Feeling Stressed? Try This Simple Meditation Exercise at Home!

Have you ever felt stressed out from work, a pandemic, or other challenges in your life? If you have not, please tell us your secret! If you have, then maybe this guide can help you. Meditation can be an intimidating concept, as it often conjures images of sage monks achieving enlightenment after a lifetime of practice. However, meditation comes in many forms and can be practiced by anyone. It can have tangible effects on your mental health even if you only devote a couple of minutes to it each day, and it’s worth trying! Many people also manage their stress with the help of CBD, and I have found the combination of CBD and meditation to be an amazing de-stresser. The following is a guide for a very simple meditation exercise that I do every morning, shortly after my daily dose of our Full Spectrum Water-Soluble 300mg Tincture.

This exercise is designed to take you out of autopilot and truly ground you in the present. We spend a frightening amount of time gliding through life with our minds anywhere other than the present moment. Staying in this moment is difficult, but so important for your mental health. Try setting aside 15 minutes per day to practice this exercise. You will get better and better at it, and you may start to realize just how much of your life you spend trying to pass time rather than experiencing it. Time is the most precious thing we will ever have, and we do well to treat it as such.

Using CBD to manage stress is quite common, and there are lots of options available. I prefer to use a tincture, but others prefer to dab our CBD shatter, or simply take a capsule or an edible. Use whatever works best for you, and then set aside a few minutes in a calm, peaceful place to practice this exercise. I like to sit next to my bedroom window, so that I can feel the sun on my skin. This can be done anywhere, so pick a spot in which you feel comfortable.

Start by closing your eyes, and settling into your spot. Breathe slowly and ponder the idea that you are not your body. Rather, you are the energy that resides within, and your body is the vehicle through which you navigate the world. You see the world through your eyes, but you are not your eyes. You hear the world through your ears, but you are not your ears. Sit with this idea, and try to feel your own energy. Take as long as you need to do this. This is your experience, and there is no “correct” or “wrong” way to do it.

Pick one of your fingers, and focus on it with your mind. Try to sense the inside of that finger, not what it’s feeling, but the energy inside it. You are that energy, and you are connected to that finger. Widen your focus to the entire hand, again sensing the inside of it rather than what it is touching. Now draw your focus upward and sense the inside of your arm. Sit with it, then let your focus spread to your torso and through the other arm, rising into your head and down toward your legs until you are sensing the inside of your entire body. Sit with this feeling, and familiarize yourself with your own energy and sense of self.

Next, with your eyes still closed, shift your focus to your ears and the sounds that they are taking in. We tend to tune out most of the ambient noise in our daily lives, so try to focus on the things that you would normally ignore. Pay close attention to each individual sound, picking them out from the cacophony around you and spending a moment acknowledging each one.

Slowly open your eyes, and take in your immediate surroundings. Pick out individual items that you wouldn’t normally spend time looking at. For each object, observe and note its physical qualities, then think about its purpose, why you have it in your home, and what would happen if it was no longer there. Do this with as many objects as you like, while you sit completely in the present moment.

Try your best to keep this sense of presence in your mind for as long as possible. Be patient with yourself. Of course it would be ideal and wonderful to live every second of every day completely in the present moment, but this is no easy task. Give yourself reasonable goals to work toward, and remember that just attempting this exercise is a triumph. Any step forward is positive progress, no matter how small that step may be.