Had a belter of a day?
Have you had a belter of a day? Sometimes it feels like not a single thing has gone right. Whether you forgot to bring your little ones favourite teddy in the car to kindy and they screamed the whole ride, or your boss tore that report you wrote to shreds, Spencil is here for you.
We’ve found just the thing for you
From now on we are committed to regularly raiding the archives for our MaDs, who’ve suffered a rough day. That’s right we’ve found just the thing for you… chicken soup for your eyeballs. Finish a day that went so wrong, with something so right!
Chicken soup for your eyeballs – Guided visualisation meditation edition
In writing chicken soup for your eyeballs, we acknowledge that there is no one-sized fits all approach, in creating a piece of “soothing” content.
The differences that make us unique, are also what make creative content subjective. What one person might find deeply comforting, another might find tedious and repetitive.
It has been deemed virtually impossible to create a piece of content that would be positively received by every reader… until now. Hopefully…
Created by you, for you!
This week on chicken soup for your eyeballs we introduce you to guided visualisation meditations. This meditation walks you through the process of imagining your ideal self and life, in an effort to move you closer towards it.
You should enjoy visualising the things you want most for yourself and others because they are personable to you. See the loop-hole here? You technically are the one creating the content, we are just providing the know-how to get you started.
Why would I?
The only thing that might stop you from enjoying a visualisation meditation, would be an unwillingness to participate. So before you write meditating off as hippie hoo-ha, let’s look at some of the scientific evidence around the benefits of meditation and visualisation.
The scientific benefits of meditating for mental and physical well-being are great and varied. Meditation has been proven to decrease stress and the presence of physical conditions related to stress, control anxiety, increase the attention span, decrease blood pressure, help cope with pain and improve sleep. If you’re still not convinced, this awesome article neatly summarises the evidence, with links to the research articles from where the info has been pulled.
The scientific evidence around the effectiveness of visualisation are also profound. Visualisation works by stimulating the amygdala in the brain – which can struggle to distinguish between a visualisation in a meditation from something that is happening in real life.
How it works
Visualising can be just as effective for the mind as actually practicing the action and can make performing the action easier because your body and mind have been primed to do so.
Some of the known benefits of visualisation before executing an action are increased performance, increased focus, increased confidence, increased immunity, decreased performance anxiety, decreased depression and insomnia relief. For those who are interested, this brilliant article goes through how visualisation facilitates these benefits in greater detail.
So there you have it folks, visualisation meditation isn’t just woo woo! It’s proven that it really works.
If you really want to delve into a practice, here are some awesome apps and sites to get you started:
- www.headspace.com – articles, resources, mindfulness, meditation and a hugely popular app
- www.calm.com – an app to service newbies right through to seasoned meditators. Sleep sounds, guided meditations and even bed-time stories from your favourite celebs to have you feeling well, calm, in no time.
- www.aurahealth.io – short on time? No worries! If you have pre-date or meeting jitters, their three minute sessions and 30 second anxiety busters will induce instant zen.
- www.smilingmind.com.au – everybody loves a freebie and the Smiling Mind app is just that. It’s a not-for-profit developed by psychologists and educators and is a great tool for the whole family.
Get started visualising to live in your deepest dreams before they’ve even ever begun.