Meditation

  • Are you looking for stress reduction and relaxation techniques?
  • Are you looking for a practice that will help your ability to focus and concentrate?
  • Are you looking for a protocol that will best manage distractions and potential distractions?
  • Are you looking for methods to improve your mental game in any sport?
  • Are you looking for of blueprint that will facilitate your free will and essentially control your thoughts?
  • Are you looking for a fix for your inability to fall asleep?

Simple meditation is a panacea for most, if not all, thought-based challenges like presented above.

Many people are confused about meditation in that some think it is mystical, some think it is tied to a religion, some think it is complicated, and some think you might have to sit naked in a vat of chocolate facing the East. All of those thoughts are simply incorrect and not true.

Most traditional meditation does include specific breathing practices. However, there are at least 12 great books on what breath patterns and considerations produce the best outcome and health of the body.

After years of study, ZGA develop a combination of traditional meditation and the western world approach to ‘healthy breathing practices’- we call it Breathitation©.

Breathitation© can become a MAP (Mindful, Awareness Practice) to a healthy, relaxed, focused body. In its simplest form it is a simple breath counting exercise with a single point of focus on deep breaths and their affect on your body. A regular MAP will reduce stress levels on-the-course and off-the-course. It can become empowering and enlightening.

Breathitation©/Meditation teaches you how to:

  1. Lower stress levels
  2. Lower your blood pressure
  3. Oxygenate the blood
  4. Improve focus and concentration
  5. Get into the zone
  6. Control your thought processing
  7. Improve sleep patterns
  8. Better manage distractions

All stress management and relaxation technique clinics ( that we are aware of) use some form of meditation.

To learn to meditate, you don’t need an actual Zen master (like my personal teacher/mentor) to see of the benefits. You just need to read a few books, get some CDs, and practice.

Of course, to get the maximum benefit from meditation, you need to see a trained professional. The ZGA has classes in Breathitation©/Meditation, and we can direct you to places that specialize in meditation if that is the level you need.

There landmark book entitled “The Relaxation Response” written by Dr Herbert Benson, who was at the time was a heart surgeon at the Harvard Mental Center. His main premise is that mediation can prevent some serious diseases and can be also reverse certain diseases. Dr. Benson has 200+ pages with his research that lead to that conclusion.

“Relaxation Response” does not teach you how to meditate. It is not a ‘must buy’ book since most of it is just research details.

The best book to learn how to meditate is “Wherever You Go, There You Are” by Jon Kabit-Zinn, who is probably the leading meditation expert in the Western World. In that book, he references CDs for purchase that have programs to listen to with detailed steps how to meditate.

I also recommend “Full Catastrophe” by Jon Kabit-Zinn, which is another landmark book, that dealing with stress reduction. The No. 1 tool in Kabit-Zinn’s Stress Reduction Clinics is meditation.

Another book that be of interest to you is “Zen Golf” written by my friend and former business partner, Dr Joe Parent. I believe that this is the best golf mental game book on the market. It will help your golf game, but will also teach you about meditation on pages 68-83. The book does not use the ‘M-word’ because we understood that some ill-informed people attached a stigma to the word ‘meditation.’

Most meditation books state that you do not have a preferred set of guidelines for the breathing patterns. Several books specifically on breathing patterns suggest that we need to use the following guidelines to maximize the benefits:

  • Use deep or diaphragmatic breathing
  • Inhale air for ~4 seconds (try to fill you lower abs before lungs)
  • Exhale air for ~8 seconds (try to empty lungs before lower abs)
  • The flow of air should be regular with no bursts
  • If needed, purse your lips on the exhale ( a soundless whistle)
  • If possible, breathe in through the nose and exhale via the mouth

If you want more reading, please contact The ZGA for the titles. We have one book entitled “Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques Workbook” that presents addition methods to stress reduction and relaxation techniques including self-hypnosis, autogenics, NLP, etc. We feel that Breathitation©/meditation is the easiest and best to self-administer.