Imagine having the feelings of joy, creativity, and confidence. These are wonderful, soothing feelings that we need every day especially during a personal downturn, loss of income, stress, or pain. How can we do this? It’s through meditation or what I call alpha-brainwave time.
Imagine having the feelings of joy, creativity, and confidence. These are wonderful, soothing feelings that we need every day especially during a personal downturn, loss of income, stress, or pain. How can we do this? It’s through meditation or what I call alpha-brainwave time.
What’s alpha-brainwave time? It’s day dreaming. It’s meditation. It’s time when you are experiencing alpha brainwaves. We have several brainwave frequencies. Beta brainwave activity occurs during our typical waking day. Alpha brainwaves and theta brainwaves occur during light and moderate sleep. We require 15 minutes of very slow delta waves for deep sleep every night. Gamma waves are fast and may occur during peak performance. Wake up and unlock the benefits of alpha brainwaves. You can also learn to be in a theta brainwave state while awake for even greater benefits.
How do you do alpha-brainwave time? The traditional way is with sitting, eyes-closed meditation, which continues to be the gold standard. I prefer new eyes-open meditation that you can do while sitting, walking in the woods, walking or slowly jogging on a treadmill, swimming or during yoga. The Norwegians have a term “Friluftsliv” which is the alpha-brainwave feeling that develops being outside in free air.
5 benefits from alpha-brainwave time. First, alpha-brainwave time decreases stress by lowering your blood adrenaline levels. You go from the flight-or-fight state to the stay-and-play state. Second, meditation releases feel-good neurotransmitters and hormones including endorphin, dopamine, and serotonin. Third, meditation balances your left and right side of the brain. We need the left brain to function in society, but it’s rigid and dominant. Meditation shifts some of this activity to the right brain – the social and creative brain making a more enjoyable day. Fourth, people may depend on outside activities for pleasure and enjoyment, but this is an inside job – meditation brings that pleasure inside with no need for outside forces. Finally, science-based benefits of alpha-brainwave time include increasing mirror-neuron function that improves social interaction and increasing the life of telomeres at the end of your chromosomes for increased lifespan.
Take action: Learn everything you can about alpha-brainwave time and meditation. Learn the different ways and find one that is best for you. Give yourself 15 to 20 minutes of alpha-brainwave time every day and especially when you face the inevitable personal downturns and stress. Alpha-brainwave time will give you energy, confidence, and joy. If you wish, watch “Who Knew Life was so Easy?“
Gary Epler
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st-selling author of “Fuel for Life: Level-10 Energy” and upcoming book: “Universal Path to Health and Happiness: 15 Practices throughout the world.”