Steps to Meditate & Relax

Steps to Meditation

In the beginning, it was a way to relieve stress. Now it’s a way of life. Vic Divecha took up meditation ten years ago as an engineering student at the University of Pune in India and today conducts free workshops throughout southeastern Michigan. An e-learning specialist at U-M and a member of the Sahaja Meditation community, Divecha offers these steps to get you started meditating:

1. Find a quiet place. Sit comfortably in a chair or on the floor. Rest your hands on your lap, palms up.

2. Place your right hand, palm down, on top of your head and hold it there for 30 seconds or less. Focus your attention on the place where your hand is—this is the point of your connection to the universe. Your eyes may be open or closed.

3. Place your right hand back on your lap or knee, palm up.

4. Close your eyes. Continue sitting for five to ten minutes. Ignore the thoughts that surface in your mind, and try to expand and enjoy the silence that occurs between thoughts.

5. After you have sat still for as long as you like (but no longer than ten minutes), place your right hand, palm down, a couple of inches above your head. Now raise it several inches higher. See if you can feel a relaxing surge of energy flowing into your hand.

Video demonstration of this technique:

6 Reader Comments

Feb 19, 2013 at 10:19 AM Posted By MrKappa

I've found that reaching my hands out to the sides and humming a mantra, reberberates as if evergy is flowing from my hands. Thank you for the video.

Sep 10, 2012 at 10:04 PM Posted By Vic

An update for Fall 2012, and beyond. Since Vic works at a different part of the University now, SPH meditations are on hold. However, the same free classes and workshops are regularly conducted via the Michigan Meditation Meetup at http://meetup.meditatewith.us

Sep 10, 2012 at 02:05 PM Posted By MB Lewis

Brenda: Here's a resource for U-M students to help manage anxiety and RELAX! http://www.mitalk.umich.edu/

Sep 10, 2012 at 09:12 AM Posted By Brenda

Hello, I am interested to know if free weekly meditation sessions in the SPH reflection room are still being offered. If so, do you have to be a student to attend? When are they? Where is the SPH reflection room? Thank you, Brenda

Jan 19, 2012 at 09:23 AM Posted By Vic

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the comment. You are right about the individual differences in approach to meditation. However, most meditators experience centered meditation as mental silence, the cessation of thoughts and the folding in of attention. The beautiful variety lies in the approach to this state: music, ambience, partners or a combination of other factors work for different individuals. Its always enriching to find what works best for the "getting into meditation" part.

Nov 22, 2011 at 11:01 AM Posted By richard

You are right! For me finding a quiet place and closing my eyes are the two most important things. Without this i cannot concentrate, but everybody is different.

Steps to Relaxation

In the 43 years she’s been studying, practicing, and teaching nontraditional approaches to stress management, Wasentha Young has learned to listen to what she calls the “dialogue between the mind, body, and spirit.” A program manager for the Visiting Partners Program in the SPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences and a certified master of both t’ai chi ch’uan and chi kung, Young teaches at the Peaceful Dragon School, which she founded in Ann Arbor in 1996. She suggests these techniques for lowering everyday stress:

1. When you’re in the middle of a stressful situation, relax your feet, take a breath, and feel the connection of your feet to the ground. Curl your toes under your feet, take another deep breath, then relax your feet, and breathe again.

2. Rejuvenate yourself at the start and end of your day’s work by mentally scanning your body for tensions from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. Imagine a space between your shoulders (remembering that space is the absence of tension), take a breath, and let go. Continue to do this with the lower back, hips, knees, ankles, and feet. Then work mentally back up to the top of your head and down the arms to your fingertips, pulling vital energy from the ground up through your body.

3. Find moments throughout the day, especially when you’re by yourself, to do a little wiggle. Turn your waist gently, roll your shoulders, move your neck. Take a few breaths, and then resume whatever it was you were doing