Life as a member of the IE community can be stressful—whether you’re a student or a teacher, one thing we can all agree on is that life can be overwhelming. Especially when unavoidable finals are upon us, your new Spanish credit card stops working, or Orange shuts down your phone plan for the third time this month. The challenges—both big and small—can be too much, especially as we navigate the obstacles of living abroad. Struggles are simply a part of life that we can’t control—but we can control how we react to them.
One of the best wellness tools in our toolbox is also one of our most overlooked—Meditation. This ancient practice has been a part of cultures for thousands of years. It’s often recognized as a spiritual concept, which is part of the reason so many people dismiss its benefits. They think, “This isn’t for me,” or “Oh, I don’t believe in that stuff, I believe in science.” While certain religions and philosophies do use meditation as an essential practice, this technique is proven to have immense brain and mental health effects. Meditation has been shown to cause less anxiety, depression, and PTSD, better sleep, lower blood pressure, and even improved memory.
Meditation focuses on clearing your mind and focusing on being present in your intentions. It’s way easier said than done—at least it is for me, someone with raging ADHD. And when I think of meditation, I imagine closing my eyes and focusing on my breath. But, after one or two seconds of focus, my brain wanders. After struggling with this quite a bit, I learned my first major lesson of meditation.
1. Acknowledge Your Thoughts and Let Them Go
It’s easy to start believing you’re failing to meditate if you aren’t fully present. With our increasingly short attention spans, shoutout TikTok, is anyone truly present anymore? Living in our heads has become more and more common. It’s hard to override our natural tendency to think and daydream, but being mad only makes this worse. I once had a yoga teacher tell me to allow each thought to float in like a leaf on a stream. Just as it floats in, it floats out. She said to look at the leaf, examine it, consider it, but then let it drift away. If that’s not a metaphor for negative emotions as a whole, I’m not sure what is.
Meditation can still be incredibly hard, even with this in mind. If it’s feeling downright impossible, you may not be using a meditation technique that’s right for you, which is how I learned my second lesson.
2. There’s No One Right Way to Meditate
After many hours of meditating in silence, I finally learned I, in fact, cannot do anything in silence. I needed structure to distract my roaming mind. Little did I know many different types of meditation techniques vary in their activities.
Some meditations are more focused on introspective and emotional elements. These can be great for examining our feelings and processing events.
Emotion Centered Meditation
This form of meditation focuses on isolating an emotion and reflecting on it. This could be thinking about kindness and all the ways you could implement more into your life or considering all the things that make you feel grateful!
Contemplation
A personal favorite of mine as it can often become an internal philosophical debate where everything I say is right because I’m the only judge! I’m just kidding. This form of meditation has you focus solely on a question or contradiction preventing your thoughts from wandering. I also find some of my best problem-solving comes from my contemplative meditation.
Photo by The OnBeing Project, 2015, The Tree of Contemplative Practices
Mindfulness Meditation
Probably the most classical and well-known form of meditation and likely the reason some people are so hesitant to try it. To be mindful means to focus on the present, with no thoughts of the past or future. In this practice, clearing your head means truly clearing your head.
However, if you’re like me, where beyond debating yourself, you need meditation practices that are more involved.
Body-Centered Meditation
Also known as a body scan, this meditation practice focuses on getting in touch with your body and its physical sensations. By monitoring how your arms, legs, heart, and even your toes feel, you remain extremely present at that moment. Just like when you hum, you can’t think about anything else. The body scan occupies your attention and keeps your focus on your body.
Visual-Based Meditation
Another favorite of mine and a great way to connect nature with your practice. Visual-based meditation involves focusing on images or objects in your surroundings. It often includes visualizing, helping you create a safe space in your mind to return to during times of stress.
But perhaps none of these interest you. Maybe you’re already on that influencer manifestation grind. I’m happy to tell you they got their idea from somewhere–meditation! 
Photo by: Positive psychology, 2022, How To Practice Visualization Meditation: 3 best scripts
Mantra Meditation
This has evolved into our modern-day version of manifestation. We have just massively condensed the process down, looking in the mirror, saying “You look great”, and hoping it sticks. True mantra meditation involves repeating a specific phrase or mantra and focusing on it. As the saying goes, energy flows where thoughts go. If you fill your headspace with positive words of affirmation, positive energy is bound to follow (well, hopefully).
The final lesson I learned about meditation on my journey was also one of the biggest barriers for me. How do you start meditating? While annoying, the answer is that you start by trying. Dedicate a certain amount of time per day or week and try to commit to that schedule. Don’t put pressure on meditation, and remember no one way is the right way. The practice of meditation and its benefits also come from the journey’s struggles. Finally, find the meditation that works for you through trial and error. Like a therapist or a boyfriend, you might not get it entirely correct at first, but once you find a good one, you won’t want to let go!
And lastly, remember—meditation can be anything! Any practice that draws your focus inward and helps you be present. If seated meditation isn’t your jam, try these alternatives:
A Color Walk:
Take a long walk and pick a color to look out for. Focus on finding that color in nature and exploring the objects that have it! This is a type of visual-based meditation that also combines something enjoyable like a long walk (might I suggest to the creativity center).
Breathing Techniques:
Sometimes, breathwork is the best form of meditation. Learning breathing techniques helps us breathe properly and gives us tools to manage anxiety. When your panic is high, box breathing (4 counts in, four counts held, four counts exhaled) is incredibly helpful in reminding us to slow our breath down! This helps us to relax.
Photo by: Psych Central, 2022, 10 Types of Meditation and How To Practice
My Personal Favorite:
Driving. Maybe this is a sore topic. As someone who lived in the land of traffic and nonexistent public transportation (shoutout to Los Angeles—lovely city, but we all have our flaws!), driving brings me immense joy. And as much as I love the group efforts of bus rides (like asking 20 Spaniards in broken Spanish which bus this is), being able to listen to your favorite songs while enjoying beautiful scenery can be a cathartic experience!
The point is there are so many ways to meditate and many benefits to it. You may have even been meditating this whole time without realizing it, and this article just rocked your world. So, while you’re refining your wellness journey, consider adding in this practice for even further stress relief.
Featured Image by: Positive psychology, 2022, How To Practice Visualization Meditation: 3 best scripts
