Sitting in meditation challenges your mind, your body, your environment and your emotions. One of the steps of moving into stillness is to be able to hold oneself as you go through a preliminary process of stabilization. The fist challenge that you have is with your physical body; you look for a position to be comfortable and even after 10 minutes of sitting the body will try to accommodate itself one more time.
As you educate your body to be still the next challenge is your mind. Thoughts in the form of memories or projections into the future move you away from quietness and inner presence. As you become more alert, the mind moves into the background and slowly gives you breaks of presence and stillness. The mind is in strict relationship to emotions, and depending on your thoughts, secretions in your body will induce feelings, sensations and perhaps some unfinished inner process.
One tool for beginners that facilitates the process of stillness is the breath. The function of the mind is in strict relationship to the breath (prana or life force). You can become relaxed with just a few minutes of practicing some pranayama (breath work). As you go deeper in meditation, you go deeper into prana. The more agitated the mind, the more the breath is needed. Each individual responds differently to various pranayamas. Pranayamas must be given by a qualified teacher who considers the body constitution of the individual as well as capabilities and needs.
As you settle your intentions to relate to yourself, meditation become a nourishing and relaxing practice that resembles who you are. Meditation slowly moves from being in a sitting practice to being in a more permanent state of being. The meditative state is your nature therefore must be effortless and natural.
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Learn more about the health benefits of Yoga in this comprehensive research by Jenn Miller. You can find it here