Meditation has been practised for many years. It is the recommended approach toward coping with life’s everyday stresses, including job, school, and family obligations that might result in negative thoughts. It is also well recognised that meditation can help prevent undesirable thoughts and anxiety.
There are numerous approaches to meditation. For instance, trying out various meditation techniques while sitting on the meditation cushion or lying down.
Why you should start your daily meditation routine by sitting on a meditation pillow? It is simple, keeping a meditation pillow under you while sitting is more comfortable than sitting without it.
Let’s look at the benefits of using a meditation pillow below in detail.
Benefits of using a meditation pillow
A meditation pillow can considerably improve your comfort and focus while practising meditation, according to scientific research. Thus, it is important to find an ideal meditation pillow and add it to your routine.
1. A meditation pillow improves posture
It’s difficult to deny that posture is crucial in everything you do, including meditation. Yoga practitioners always speak of good posture for successful meditation. Whether you regularly meditate or not, you would witness discomfort while sitting cross-legged on a bare floor.
Consider this. Your inner thighs feel pressure from your feet when you’re sitting on the floor, which causes your joints to stiffen up. Your legs, feet, or bottom can even start to feel numb. This is unpleasant for everyone involved and can defeat the goal of meditation, which is to achieve comfort and tranquilly.
In addition to interfering with your meditation practice, bad posture can eventually result in sciatica and other back issues as well as chronic pain and discomfort. Having a top-notch meditation pillow ensures the right posture every time.
However, in order to achieve your main goal, you must feel at ease. It is imperative that you meditate in a position that you feel comfortable in. During the whole meditation session, you should be able to gently adjust your body to maintain proper posture without losing your focus.
You are compelled to maintain good posture by keeping your back straight and the rest of your lower body tilted forward because a meditation pillow is slightly lifted off the ground. If you use a meditation pillow, you are less likely to hunch and meditate in a position that could leave you sore afterwards.
You can also try a buckwheat meditation pillow to suit the bet as buckwheat hulls provide exceptional support for your body and will properly conform to the shape of your body.
2. A meditation Pillow reduces Stress in the body
Other regions of your body will experience less strain if you sit up straight when you meditate. A big element of meditation practice is relaxing your muscles and skeletal system in addition to clearing your mind. The lower body, comprising the hips, legs, and ankles, are the areas of the body that get stressed the most while sitting, regardless of position.
It is important to note that sitting affects two important bone structures – the pelvis and the spine.
A spine that maintains its distinctive S-shape or modest bend is considered healthy. Activities like bending over, slouching, and sitting on a hard surface can all disturb the S-shape, which can lead to a lot of pain and discomfort. Poorly maintained meditation posture results from an unsupported pelvis and an improperly aligned spine.
Your pelvis and spine are not supported when you are meditating while sitting on a hard surface, and as a result, pressure builds up on these body parts as well as your legs.
Your pelvis is raised off the ground when you use a meditation pillow, reducing pressure on your legs, knees, and ankles. You can reduce the tension in your mind once you have reduced the stress on your body. One part of meditation is to keep the body still. However, if you are not at ease, you will disturb the other components needed to preserve your mental and spiritual peace.
3. A meditation pillow is advantageous to the beginners
One of the first basic postures you will learn as you attempt to hone your technique is to meditate while sitting. You must master proper sitting posture before you can decide which meditation techniques suit you the most. Finding the optimum sitting position for you as a beginner could be difficult. You might still have difficulties with this problem as you advance because it is a relatively widespread problem.
Beginners who simply practise meditation for five to fifteen minutes at a time might not experience as much difficulty as others who practise it for much longer. They may still get poor posture-related aches if they do it unintentionally, inappropriately, or without spinal support.
Adding a meditation pillow to your routine is the ideal way to enhance your experience if you’re just beginning to meditate.
4. A meditation pillow helps improve concentration
Two of the fundamental ideas underlying the practice of meditation are maintaining focus and concentration. It takes a lot of time and complete comfort to do these two straightforward yet challenging jobs.
Here are some tips on various meditation postures to help you choose the one that is most comfortable for you:
- Most people who practise Yoga Nidra meditation or Body scan meditation do so while lying down. Both types of meditation are highly helpful to practise before bed because it makes it much simpler to get to sleep.
- You are less likely to fall asleep if you are sitting up straight, especially if you are meditating and becoming calmer. However, using a meditation pillow can help you stay in an upright position for extended periods of time.
- Additionally, meditating while sitting straight up on a chair with back support can make you feel sleepy. It is advised to utilise a meditation pillow because of this. If you have an ailment (such as a spine injury), support is crucial and using a chair or sitting in the armchair is totally appropriate.
Not everyone who meditates is prone to falling asleep, but many people have trouble focusing and concentrating while they are practising. You are less likely to lose concentration and nod off since sitting up straight on a pillow forces you to keep a good posture. Likewise, paying attention to your posture helps you concentrate better.
In many ways, a meditation pillow performs all the work for you. It assists you throughout a meditation session by carrying out the following functions:
- Provides comfort and support
- Relieves the stress of your body
- Absorbs the weight of your body
As discussed already, correct spine positioning is also beneficial. A meditation pillow does a great job of eliminating these distractions from your session despite all the potential pressures that could prevent you from finishing your meditation.
5. A meditation pillow assures comfort
Regardless of how you sit, you must always be on your back while practising sitting meditation. In addition to being uncomfortable (especially when sitting on the floor), sitting on your posterior without a cushion adds additional pressure that makes it difficult to meditate.
So now you know that comfort is crucial while meditating. It is impossible to enter into a real meditative state if you are feeling uncomfortable. When you sit to meditate, your attention is already on keeping your body in a neutral position, clearing your mind, and regulating your breathing. The extra pressure of attempting to relax is the absolute last thing you need.
During seated meditation, using a meditation pillow to assist you to feel comfortable might improve your state of calmness. It may also make it a little easier for you to enter a meditative trance or become enlightened during meditation.
Conclusion
In order to avoid pain and ergonomic problems, a meditation pillow or cushion is the answer. It can help you achieve the right positions throughout your practice. Also, meditation pillows are preferred over regular pillows or cushions for the following reasons:
- They are properly engineered to raise the pelvis.
- They are intended to lessen and relieve strain on the knees, ankles, and legs.
- They are made to support good posture when doing meditation.
Every dedicated meditation facility sports meditation pillows for a purpose. As they not only make meditating pleasant, but they also aid newbies in creating good posture as a habit. Chronic pain and suffering are therefore prevented by using a meditation pillow. On top of this, you should incorporate a relaxing meditation practice into your daily life.