A Guide to Walking Meditation

Zen and the Art of Multitasking

-- By Liza Barnes, Health Educator

The word "meditation" is likely to conjure up a mental image of a cross-legged person sitting still in a quiet, peaceful room. While this is the method of choice for many who meditate, others choose a more active route to mindfulness. It's called walking meditation, and by doing it, you get to enjoy the benefits of walking (health and endurance) and meditation (awareness and mindfulness) simultaneously. Think of it as Zen and the art of multitasking.

Meditation of any type is simply a process of developing greater awareness and mindfulness. One of the main benefits of cultivating these qualities is that you become more content and fulfilled—the desire to reach outside of yourself (to material things, for example) to feel content or fulfilled diminishes. Besides this, there are other ways that meditation enhances health. It can also help:

• Relieve symptoms of illness. A 2002 study reported in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that an eight-week mindfulness meditation program resulted in effective and lasting reductions in symptoms for participants with chronic illnesses.
• Reduce high blood pressure. A year-long study, reported in the American Journal of Hypertension showed that daily meditation lowered blood pressure more than relaxation techniques and information about lifestyle changes. Read more here.
• Relieve stress and improve mood. A study published in the February 2007 edition of Annals of Behavioral Medicine reported that while both mindfulness meditation and other relaxation interventions can both reduce distress and improve positive mood states, meditation may actually be more effective—especially at reducing distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors.

These general benefits of meditation can be applied to walking meditation too. In fact, many practitioners say that walking meditation actually helps them achieve even greater awareness than conventional meditation, and that it's even easier to reach a state of mindfulness and awareness while walking, as opposed to sitting still. And by combining meditation with physical activity, you're burning calories and getting fit at the same time.

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• SBOYKIN "I find that walking with my dogs - REALLY WALKING WITH MY DOGS - is the ver..."
• JBLAIR "Try focusing just on your breath, (breathe in, breathe out) as you walk to ..."
• WHEREIS170 "Loved the concept. My legs and feet feel all tangled now. I need to get m..."

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