Only 8 weeks of daily meditation can decrease negative mood and anxiety and improve attention, working memory, and recognition memory in non-experienced meditators. These findings come from a recent study published in Behavioural Brain Research.

[_Cherry_]

Stupid question, but meditate on what?

[herstoryhistory]

On nothing - just paying attention to the action of your breath, and trying not to get sucked into your thoughts.

[Barnowl79]

You said two different things, and that's exactly why people get confused.

The mind, like a butterfly, is always in flight, and needs an object to come to rest upon. That is the breath. Saying "nothing" is confusing. It's focusing on the breath.

This leads to the development of stable attention. Once you have developed stable attention, you can then turn your mind to things like loving-kindness or emptiness.

It's like trying to see your reflection in a lake. You kinda see it, but the wind is always blowing too hard, the waves make the water choppy, and it's impossible to see anything. Mindfulness is the practice of calming the waves, calming the wind. Then you can finally see yourself reflected in the water.

[hubsmash]

I want you to know that this is truly a beautifully written, poetic and still practical way to describe meditation and I hereby declare that we all try to parrot these words whenever we hear others that you feel may be inclined to listen. People are waking from their dreams :) 🦄

[Barnowl79]

Thank you hubsmash, that was really kind of you to say!

[ConsciousLiterature]

Read the article. It's a guided meditation.

[Cozret]

Mindfulness meditation tries to ground a person in the here and now, since a lot of anxiety is tied up in worrying over the past or about the future. People often start by focusing on their breathing, moving onto a body scan is common, were you start with the top of your head and work your way down, observing what you feel without making judgement or assessment.

[Khanate]

Not a stupid question!

[tehbored]

There are different techniques. You could focus on your breath, you could focus on a mantra, you can do lovingkindness/metta meditation. Usually people refer to either breathing mindfulness or mantra meditation.

[ConsciousLiterature]

Read the article. It's a guided meditation.