For centuries, meditation has been the cure to stress, anxiety, and all kinds of worldly worries. If you have been practicing religions such as Buddhism, you would agree with this.
Fortunately, in recent years, meditation has spread beyond the confines of religious boundaries, and all who feel the need for it can practice it.
One of these stress-reducing meditations is the standing pose meditation.
Have you ever wondered how to meditate while standing up? Have you ever considered that you can do so?
Well, if you’re interested in learning more, here is an entire guide to standing pose meditation, its postures, and its benefits.
What is standing pose meditation?
Developed in China by masters of meditation and acupuncture, this meditation pose is also called ‘Zhan Zhuang’. It is a powerful healing method and consistently increases internal strength, physical fitness, and the body’s power.
Furthermore, as it was created as a form of medical meditation, it has extreme power over helping manage illnesses, such as chronic pain or anxiety.
Lastly, it uses five specific postures to bring out and release all the stress and tension that has accumulated inside your muscles and body. This release is done through relaxed abdominal breathing, mental imagery, and awareness of your body.
Five types of standing pose meditation
As mentioned above, there are five specific poses in standing meditation that help ease and relax your muscles and aid you against physical abnormalities in the long run.
Remember that to attain results, you might want to do every pose for two minutes consistently in the beginning.
Also, these postures have the initial pose of loosely standing up and relaxing. So, before beginning, get out of that chair, and stand up. Breathe in, breathe out, keep standing, and read on.
Wu Chi Posture
1. This is the first posture, and it begins by bending your knees.
2. Keep your hands at your sides, with your palms facing your thighs.
3. Stick your elbows out. (Like a chicken, perhaps!)
This is, for the rest of the poses, an initial position after standing up.
‘Holding the Balloon’
1. Beginning from the Wu Chi position, raise your arms to make an open circle as you breathe in.
2. Face your palms towards your chest as if you’re holding a large balloon.
3. Start breathing naturally while you remain in this position.
This pose helps ease back pain and slows down the onset of arthritis, so if your family has a history of such illnesses, you should probably start using this standing pose.
‘Holding the balloon in front of your face.’
1. Lower your arms and bend your knees (a little).
2. Lift your arms as you breathe in.
3. Open your arms and raise them to face level.
4. Start breathing.
Once again, this looks as if you’re holding a large balloon. This time, however, you’re holding it in front of your face.
‘Standing in the stream’
1. Leave your knees bent from the Wu Chi Position.
2. Raise arms to waist level while slowly breathing in (keep your elbows straight!).
3. Your palms should be facing upwards.
4. Rotate your palms to face the ground.
Again, if the example of balloons is helpful, look at it in this way; in the last position, your arms should look as if they have ballooned under the armpits and that your palms are resting on balloons.
Holding the belly
1. Lower your arms.
2. Move your forearms to the front while breathing in.
3. Your palms should face towards your belly (within an angle of 60 to 80 degrees).
This position, more so than the others, is great in helping treat depression and anxiety.
Benefits of standing pose
Like all kinds of meditation, standing meditation also has multiple benefits for the human body, especially if you consider the fact that it is a medical meditation position.
Here are a few benefits that you might be interested in:
It improves sleep
Being too busy and full of tension may lead to poor sleep. And sleep, of course, is one of the best ways for your body to relax and rest. If that doesn’t happen, your overall health takes a hit, and you tend to become susceptible to more health issues.
Meditation, especially standing meditation, is a fully natural healing agent that helps you improve your sleep cycle and quality. It improves your breathing while sleeping, and in some cases, helps against nightmares.
It helps against anxiety and stress
Once your mind is super busy, and you just can’t let things go, you often end up accumulating stress beyond the acceptable limit. Stress, in turn, can cause or exacerbate anxiety, which as a disorder, can affect your life in many negative ways.
Meditation, as one of the best relaxing natural remedies, can help your body release stress, and therefore, help you manage anxiety.
It reduces the risk of age-related memory loss
Memory loss is common as you tend to approach the age between adulthood and the elderly. This memory loss can lead to various problems, such as confusing people and places, poor judgment, and mood swings.
What most people don’t know is that one of the causes of memory loss can be stress.
Thankfully, as a cure for stress, meditation can help you relax and lessen the risk of associated memory loss while also boosting your cognitive capabilities. It’s a win-win situation!
It improves self-awareness
Self-awareness can be defined as the ability to tune into your feelings and perceptions. It allows you to be connected to yourself and understand your actions, emotions, and thoughts.
This concept is necessary for you to live a fulfilling life and a way for you to learn to love yourself.
If you think you lack self-awareness, meditation is a great way to get started on it!
It improves physical well-being
Standing meditation is a form of healing your body, and therefore, very useful in improving your physical health. It begins by allowing you to relieve tension within your back and spine, effectively reducing and helping manage back pain.
Similarly, it also helps slow down joint swelling and arthritis, which assures you will remain in peak physical condition for longer than you would have otherwise.
Furthermore, it also increases your flexibility, elasticity, and lower body strength.
The Takeaway
Meditation, especially standing pose meditation, has many benefits, ranging from physical to mental improvements. And in this practical guide, you can find all of them as well as the details on how to go about practicing the standing pose.
Still, if you would like to learn more about meditation in general, you can visit Yoga Journal for more details. If your concern is about standing pose meditation specifically, Survival Fitness Plan has a lot of information on it.
This article is so insightful. Im going to try this later tonight!
Thank you! Please let us know how it went!