking kind of way. It's much calmer than that. Secondly, you will experience better mental health, and this is all about developing a more positive mindset, and this positive mindset just spills over, it ripples into everything related to mental health issues. So you'll experience a real reduction in all the symptoms of depression or anxiety or any other mental health issues.
Speaker 1:Studies have actually shown that mindfulness meditation can be as effective as antidepressants. I have cited this before. It must have been in my early mindfulness episode when I was talking about how powerful meditation is and it still blows my mind. It still blows my mind. It is effective as antidepressants in preventing relapse in recurrent depression. That's just amazing to me. But thirdly, for medium-term benefits, your physical health is going to improve, but not really in the the. When I say physical, I mean not in the things that you will notice externally, but it's internally, your processes.
Speaker 1:Meditation leads to lower blood pressure and an improved heart rate. That's only to name a couple. I'm not going into the real sciencey science here, guys, but it's also associated with reduced risk factors for cardiovascular disease. It's just such a powerful practice to think that just sitting quietly for a few minutes can actually lower your blood pressure, can improve your heart rate and decrease the risk for getting cardiovascular disease. Just unbelievable, I think. But long-term benefits now, long term I mean like years of practice. I would even say I'm nowhere near this nine months in. I say years, like two to three I think. But not a hard and fast rule for everybody. Like I said, I think it's to do with the person in particular and, obviously, how frequently you do practice, how long for.
Speaker 1:But the first benefit that I've noticed from people that I've spoken to and from what I've read, is just this profound inner peace. Long-term meditators, if you like, they say they often experience this deep sense of inner peace and equanimity, just maintaining that calm and that balance even in the really challenging situations. They speak about this pervasive sense of tranquility and resilience. Secondly is enhanced cognitive function, and I mentioned this a little bit in the medium term benefits. But when you have had a long and well-established meditation practice, this leads to structural changes in the brain and this enhances the areas that are responsible for attention, memory and emotional regulation. Now, in the medium term, you're definitely, I believe, starting this process. You are starting the structural change in the brain, but you only really really see the true benefits once you've pushed through and you've been meditating for a long time. But research has shown that these seasoned meditators have increased grey matter in regions of the brain which are associated with those functions.
Speaker 1:I just mentioned attention, memory and emotional regulation. Just mentioned attention, memory and emotional regulation and I think this ties into the concept of neuroplasticity which I have spoken about before. But it's where the brain possesses this really amazing ability to reorganize itself. It possesses this flexibility. It can build new neural connections. It's basically where the brain is rewired to function in some way that differs from how it previously functioned. Does that make sense? You see it in a lot of cases where someone's had an injury, the brain suddenly realizes had an injury. The brain suddenly realizes, right, well, we can't do that in that way anymore, so let's figure out a new way. And it builds an entire new roadmap in the brain. So people's brains who have meditated for a long time operate more in this way than people that do not meditate and don't tap into any kind of mindfulness in their day-to-day life. I just find this so interesting.
Speaker 1:The third long-term benefit I'd actually put this in medium to long term but it's greater compassion and empathy. But it's greater compassion and empathy. These practitioners often feel a deeper connection to others and they're more likely to engage in more altruistic behaviours. And this is because meditation, particularly that kind of loving, kindness, meditation, just fosters such greater compassion and empathy towards others. That's just, you know, makes sense to me, you know. But lastly and I think this is the main benefit that you will experience from meditating for a long time. It's spiritual growth and enlightenment.
Speaker 1:Now I say spiritual, just bear with me on this one because for many, meditation is a spiritual practice, you know, that leads to profound personal and spiritual insights, and this is often described as enlightenment or an awakening, you know, and it's often described as a sense of unity with the universe and a deeper understanding of their place in the world. Now, for anyone like me who isn't religious and I don't know if I'd call myself spiritual Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't I think I actually toy around with the definition of spiritual quite a lot, but I find that this sense of unity and connection with the world, it does feel true to me. This is just to me, by the way, but it's actually more than that for me. For me, it isn't through connecting to God or you know what, maybe not even connecting to the universe. I think it's more going deeper into myself to find my truths and with that these amazing insights happen. And this is what people refer to as enlightenment or awakening.
Speaker 1:It's for me, it's not having to rely on or tap into some greater force than myself. It's not having to rely on or tap into some greater force than myself, which, I'll admit, would make things easier. It makes us feel like someone else has our backs, doesn't it? But I think it's tapping into the true you, the part of you that is unwavering, unwavering, strong and all-knowing. I believe that we are all born with this. We were all given this light, this light of potential.
Speaker 1:But throughout life we start to pile on layers, like an onion, you know, clouding this part of ourselves and quietening it. But practicing meditation is like peeling back the layers of the onion clouding this part of ourselves and quietening it. But practicing meditation is like peeling back the layers of the onion. And through this practice we can realize again that the power and the strength, the wisdom, it always comes from within us. It's us, it's you, always comes from within us, it's us, it's you. I believe that we are all so much more powerful than we know. I believe we are all creators, with this innate strength and magic right at the core of us. We just need to peel back the layers, which can take work, which can be scary, but hey, growth does not come from comfort zones.
Speaker 1:I know this now and you guys listening to this now, can you understand why we, as human beings, feel the need to place our faith in some kind of external force, one that is greater than us, is more powerful, more wise, because that's a hell of a lot to place in ourselves, isn't it? And I think for some that can feel incredibly lonely. For others, it can feel incredibly liberating. I think that depends on your mindset and the perspective that you choose to look at it with, and hey, I am not on a soapbox preaching here about what I think is really true or is not true. If you're religious, hey, amazing. I really admire people that have such strong belief and faith in something beyond themselves. If you're spiritual, fantastic. If you're an atheist, amazing. If you're a scientist, equally wonderful. Just embrace what you believe in and know that it ultimately everything comes from within you. It's just where you choose to find your inspiration, I guess.
Speaker 1:But what I want to leave you with today is this amazing analogy that I found of how meditation works and what it does for us, and it was shown to me by George Harrison, the musician and lead guitarist of the Beatles no, not personally, obviously, I've never met him, but I didn't know this about him but he was incredibly spiritual and his spirituality was deeply influenced by hinduism and eastern philosophy and that he was really heavily involved with the harry krishna movement in the late 60s. But his spiritual journey was a real significant aspect of his life and his music, and I listened to him speaking recently about meditation and this is pretty much verbatim how he explained it here. It is any time of the day, any situation you're in, you can get control of yourself just by sitting quietly and by turning off from the external problems. We have the noise, we can go inside of ourselves, where it's always calm and peaceful, like the ocean, which is always changing. But the bottom of the ocean is always calm and still and if you're not anchored to the bottom of the ocean, you're at the mercy of whatever change goes on at the surface. The process of meditation and yoga is all just a way to anchor yourself securely to that pure state of consciousness, to that state of being state of consciousness, to that state of being. So you can still act out your life on the surface, but you are still anchored securely. How great is that? I absolutely loved this analogy because this is exactly what I'm starting to get a teeny, tiny glimpse of and I mean a glimpse, a little peep.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I'm only about nine months in. And that isn't meditating every day, I'd say. For me, I meditate a minimum of three to four times a week, but I aim for every day. My meditation practice might look very different to yours, remember, okay. Hey, sometimes I meditate twice a day, some days I don't at all, but the point is that I'm starting to finally understand what this means. It's connecting to that part of yourself that's always calm and peaceful.
Speaker 1:And, like I said before, I think I'm at a stage where I'm experiencing the kind of midterm benefits. I definitely have increased self-awareness. I feel like I spend quite a lot of my day in that kind of internal analysing mode where I'm questioning my thoughts, my behaviors, my feelings a lot and, like I said, not in an anxious kind of stressful way where it's like overthinking or overanalyzing. I just have this heightened sense of awareness, like I'm not running on autopilot anymore and it's really very interesting. And my mental health, guys, my mental health has turned around and done a complete 180. My anxiety has improved so much. I still have the odd day. It's very infrequent, but it's nothing like it was before. And with this heightened sense of awareness that I have, I can normally now figure out where I might be experiencing anxiety on those days. I can figure it out and then just adjust what I'm doing accordingly.
Speaker 1:I'm very proud to say that I'm no longer at the mercy to my anxiety or my emotions, and that's an incredible feeling, and it's largely hugely down to my mindset. My mindset is so much more positive and, like I said before, it's your mindset that largely influences all these other mental health issues. The more positive your mindset, the less susceptible you are to things like anxiety and depression. And just then I wanted to say that I feel like I'm on the other side. But now, knowing that I'm only experiencing medium-term benefits of meditation, I've got some way to go, and that is very, very exciting. This time next year, guys, when you're tuning in, it's going to be like listening to bloody Gandhi.
Speaker 1:So, guys, if I can give you one piece of advice today, hey, one piece of advice just for the month, or even for the year it's meditate, just do it. Will you just do it? You will be starting something that is so powerful and beneficial to you in the long run and, hey, even in the short term. Everyone can do with just a little bit more peace and relaxation in their day right, and I know it may seem boring, it may seem like it's not doing anything, it may seem like it's not working. It's just not for you. No, no, no, no, no. It's doing something. Even when it feels like it's doing nothing, even on those days where your mind is so busy and loud, it's doing something. Remember, it's called a practice for a reason and you are literally planting magic seeds in your mind by starting a meditation practice.
Speaker 1:I'd always recommend guided meditation for newbies. Let someone guide you through it rather than just sitting in silence, because that can be quite daunting. I mean, there are so many apps and there's so many on YouTube for free. My subscribers, you lovely lot. You get a new weekly guided meditation from me each Friday. The link is in the episode description. But you know what, guys? In my opinion, you really don't have an excuse. Promise me, you'll give it a go. Yeah, just try and remember this progressive deepening of benefits. It really underscores the importance of maintaining a regular meditation practice, a regular meditation practice. So start with setting aside three minutes a day, just three, it's nothing, and please keep me posted with how you're getting on.
Speaker 1:This was meant to be a really short episode. I just can't help it when we talk about meditation. But thank you so much, guys. This topic is really close to my heart, if you hadn't noticed, and it's my most sincere hope to just spread this message that you can feel happier, you can feel more joy, you can feel less sadness, anxiety and fear. Please just let me show you. Let me show you how and going forward. I know I promised you lots of guest speakers and they are all still coming. I promise there's been lots of boring scheduling issues, but they will be coming to you in the next few weeks. So thank you again for tuning in. Keep looking for the good stuff, guys, and I will see you back here next time. Thank you all so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's, please share with your friends and family to continue spreading that positivity. You can find me on Instagram at thehighvibeguide. Get in touch. I would love to hear from you. Thank you.