Walking Meditation Can Double Your Health Benefits

It's common knowledge that walking has numerous health benefits for your body. It burns fat and calories, enhances blood flow throughout your system, and improves your cardiovascular fitness. What you may not know, however, is that incorporating meditation into your walking routine can boost the benefits considerably by providing a spiritual and mental payoff.

It's easy to reap the health benefits of walking. It doesn't require any special gear, and it's a skill most of us have had since childhood.

However, if you combine this with meditation or mindful walking, you can get even more benefit out of this time than you would normally spend just exercising.

Walking meditation comes from the art of Ayatana; Ayatana is a Buddhist concept whereby you stay continually in touch with your senses. You don't walk mindlessly, but focus on every step and sensation. You don't have to increase your speed and even may walk a lot more slowly than usual at first until you are fully comfortable with meditating while you walk.

As you focus on your walking, take note of how heavy or light your feet are as they come up off the ground and then return to it after each step. With walking meditation, you want to be focused on walking as an experience. Keep your mind focused on the process; focus on the steps you're taking first with your right foot, then your left foot.

Oftentimes, traditional meditation has you sitting in a room with your eyes closed so that you can concentrate on mental clarity. However, with walking meditation, you need to see where you're going. This means that you absorb your outside environment and process it with the mental clarity brought on by meditation.

The ideal surroundings for walking meditation are somewhere peaceful and appealing. Your neighborhood park is good; road construction is bad. Your environment should be inviting enough that time passes quickly and pleasantly. You should aim to walk for a minimum of 20 minutes each time.

As you start out on your walk, maintain proper body alignment. Keep your arms loosely at your sides and gaze ahead of you about three to six feet as you move along.

Of course, walking will help your body and your health in many ways. It provides more serotonin to improve your mood as well. If you add meditation to your walk, your exercise program will become even more powerful and further improve your mind as well as your body.

Article Source: http://www.myaddirectory.com

Keira Adams writes about women's wellness, including meditation techniques. If you want to know more about this calming practice, visit Meditation-Info.

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