Strength can come in different forms – mental, physical or spiritual. Meditation is a powerful tool you can use to enhance strength in any form you choose.
Mental Strength
Stress, depression and anxiety have become part of everyday vocabulary. The National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine suggests that regular meditation may help relieve these conditions and build mental strength. Simply finding a quiet place to sit, closing your eyes, breathing deeply and repeating a mantra or positive word over and over can have positive effects. Choose a word that has a positive meaning for you, such as “love,” “courage” or “wisdom”. Repeating these words in a relaxed setting allows you to focus on a single subject. The website says that your attention to one word frees your mind from stress and worry that can cause depression. Meditating daily for at least 20 minutes creates a long-term calming effect for your mind and builds strength against stress and anxiety.
Physical Strength
Meditation is usually associated with its calming effects. One type of meditation, visual imagery, is used as a type of sports conditioning. In a study published in 2006 in the Journal of Sports Sciences, the authors interviewed athletes who used meditative imagery for gaining strength in focus and confidence. The authors set up a testing procedure to measure how effective imagery was for athletes. Through their testing, the authors determined that visual imagery was useful for some athletic success.
Other types of visual imagery exercises guide you into a relaxed state and then ask you to imagine that you are safely lifting a heavier weight or running faster than you have before. Imagining yourself achieving a physical goal while in a relaxed state directs your mind toward achieving that goal.
Spiritual Strength
Meditation and spirituality are so closely interwoven that, at times, it is hard to separate them. In fact, prayer is a common form of spiritual meditation. Finding time to sit quietly and meditate or pray brings profound changes to your spiritual strength. Not only does this type of meditation calm your mind, it builds spiritual resilience.
Meditative Strength
There are no hard-and-fast rules for meditating for strength. Some meditation techniques involve sitting quietly and imagining gaining strength, while others incorporate movement, such as qigong, tai chi or yoga. No matter which technique you choose, by allowing your brain to relax and focusing on attaining the strength you are seeking, your life can take extraordinary steps forward.