Music For Maternity

Archive for the ‘Relaxation’ Category

“Women in the music group also expressed preferences for the type of music they listened to, with lullabies, nature and crystal sounds proving more popular than classical music.” Half of the women were pregnant for the first time and just over half of the pregnancies were planned. The number of women in their second and third trimesters were more or less equal. Read more here…

Meditation is best practiced first thing in the morning, but can benefit you anytime you need it. As long as you are able to safely close your eyes and be still, you can meditate anywhere. Work up to 10, 15 20 minutes from that initial five minutes. If you’re stressed out and on the way to work, or an important meeting, that’s a perfect time to practice (as long as you aren’t the one driving). You’ll arrive ready to face any challenge – focused and energized. It all adds up! Read more here…

Concentration and mindfulness meditations require some mental effort (i.e., holding attention on a thought or object or maintaining a stance of mindfulness).  Methods of contemplation keep the mind engaged in active thought. Transcendental Meditation involves no concentration, mindfulness, or contemplation—it is an automatic self-transcending meditation technique that produces effortless transcending of the meditation process itself. It automatically leads to the experience of “consciousness itself”, without any objects of awareness, called transcendental or pure consciousness.  Read more here…

Meditation does not require an abundance of candles nor does it require money. Remove any thoughts of a culture-appropriating, hyper-spiritualist obnoxiously chanting and telling you to “repeat your mantras” and “find your happy place.” Meditation is way simpler and extremely rewarding. Research shows that meditation can help you focus, reduce anxiety and improve your memory. Read more here…

The most wonderful thing about meditation — besides its effectiveness in improving mental and physical health — is that it’s endlessly flexible. While sitting meditations are probably the most common way to practice quieting your mind, there are several styles of meditation, from transcendental, spiritual, guided, mindfulness, focused — including movement-based. Read more here…

Meditation has many benefits such as reducing stress, improving breathing and increasing your mental focus. For the less spiritual amongst us though, meditation sometimes involves too many religious or philosophical references. Find a comfortable seated position, then close your eyes. Slowly choose to concentrate all your energies on one part of the body. Read more here…

Currently children under the age of 3 are unable to receive aid for music therapy. State-assisted programs including First Steps and the use of Department of Mental Health waivers don’t recognize music therapy as a treatment option in part because there’s no state licensing to ensure the practice’s legitimacy. “It is not simply a musician coming in to play, it is a health-care professional coming in who has been trained on the impact of music on the brain or the other body systems regarding pain and Alzheimer’s and memory and with autistic children,” said Swan. Read more here…

Some say the only time we take a deep breath is right when we are born — after that, life and its stresses take over and we never breathe that deeply again. Read more here…

We all need help maintaining our personal spiritual practice. We hope that these Daily Meditations, prayers and mindful awareness exercises can be part of bringing spirituality alive in your life. Read more here…

A research study found that participants experienced less relaxation and elevated heart rates with some forms of meditation — love-kindness meditation and observing-thoughts meditation in particular. So if some days you have great success with your meditation session and other days you struggle to get through it, don’t beat yourself up for it. It’s normal, and it’s all part of the journey. Read more here…