How to Meditate & Clear Your Mind

Meditation has been around for thousands of years and has proven psychological, physiological and spiritual benefits. It's a difficult task to master, but if you can somehow introduce a regular meditative practice into your daily life, you will soon begin to notice positive changes.

Who's not up for some positive change once in a while?

Historically, meditation was practised by saints and sages to bring about the joyful state of self-realisation; a state of consciousness where a person is free from worries and anxieties and is completely present in the moment. Meditation can lead you to become more mindful and clear-headed, gaining a greater understanding of life and purpose.

If your mood (anxious, stressed, tired) tends to be the trigger for drinking, try swapping the habit of pouring a drink with sitting down and meditating for just five minutes. Meditation resets your mind so you can move through the triggers, feelings and thoughts and get onto a more productive and healthy action like cooking dinner or getting organised for the next day.

We explore some of these techniques in our app, Daybreak, for iOS and Android.

Try this simple practice of controlled breathing from our in-house clinical psychologists to help set you up for your meditation.  Read through steps 1-5 and then give it a try.

How to clear your mind:

1. Get comfortable
   Sit in a comfortable position, as comfortable as you can get. Sit up straight and relax your shoulders and muscles.
2. Deep breath in
   Take a deep breath in through your nose. Count “one, two”.
3. Slow breath out
   Breathe out through your mouth, pucker your lips (as though you are about to whistle) and breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in. Count “one, two, three, four”. Don’t hold your breath between breathing in and out, aim to keep your breath flowing smoothly.
4. Deep breathing
   Check you are using your diaphragm by placing your hand on your stomach. If you are using your diaphragm you should feel your stomach move out as you breathe in and move in as you breathe out. This helps to ensure you aren’t taking shallow breaths. Remember to keep your breaths deep, not shallow or big.
5. Eyes Closed

Now close your eye and continue breathing this way until you feel relaxed.

What are the benefits of meditating?

Stress: When stress overwhelms you, it can have serious health implications including anxiety, depression and even cardiovascular disease. Meditation activates the body's natural relaxation response and not only calms the mind, allowing you to relax and the stress to gently leave the mind and body, it also it provides a deeper knowledge and understanding of the workings of the mind and emotions.

Anxiety:  The purpose of meditation isn’t to get rid of your anxiety, but to help you become more present in the moment. We often experience anxiety because we fixate on the past or on the future. However, meditation quiets an overactive brain so you’re intentionally focused on the here and now. 

Sleep: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials for insomnia found that eight weeks of in-person meditation training significantly improved total waking time and sleep quality in patients with insomnia.

Relationships: Mindfulness enhances couples’ levels of relationship satisfaction, autonomy, closeness and acceptance of each other while reducing relationship distress.

Cognition: Meditating for just four days is enough to improve memory, executive functions and their ability to process visual information. Meditation leads to activation in brain regions involved in self-regulation, problem-solving, adaptive behaviour and introspection. A 2013 review of three studies suggests that meditation may slow, stall, or even reverse changes that take place in the brain due to normal ageing.

Research also suggests that practising meditation may reduce blood pressure and symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

So where do I begin?

Try the tips below to start on your journey to a clearer mind. You can even try a movement meditation if that suits you, rather than sitting still. Sometimes this is just walking slowly and focusing on your footsteps, the sounds and your surrounds. Or a gentle, slow yoga practice moving with the breath.

Resources to help you start

• Youtube videos like this Six Phase Meditation
• Apps like Smiling Mind - a completely free set of guided meditations developed by a fellow Australian charity.
• Meditation group meet-ups.
• Meditation schools and classes in your area. Many yoga schools also offer group meditation.

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If you find you need extra support to help you change, check out Hello Sunday Mornings’ mobile behaviour change program, Daybreak.