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Far 2 Fabulous
Join Catherine & Julie, your feisty hosts at Far 2 Fabulous, as they lead you on a wellness revolution to embrace your fabulousness.
Julie, a Registered Nutritional Therapist with over 20 years of expertise, and Catherine, a former nurse turned Pilates Instructor and Vitality Coach, blend wisdom and laughter seamlessly.
Off the air, catch them harmonising in their local choir and dancing to 80's hits in superhero attire. Catherine braves the sea for year-round swims, while Julie flips and tumbles in ongoing gymnastics escapades.
With a shared passion for women's health and well-being, they bring you an engaging exploration of health, life, and laughter. Join us on this adventure toward a more fabulous and empowered you!
Far 2 Fabulous
Unlocking Inner Peace: The Transformative Power of Meditation
Discover the life-changing benefits of meditation through my personal journey of overcoming anxiety and achieving inner peace. On this episode of Far Too Fabulous, we honor World Alzheimer's Month and World Alzheimer's Day by delving into how meditation can enhance memory, attention, and cognitive health. Join me as we debunk common myths about meditation and reveal its true essence: presence, connection, and inner tranquility.
Trace the captivating history of meditation from ancient India to its western popularization, spotlighting pioneers like Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. Learn about the groundbreaking scientific studies demonstrating meditation's powerful effects on brain health and longevity, such as fostering cortical plasticity and slowing neural degeneration. We'll uncover how these practices can even impact telomere length, offering potential insights into a longer, healthier life.
I also share practical mindfulness techniques perfect for both beginners and seasoned practitioners. From walking meditations in nature to the Buddhist loving-kindness practice, you'll find tips and anecdotes to help cultivate focus and compassion. Explore chant and Zen meditation, using tools like the Enzo symbol to deepen your practice. By starting with just five minutes a day, you can unlock profound benefits for emotional intelligence, self-connection, and overall well-being. Let's redefine wellness together through the transformative power of meditation.
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If we’re being honest, most of us don’t think about our brain health until it’s too late.
According to Alzheimer’s Disease International, there are 10 million new cases of dementia each year worldwide…
I don’t want you or anyone you love to be part of these statistics.
That’s why I've created a FREE download for you with tips to support your brain health.
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We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.
Welcome to Far Too Fabulous, hosted by Julie and Catherine. Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candid chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing. Let's dive in. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Far Too Fabulous podcast. And you have me going solo today.
Speaker 1:It is World Alzheimer's Month in September and it's World Alzheimer's Day on the 21st of September, so what I thought would be a really great thing to go along with this was to speak to you about meditation, and I did my meditation diploma over lockdown. I've always been interested in meditation. It was one of the huge contributors to me recovering from my acute and chronic anxiety, and so when I did my training, it was such an honour to be able to share that with other people, and I don't think I do it enough, actually, because it is such a magical gift. So hopefully this is the no we don't like the word hopefully this is the start to me doing that a little bit more. With regards to meditation and Alzheimer's, the benefits are huge, so it has the possibility of enhancing memory, attention and focus and potentially slowing down cognitive decline that's associated with Alzheimer's. We will come back to that later on in the podcast. But I mean that's huge, isn't? It Helps to manage stress and anxiety experienced by individuals that are suffering with a disease and their caregivers. I mean it's for literally anybody. It will improve mood and promote overall well-being. It's an absolute goodie.
Speaker 1:What is meditation? So I thought I'd see if I could get the official lines on what is meditation. So I punched this into Google and it really helpfully told me it was the action of meditating. Thanks very much for that. I could have told you that. So I looked a little bit deeper Focus one's mind for a period of time in silence or chanting for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation. And the second one was to think deeply about something. And I think that that second definition is really interesting, because a really common misconception about meditation is that you don't think or that you can't think, or that you have to totally clear your mind. And I think this is one of the barriers that people have with it thinking they can't do it because they think that they can't clear their mind. So be reassured that that is not the aim of the game. So often people will say that they'll go and meditate on a problem or a thought or an idea and just sit with it, and so hopefully that clears up that myth about meditation. So what else is meditation not? Does that make sense? What else is meditation not? That's a very backwards way round of saying it.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be in silence, it doesn't have to be chanting, it doesn't have to be religious, it doesn't have to be still, it doesn't have to be hard. It isn't a quick fix. It's not made up. There's lots and lots of science behind it. You don't have to be alone and, like I'd said already, it you don't have to be alone and, like I'd said already, it's not about absence of thought. You don't have to disconnect from normal life. It's not for a certain type of person. You don't have to look like somebody that meditates. It doesn't have to take a lot of time and it's not necessarily just about relaxation that is one part of it, but you can work really hard on it. And it's not necessarily just about relaxation. That is one part of it, but you can work really hard on it. And it's not always about forcing answers or looking for answers. So there are lots of what it's not.
Speaker 1:What is it Breathing? It's stilling your mind. It's being present, it's being calm. It's a way of opening channels of thought that, quite frankly, you just didn't know were even there, to connect to yourself, to your higher self, to your community, to the universe, to God, whatever word you want to insert there. It's used for clarity, to be able to make decisions, break down limitations or create expansion, to break habits, to remove that human mind, to remove that ego that often gets in your way, to release expectations, to become light and weightless. There's a release of oxytocin, as I hinted at earlier on. It actually alters your brain matter, decreases cortisol and just creates that space to know and accept yourself just a little more wholly. So, as you can hear, I adore it.
Speaker 1:The word meditation wasn't even in the well, I would say English dictionary, but before there was English dictionaries, it wasn't even an English word until the 16th century. Interestingly, it comes from the Latin meditat, which means contemplated, and the verb meditare to measure. So I think that really sounds nice, to contemplate and to measure. But it was, of course, around for much, much longer than that. So some archaeologists have dated meditation back to as early as 5000 BC, according to cave art that they have found on the Indian subcontinent and just as on the side, because we like these little on the side learnings that you guys might all know, and it's news to me, when I I was training, I've written BCE and obviously I understand the terminology BC as before Christ and AD as Anno Domini. So the new versions of these that are kind of removing the religious aspect of it are before Common Era BCE and Common Era CE. So when you see those written down now you'll know, but you probably knew already. It's just news to me again. So to continue your history lesson on, the oldest documented text of meditation was also from India, from the Hindu traditions of the Vendas, who are said to have given birth to spirituality and philosophy, and this was in 1500 BC. So then in 623 BC saw the birth of Siddhartha Gautama, who went on to abandon his royal life as a prince and spent decades traveling and teaching meditation and went on to become known as Buddha.
Speaker 1:In the mid 600s BC, the Sufi of Islam developed a meditation practice based on breathing, mantras and gazing. So then, around 550 BC, meditation started to spread. It did this through the Silk Road, the Silk Road which was a Euras, any gazing. The Greeks in 300 BC practiced something called umphalo-skepsis, which translated as navel gazing. They did this as a way to contemplate and commune with the divine, and if you have a look for this, there are statues of the Greeks literally staring at their belly buttons, and in today's language a navel gazer has got negative connotations, that they're kind of quite self-absorbed and not in a good way. But for these Greeks it was a good thing to be self-absorbed and learning about yourself. Fast forward a century or so and then you have got in the 1200s.
Speaker 1:Part of the Jewish traditions, kabbalah, which is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism, developed their own form of meditation, and around the same time in Greece, the Hesychasts, which were an Eastern Christian movement who lived a monastaric life seeking divine quietness. Sounds like a great idea. Right had created their version of meditation that they called Jesus Prayer, which was for contemplation of God and uninterrupted prayer. They're a good job. They don't live in my house and this is lots of stuff that I learned whilst I was doing my meditation diploma, and what I thought was really interesting when I was reading back through all of this to research for this podcast was that all of this was popping up all over the Eastern world and they had no internet, they had no phones, they had no way of telling each other that they were doing this. Yet they were all doing very, very similar things and it wasn't until it started coming out via the Silk Road. I imagine that they were all like oh, but we invented that. Oh, but we invented that. Imagine that they were all like oh, but we invented that. Oh, but we invented that.
Speaker 1:I'm reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic rereading, should I say, because it's amazing and she talks about ideas and the more than most being an entity of themselves, and how in history you have seen similar or the same ideas pop up at around the same times in history without any of those people knowing that other people were developing it at the same time. So it's just absolutely magical. So there are many Eastern philosophies and texts were translated into Western language in around the 1700s, which then led to the spread of meditation practice throughout the European world. And then fast forward. A lot sources credit the first scientific research on meditation to have happened in 1936. And since then many, many studies have been done using far more modern scientific methods than in 1936, and continue to do so, and I think we continue to be amazed at this scientific research that, basically, is working backwards. Basically is working backwards. It's proving what these people, like hundreds and thousands of years ago, already knew was happening.
Speaker 1:The two studies and practices that can take a lot of credit for bringing meditation and mindfulness to the mainstream in the Western world is, firstly, dr Jon Kabat-Zinn's program MBSR, which stands for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and he's had incredible results with that ever since well as long as as old as I am, since am since 1979 and again has been credited for bringing mindfulness meditation to the, to the masses. And the second thing is transcendental meditation, which is said to be one of the most scientifically studied meditation practices in the world today and, again, very, very popular way of meditating in the Western world, and en masse, particularly in America, where you practice a mantra style meditation. So that's your history, lesson over and done with. So let's skip to the good bit. That might have been the good bit for some people.
Speaker 1:The most amazing thing, or one of the most amazing things about meditation and I alluded to this earlier on was that it actually changes your brain matter. It can physically change your brain, which forever, up until fairly recently, they didn't think was possible at all. So regular meditation can actually cause cortical plasticity or neuroplasticity, which is a change in the structure of the brain, and it didn't just create generalized thickening. It caused thickness in regions of the brain that involved attention and sensory processing. So this was done on a I think this study was done on monks and so the average cortical thickness of the 40 to 50 year old meditation participant was similar to the average thickness of the 20 to 30 year old meditators and controls, suggesting that the regular practice of meditation may slow neural degeneration. And what they found was that the benefits correlated with the amount of hours that meditation was practiced and not the length of time. So what it means to say is that it's not that you've got to sit there all day and meditate and then, hey presto, you've got all these benefits, that it's across periods of time. It's the amount of hours you do it, rather than the length of time.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to make sure that I get the facts across to you in the correct order, and I think while I'm doing that, you are missing quite how excited I am that you just sitting there and breathing and giving yourself some time and some space from lifing can actually have physical effects on your brain. Now, if you'll pardon the pun, that blows my mind, it's absolutely incredible and it's free and it's open to everybody. I mean it's just absolutely incredible. So the other thing that I did whilst I was doing my meditation diploma was a presentation on meditation and longevity. And a big part of longevity are these little guys called telomeres, and they are the compound structure at the end of a chromosome and they're rather they look a bit like imagine the toggle on the end of your shoelaces, like the little plastic bit on the end of your shoelaces that stop your shoelaces unraveling. And again, another useless bit of information for you those little bits are called aglets, if you needed to know that, and their job is to protect the chromosome, to stop it sticking to other chromosomes and to keep it in order.
Speaker 1:And more is being learned about these all of the time. These guys are linked to longevity because those studies show that shortened telomeres were either present or an indicator that people were at risk of life arresting or life limiting diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, vascular dementia, alzheimer's, stroke, heart attack. And in a study conducted by Elizabeth Blackburn, who actually discovered telomeres and got a Nobel Prize for her trouble and Eppel. They were the first to show the link between chronic psychological stress and telomere maintenance capacity. So their study was on caregiver mothers of chronically ill children and the control mothers of healthy children, and this was in 2004. And the psychological stress and the number of years of the caring for the chronically ill children was associated with the shorter telomere length. And this was the first indication that stress may have physiological impacts on the telomeres and that the length of the telomeres gives you an indication of the physiological stress that somebody has been under.
Speaker 1:So why am I telling you about telomeres? Because I am not. I know you're not going to be surprised at this now. Studies have shown that regular meditation can have significant impacts on either preventing the telomeres from shortening and the possibility of lengthening telomeres and again, this is really new research. Again, they didn't think that that was actually possible to do. So. The length and the strength of your telomeres is not only an indication of how well you are, but a contributing factor to whether you develop these life-limiting or life-ceasing diseases. There are quite a few other studies that show the positive correlation between meditating and the telomere biology and, as a wonderful twist of fate or not really, because nothing's by accident.
Speaker 1:Right Meditation increases your social connection. This is part to do with the part of the brain that the thickening happens to when you increase your meditation and social connection has also been associated with increased length of telomeres. Associated with increased length of telomeres and guess what research has shown will boost your social life, increase your social connection and your emotional intelligence. Yes, meditation, so linked in with this meditation, has also been shown to increase the size of the right hippocampus. The meditators in one of the studies showed significantly larger volumes of the right hippocampus and have been implicated in emotional regulation and response control, meaning that meditators have a better ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior, which, again, is just that beautiful cycle. Keep doing to keep these benefits. When you stop doing it, the thickening decreases, the larger volumes in the hippocampus decrease and your telomeres will continue to age and deteriorate at the normal rate of somebody that does not meditate.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let me tell you about some of the different ways that you can meditate, which is really where my excitement kicks in. So you could start off with just a breathing exercise. So you could breathe in for a nice long, long, slow breath for as long as you can and then hold it for a count of eight and then a lovely long, slow release of breath out and just do that for three times and then return your breath to normal and then you can do that another three or four times. It will really, really help you to drop into a lovely peaceful space and then you can just sit in that space A really super simple one that I use very often with my Vitality Rooms. Ladies, my online membership we meditate after every single Pilates class. So on a Monday night and a Tuesday morning, once we have finished our Pilates practice, we sit and meditate together for 10 to 15 minutes and I'll either do a lead meditation or I will give them one of these meditations that I'm telling you about now.
Speaker 1:So square breathing is if you imagine a square and you just draw along each side of it. So you just inhale is one side of the square and then hold for one side of the square and then exhale for one side of the square and then hold for the final side of the square and for each side of the square it's a count of four. So you inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four and then hold again for a count of four, and for your human mind you can't get this wrong. Just don't count really really fast, or do a Ross from Friends and just be going one Mississippi, two Mississippi. Just gently count one, two, three, four and then move on and ideally you can start to increase that so it doesn't have to be a count of four. You could change it to a count of five, whatever felt nice and comfortable for you. Another one is mantra meditation, which is really fantastic. So a really great example of this is the mantra my mind is calm, and so you just gently say that over and over in your head, just whilst comfortably breathing.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be cross-legged upon a rock on the top of a hill or a relaxing meditation. I think that being seated is beneficial. One, just because there's less likelihood of you dropping off, and two, I personally feel very connected when I am sat upright, which is why often the cross-legged position is quite a good one, because it really enables you to really straighten your spine and sit up. But that's not to say that you don't then use things to support you. So if I'm, if I'm post run and I'm feeling very tight, then I will put cushions under each side of my knees to support them, so I don't feel like I'm really holding them tight. If you find it quite uncomfortable to sit bolt upright and many, many people do then sit on a cushion or a bolster or pilates blocks or something like that, so that it is it's more comfortable for you to sit up and sit on a sofa and stick a cushion behind you. You don't have to sit on the floor. I'm trying to say is that you can do this anywhere. You don't have to look like a yogi.
Speaker 1:So back to mantra. Back to mantra, meditation. My mind is gone and it can be any mantra that you would like to install. It could be something that you have decided you want to call into your life and that could be your mantra. And as you start to work your way through this, you could naturally start to drop words, you could get rid of my and just have. Mind is calm and then eventually, if you wanted to, you could just get down to just saying calm, just breathing in and as you exhale, just within your head, just say calm. And as you exhale, just within your head, just say calm and if it feels okay, you could start to just completely let go of any words at all and just drop into that beautiful stillness, that beautiful silence, knowing that if the mind chatter, comes back and I know that I said that it's not about ridding your mind of any thought at all but if those annoying thoughts or come into your head with the shopping list or you start to kind of fast forward through the day, thinking, oh, I've got to do this, I've got to do that and you need something again to bring it back, you can go straight back to just saying my mind is calm and it has that very great effect of focusing and bringing you back to where you are right then, right now.
Speaker 1:So the next one is contemplation, meditation, and this is where you could use a question, say there's something you've been pondering. You could just say it over and over again in your head, a little bit like the mantra, and then just sit in quiet and just wait for the answer. You could contemplate on an image or a flower or a candle, and I imagine I don't know if you've sat around a bonfire and you've watched the twinkling embers towards the end of it and just stared into it. Don't tell me you can't meditate because you just did and trust that it will bring you the answers that you need. It may not bring you the answers that you want. It will bring you the answers that you need. For me, meditation is a vehicle to connect to my higher self and to have an open conversation with my subconscious without things getting in the way. Now my intention is to do a podcast on the subconscious and how you can apply subconscious transformation techniques in your life, and this is one of them. But for me, this is a way of having a really clear way of communicating with my subconscious and with my higher self. So ask those questions and trust the answers will come.
Speaker 1:The next type of meditation is a visualization. So when I was doing my training, we did a mountain visualization, and if you've ever done my beginners meditation training, I do that in there, and it's a often it's a lead meditation, unless you know one yourself, and so you get guided, you get spoken through this meditation and the creator of it will often use lots of metaphors. It's almost quite hypnotic and it also allows you to draw your own conclusions to it and it may bring things out that you just didn't even know were there. It's an incredible form of meditation. Another form of meditation is a walking meditation. So, again, busting that myth that you need to be cross-legged amongst bamboo I don't know, and this one is super, super easy. It's very much just about being mindful of what you're doing and your surroundings.
Speaker 1:I think it would be easier to do initially on your own, maybe in the garden, maybe if you're walking out in nature, if you're in the garden and you feel like you can, is it something you could do to take your shoes off and just feel the connection of your feet on the grass? This is something that we have really, really lost. I know that when I said that, there were plenty of you that kind of recoiled and went oh no, I don't want to put my feet on the wet, maybe muddy, maybe a little bit uncomfortable if it's dry or if it's wet, soggy grass. Connection with nature. We're always coddled up in socks and shoes oh, you'll not get me on, I won't get started on foot health right now, or maybe I'll do another, another whole podcast on that and bore the life out of you for that one as well and but for this instance, it's a really great way to connect back with nature and as far as we have got away from that in technology and sitting in our egos and really kind of like thinking hard through these problems, we are still beings of nature that are part of this planet and part of this universe and only good things can happen from bringing us back to that. So, and the Dalai Lama talks about, your feet are kissing the floor as you, as you walk, so you can just imagine that really kind of like make a meal out of it, out of walking.
Speaker 1:If you don't want to take your shoes off and you're not padding around the garden, if you want to be out in nature, you can have your eyes open. Obviously I don't want you plowing into trees or into rivers and lakes and just breathe and just look around you and start, if you want, for just five minutes, because I know that you will find that you will be distracted within about three, because we're so, if that. We're so used to being distracted. We're so used to being double busy, we're so used to the pings of our phones and our devices and things that when we sit and are still and quiet, we're not used to it and we're less able to do it. Our subconscious sits there and goes what's the matter? What's going on? Why are we still? Why are we not doing anything? Make her, do something, give her an itch, send her a thought. Doesn't like sitting there because it's not used to it.
Speaker 1:And as much as I say that anybody can do meditation, that is not to say that it's easy and that is not to say that it's not something. You need to practice that because you really really do like anything, even though you are sat there super, super still, it practice or not. Sat there, super still, walking through nature, but focusing and being mindful, looking at the trees, hearing the wind rustling through the trees, feeling it brush past your face, listening to the crunch of the leaves underfoot, the birds, all those sorts of things. There's plenty of stuff to keep you occupied, out there and thinking about your breath, and you can bring things like gratitude into this as well, and you'll just be amazed at how full and how complete you feel.
Speaker 1:Now, I think, when we think about meditation, the stereotypical one is silence. Now, I think the when we think about meditation, the stereotypical one is silence. Now, this is probably one of my favorite. I, but again, like exercise and like breath work, I think I say, oh, this is my favorite to everything, but this one is really simple and probably the most difficult, because you are just literally doing nothing. This is one that you would like to try and invite thoughts to float away from if at all possible.
Speaker 1:So when I first learned to meditate, this was when I was feeling very, very anxious, and the wonderful Karen Gelpin taught me and my mum how to meditate, and we used to go to meditation classes every single week. It was the absolute highlight of my week because, other than when I was exercising, it was the only time that the the anxious feelings slipped away. And, yeah, it was just absolutely beautiful. And a technique that I used to use, or started to use then and still use now, is that I imagined that in my mind's eye, I used to just swipe them off of the screen and you could get really inventive with this. You could imagine that you had like a little folder or something and if you were worried that you that it was an important thought and you needed to do something or remember it, imagine just swiping it and popping it into that file. That's, that's ready for you know. Later on, um, lots of other examples. Uh, I've heard somebody say that they put them in drawers, that they imagined a set of drawers and they put these thoughts into drawers and close it back up again, ready for when you'd finish meditation. You can go and open that drawer again and deal with that thought.
Speaker 1:I've always been of the opinion that if it was an important thought, it will come back to me. Whilst I'm doing a silent meditation. I would like to be silent and as thought free as possible, at the same time giving yourself grace and permission to have thoughts, because we are never thought less, and so when they pop into your head, just kindly inviting them to be on their way, oh see, I'm going to say it again. The next one I've got on my list is the Buddhist loving kindness meditation, and this, I think, is probably best done as a, as a lead meditation. That said, if you know it, you could quite easily do it yourself, and it it encompasses anything that you could think of about loving kindness loving kindness for yourself, loving kindness for your loved ones and for your community and for your environment and for the universe, and it's such a beautiful, beautiful meditation and, again, if you've done my meditation training, I am sure that I take you through that one as well. The second to last one I think no. Third to last one is mindfulness. So this could be used like all the way through the day.
Speaker 1:So again, when I was going through the height of my anxiety, mindfulness was one of the things that was suggested to me, and an example was like even if you are, I don't know, washing up, or perhaps things like washing your hands is probably a better example. I don't know how many of you need to wash up anymore with dishwashers, but I mean you could mindfully load the dishwasher as well, but with the, the with the washing of your hands, for instance, is thinking about a sensation of the soap, either if it's like a liquid soap being placed on your hands or if it's a solid bar of soap. Feeling that sensation of the soap in your hands, feeling that sort of slidey sensation all over your hands, really appreciating the warmth or the cold of the water on your hands, looking at the bubbles, leaving your hands and going down the drain, just really being present with exactly what is going on right in front of you. And another example of this could be a body scan. Now, I like to lead body scans. I like to take people through a body scan. I have a particular one that I run through that I adore. However, when you're thinking about mindfulness, to be able to scan through your body If you're feeling a bit clunky, a bit irritated, maybe there's aches and pains to be able to sit and just go through your body from head to toe and just think about each part, maybe you could ask it how it is, how it feels, how it looks, and really connect in with your body right there, right now, is brilliant. It's great. This one is a lovely one, too. You could lay down for Great for releasing any pain and stress and tension that you are holding in your body. Perhaps a really good one to integrate into your pre-bed routine. And, and again, something where you could add gratitude into tuning into your body and releasing any stress.
Speaker 1:The next one is a chant. Now, these I am not very practiced at, however, when somebody leads me through them, I love them, because you get to sing pretty much, don't you? So it would be somebody giving you a chant or, again, if you know it, having a certain chant and then having a rhythm to it and being able to hear your voice and feel the vibrations through your body, which brings a whole different element to it. Again, it has that whole mindful part to it because you're in your body, you can hear those sounds, you can feel those sounds and that's an absolutely incredible one. And the rhythm and it would really, it will really keep you focused because you've got something to say and you get to be right there in the moment.
Speaker 1:And the final one I'm going to tell you about is Zen meditation, and this involves the Enzo symbol. Perhaps I will post a picture of the Enzo symbol in the Far Too Fabulous Facebook group for you to be able to see. It's a black and white picture and it's a circle and it looks like it's been painted by a brush. It's quite thick at the beginning and it comes round to the other side and starts to thin out, and this represents emptiness, fullness, presence, absence and enlightenment. There are links to the moon with the Enzo circle, and what you do is and this is for very visual people this will be a really, really good one. I'm very, very visual, so when I close my eyes, I can imagine these things. Sometimes I can literally see them in my mind's eye and you breathe with the brush stroke.
Speaker 1:So if you imagine in your mind's eye brushing round this circle and breathing in, and then brushing round this circle and breathing out. And you can do this in association with counting as well, and you could also do the counting on its own, without the Enzo circle, I have to add. So you could start with a brush stroke round is a breath in, and that's count of one, and then you bring it back to the beginning on your exhale and that's count of two. So you breathe in again, count of three, breathe out, count of four, as you're brushing in your mind's eye around this enzo circle. And actually I'm saying in your mind's eye, if you want to get your arm and wave it around and paint that pretend Enzo circle in front of you, then absolutely be my guest. And so you're going to do that up to a count of 10. And if your mind wanders, then you bring yourself back to one again. And I have to say I'm talking directly to your ego.
Speaker 1:Now, this isn't a punishment. Coming back to one, this is just a technique to allow you to drop into this meditation without your mind wandering and just keep practicing that. So you'll do that a couple of times, bringing yourself up to 10. And then what you can do is lengthen that so your inhale and your exhale will become the count of one. So you'll breathe in and you'll breathe out, and that's your count of one. And then you'll breathe in drawing around that circle, breathe out drawing around that circle, and that's your count of two, and then you go up to 10 again with that. Again, if you get distracted, if your mind wanders I mean, sometimes I'm off, I don't worry, I don't know time works in whole different, different times when you're meditating, but I feel like I've probably my mind's been wandering for like 10 minutes or so bring yourself back, go back to one again and start again, and then, once you get to the end of that, you get it's like a reward to just drop into that peace, into that silence, and it's absolutely incredible. As I say, if you don't find that you can visualize very easily, then you can let go of the circle and just use the counting. The counting just on its own is an absolutely perfect tool as well.
Speaker 1:So I hope this episode has given you a good kind of overall knowledge on meditation. I hope it has busted some myths for you. I hope that it has made it feel like it is something that is possible for you and that you could see would help and enhance your daily life. Thinking about those benefits of self-connection, of social connection, of awareness of emotional intelligence, all of which lead to a much more stable life, a much more stable life, stable being thinking about the incredible power that it has to actually change brain matter and actually how simple it is to fit into your daily life. And if we take full circle back to what we very first started with, talking about World Alzheimer's Month and the benefits that it has for Alzheimer's sufferers and their carers, and being able to bring this back to you as a possible preventative for things like Alzheimer's, things like dementia and things like heart conditions, diabetes, strokes, hypertension. It has positive links with all of those things.
Speaker 1:I don't know why you wouldn't do it. I think that's my parting comment for you. I always have a free meditation. It's on my website, just katherinechapmancouk, and's a five minute oasis of calm. So if you are a total beginner and you would like to just start to integrate meditation into your life, download that and try and use it daily if you can it's literally it's five minutes and start to get into that regular practice of it.
Speaker 1:I promise that you will fall in love with the feeling, and for anybody that is. Well, I was just saying for anyone that is stressed or anxious or depressed. For anyone that is stressed or anxious or depressed I think probably we feel one, two or three of all of those things at some point, maybe even through each day. That tool of being able to just give yourself that five minutes of peace, that just love on yourself for five minutes without any interruption, is such a gift. Don't think that just because it's five minutes, that it won't make any difference. Really, don't underestimate the power that just small amounts of this can do. Obviously, if you can give it a bit more time, if you can give it 15 or 20 minutes a day or twice a day, the more you do it, the bigger the impact you're going to see and the quicker the impact that you are going to see from it. However, if five minutes is all you can give it, do that every single day and remember it as a tool when you are feeling stressed, when you are feeling low. Just stop and give yourself that time.
Speaker 1:It is so, so important. Do keep in contact. Let me know how you get on. I love to hear from you. Come and talk to us in the far too fabulous facebook group. Perhaps I could put my oasis of calm meditation in there. That would be easier to find, and julie has created a brain bingo to exercise those brains, so perhaps she can link that into the Far Too Fabulous Facebook group as well.
Speaker 1:Like I said, there is so much more I could tell you. There are just three things that I really think are important to leave you with. I didn't touch on the fact that it has the ability to change your brain waves and I, when I'm meditating on my own, I use binaural beats. I put headphones on and I use binaural beats, and it helps you to be able to drop down into the alpha, theta or even delta waves, which will help deepen your practice of meditation. So that's one top tip.
Speaker 1:The other thing, as I was just listening to this and editing this when I was talking about the chanting, it's a wonderful thing for people who don't feel like they are heard or that they don't ever feel like they get a chance to speak their truth or that they stuff down their thoughts and their opinions. The chanting, the hearing your voice, the feeling, the vibrations in your throat and in your body is very, very powerful for all of those things. So if that is you, please look into chanting. The last thing that is very relevant to our listenership here is how it can help you with your hormone regulation, how it can help you with your perimenopause menopausal symptoms. It reduces cortisol and anxiety, it helps your sleep quality, it helps to regulate your cycles and it also helps you to feel confident and calm.
Speaker 1:So those are my last parting gifts for you, and if you would like to know more about my beginners meditation course, then please get in touch and I will regularly run that and I would adore to be able to teach you and support you through the beginning of your meditation journey. So I will leave you here and send you big love. Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us on our mission to reach 1000 women in our first year, so share with your friends and family. You might just change your life. Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes. Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.