The Power of Meditation for Nervous System Healing: How It Works.
Updated: Oct 10
Incorporate our quick two-minute meditation method into your daily routine, along with our 11-minute guided meditations, to transition from a state of stress to one of calmness. By practicing meditation, you can effectively nurture and repair your nervous system. Take advantage of our Two-Minute Meditation audio for a soothing experience.
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Meditate and Heal Your Nervous System
How To Meditate All Day Long?
Let's chat about 2 Minute Meditations and long sits. Consistent sitting meditation times are important as that rhythm, routine, regularity grounds Vata, helps the mind let go of unnecessary thinking, the scrambling of... "what next." Sitting meditation times are also how we spiritually plug in to recharge--just as we plug in a cell phone to recharge the battery.
Long sitting meditation times are unnecessary, and for most of us, they are not particularly beneficial. The mind wanders and we follow thoughts all over the place like monkeys swinging in the trees. Instead, infuse transitions in your daily life with focused 2 minute meditations many times every day, throughout the day. You will be delighted with your return on investment as the 2 minute meditations will yield stillness and focused calm.
Saumya clients enjoy making use of our guided practices, 11 minutes as part of their morning routine and 11 minutes as part of their evening routine and 2 minute meditations. It relieves anxiety, improves sleep, elevates mood, increases focus and supports a general sense of feeling good.
Ok, what about the other 23 or so hours? How can we create and carry a relaxed awareness with us throughout the day? In other words, how do we remain meditative when the tush is not on the meditation cush? The 2 minute meditation technique.
Is it possible to weave a meditative state into all that we do? When we're working, driving in traffic, grocery shopping, in meetings, cooking? Absolutely! Here's how--2 minute meditations. It's as simple as this: choose your transition times and be consistent, establish diaphragmatic breathing, follow the 2 minute meditations steps (outlined below). Click here for a guided session.
Yoga and Ayurveda are sister sciences. In Ayurveda, the importance of creating and allowing for smooth transitions is emphasized--be that from Vata time of day to Kapha to Pitta, or from one season to the other, or one stage of life to the next. Cultivate awareness and connection to each moment, infusing it with gentle focus--AND during transition points--make the most of those opportunities and dive deep into the innate stillness within you.
If it's been awhile since you felt that that inner stillness, you're not alone. It may even be the case since you were a young child. Keep hopeful, things can change.
"Let's be honest, we have demanding lives and a long list of things to attend to each day. Where we can simply, let's do it--for the rest of it, let's infuse each task, errand, and movement with meditative awareness." - Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
"Two minute meditations are a way to build the skill of calm all day long. Imagine a pressure cooker with the valve on the top shaking back and forth, letting out the steam and pressure that's building up inside so the pot doesn't explode. Sound familiar? Yes indeed. The 2 minute meditations, are our release valve so we can stay calm, still, and grounded." - Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Before we cover the steps of 2 minute meditations, first, it always comes back to diaphragmatic breathing. How we breathe can change the flow of prana (energy or vital force) throughout our being and when prana is balanced, we notice that change in our life. When we use diaphragmatic breathing, we experience it as increased vitality, good mental and physical health, clarity, peace, and feeling like ourselves again.
When we learn diaphragmatic breathing, we remain relaxed, focused and less stressed and overwhelmed. That is every client’s number one goal, to move out of chronic flight-fight into relaxed, rest, and restore mode of our nervous system.
Change my breath and it changes my life? It may seem an overly dramatic claim, yet it is not. Without breath, where is life? There are many sayings in English about breath, we lost our breath, we catch it, we hold it, we take a deep breath--yet the breath of life--meaning something one depends on, is among the most profound. Breath is now something to connect with consciously.
Read Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing and Change Your Life This article covers in detail how to breath diaphragmatically, the benefits, and the qualities of diaphragmatic breathing. Re-establishing this natural way of breathing is foundational. If diaphragmatic breath is not yet a habit, it's ok, proceed with the 2 minute meditations as together, they will work it out for you.
Meditation Transition Times
"Infuse your daily transitions with 2 minute meditations. Pair your meditation practice to these naturally occurring transitions throughout the day, and you'll be relaxing your nervous system approximately every other hour." -Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
Here's a short list to inspire you:
Upon waking
In the shower
While making breakfast
Before turning on the computer
Before turning on the car ignition and after you shut it off--this is great on days when you're running errands as each time you get in and out of the car, you're doing the 2 minute meditation
Standing in line
Before and after each meal
Before the start of a meeting and at the close
Before giving a speech or leading a meeting or any time you may feel more anxious
After visiting the restroom
While falling asleep
Refine the list, make your own so it flows for you.
These mundane transition occur every day for us, so let's use them for our 2 minute meditations. Does it have to be exactly two minutes every time? No. In some situations we may have one minute. Go for it. Infuse that one minute or two minutes with your relaxed concentration, letting go of everything else.
When we perform 2 minute meditations during daily transitions, we're dipping into a meditative state basically every other hour and in so doing, weaving a continuity of that awareness throughout the day. Sounds too good to be true? It's not. Give it a try--you got this!
We All Have Time for 2 Minute Meditations
The 2 minute meditations wipes out the excuse of not having time to meditate. Clients often feel guilty and share that they haven't been meditating because they haven't had the time. It's ok. We live full, demanding lives in a stress filled world and we tend to put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. No worries. We don't need to sit for an hour, 10 minutes of cushion time is plenty, and in between cushion sessions, you're maintaining and strengthening your meditative state with 2 minute meditations.
"Let things be simple. We don't need hours every day. Try it out for yourself for a week or two and see how you feel. By incorporating our 11 minute guided practices morning and evening, and in between those recharge on the cushion times, practice 2 minute meditations--you will find the stillness you have been longing for." --Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
How To Do 2 Minute Meditation Technique
1. Sit comfortably (If sitting is not possible, stand comfortably - be practical, let it be simple).
2. If possible, relax all musculature and joints in one breath if you can. If it takes more breaths to relax, no worries. With gentle, focused awareness, quickly, lightly and systematically relax your whole body.
3. Now, relax your forehead.
4. Feel the touch of the breath in the nostrils, cool and dry on inhalation, warm and moist on exhalation.
5. Breathe slowly, gently, smoothly.
6. Let there be no sound, jerks, or pauses. If those qualities are there, simply note it and let it be. (Keep using the guided practices and in time, on it's own, your breath will become a seamless flowing river.)
7. Eliminate the pauses between the inhalation and exhalation. As soon as one breath is completed, begin to feel the next breath flow. It may take some time for this seamlessness from inhalation to exhalation to occur. No need to stress about it, or tense up around it, simply observe. Again, in time, it will improve and resolve. "Don't fuss" as my Grandmother used to say. "Just let it be."
8. Use one of the four thoughts below. Let the chosen thought flow with each breath, not spoken, not even as sensation on the tongue, but as a gentle, light thought in your mind.
- If you have a personal mantra, you may use it.
- Or, exhale "ham" (as in hum) and inhale "so." Let the chain of "ham so" and "so ham" flow together, one into the next like links of chain, connected.
- Choose a name of a divinity you prefer in accordance with your tradition or religion.
- Or, count 1 with the exhalation and 2 with the inhalation.
9. After whatever number of observations of the breath and repeated intentional thought you perform, observe how the breath, mind, and the word thought are now flowing as a single, unified subtle stream. Merging together as one, in union, as yoga.
10. Allow the mind to become an even flowing stream.
11. Maintaining connection to that stream, slowly open your eyes. (If you were in public and could not close your eyes, simply use a soft gaze as though looking thoughtfully off in the distance, reflecting.)
12. Resolve in your mind that you will calm the mind in this way at your designated transition times.
13. Whatever you do with the mind repeatedly, becomes the mind's habit. Give yourself this positive habit.
At present, disturbance, agitation, anger, anxiety, and wandering may likely be the habit, but in time, your innate stillness shows itself again to yourself, and peace becomes the nature of your mind.
Saumya Ayurveda's Two-Minute Meditation
How Meditating Can Help Heal Your Nervous System. When we relax the body, breathing, and the mind, we become present, centered, and grounded. When that occurs, we begin to deeply heal ourselves.
There is a saying, "The mind is more in the body, than the body is in the mind." The Saumya 3 step meditation process shifts us from fight-flight-freeze mode, to rest-restore-relax mode. Give it a try for forty days and observe the changes. The more grounded and relaxed we are, the smoother life flows.
"The breath is the connection between the mind and body, so by training the breath, we become calm, focused, and grounded, we slow down the aging process by decreasing stress. These practices are so simple and easy to have as part of our daily life. We actually feel and look younger."
- Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
1. Learn Diaphragmatic Breathing and Change Your Life. When we re-learn to breath diaphragmatically, we move from the flight-fight-freeze mode, to rest, restore, relaxation mode from where we want and need to live.
2. Free Daily Guided Practices: 11 minutes in the morning and in the evening, as anchors of your daily Ayurveda routine.
3. Ayurveda Daily Routines: Ayurvedic Morning Routine | 6 Rituals for a Calm and Centered Day
"Choose a couple of practices from the routines that provide you with the greatest support. Perform them while applying our two minute meditation technique and your mundane tasks, just transformed into a mellifluous meditation. This is meditation applied to daily life."
- Veena, Saumya Ayurveda
"Veena was able to help me regain my energy in just a few months and I’m feeling like my “young” self again! I love the food plan she designed for me, and all the supporting practices (am/pm routines, breathing techniques, herbs, and spice mixes) are so enjoyable to incorporate into my day. I highly recommend Saumya Ayurveda if you want to feel better and have more vitality.”
-Molly Rossini, Minnesota
Explore More: Ayurveda Breathwork Pranayama
"The mudra, mantra...WOW. This is so cool! I have regained hope. Something wonderful is taking place. You and your knowledge come to me after a lifetime of searching and prayer. I am forever grateful.” --Mark Hughes, St. Paul, Minnesota
“Working with Veena is incredible. She sees the possibilities that lay dormant in us, and is so patient and kind in sharing her wisdom and tools to help birth those possibilities. As Ayurveda is a living science, it takes conviction and discipline to change habits, to live a different reality.
Veena makes navigating the changes smooth and meaningful, inspiring at every meeting, letting me know that, YES, changes are happening! Thank you, Veena. Many blessings!”
-Kyle Sangster, Minneapolis, Minnesota
“It is with great pleasure that I write this review! Working with Veena has remarkably changed my life – even in the places I was unaware that it demanded to be changed! Throughout the course of four months,
Veena’s gentle and succinct approach allowed me to easily refine my routines into a more structured foundation that left me feeling more in graceful governance with myself – emotionally and physically.
Not only had she brought forth awareness in how I prepare/ relate to the food I eat, but she also prescribed me wonderful herbs to help calm my anxiety, detox my liver, and heal the ugly night sweats I’ve been experiencing due to hormonal imbalances.
Lastly, her guided meditations are a great grounding force, and I have since continued to explore the euphoric benefits of Yoga Nidra.
Veena is a well of divine knowledge, and her humor and light will be eternally appreciated!”
--Rachel Monson, Wisconsin
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MEET VEENA: YOUR AYURVEDIC GUIDE
Veena is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner and meditation teacher, and monk.
She is President Emeritus and teaching faculty of the Meditation Center.
Veena fell in love with the traditional medicine used in her family’s home, learning herbal remedies at her grandmother's knee.
An experienced Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, Veena’s deep, intuitive knowledge of Ayurveda empowers her clients to reclaim their fullest, most vibrant lives –mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Veena individualizes treatment plans to each person, rather than offering a one-size-fits-all approach, so it fits your life and becomes woven in your lifestyle, naturally.
Learn more about Veena's work and book your FREE discovery call today.
Saumya pack members Kapha and Vata practicing their 2 minute meditation during a transition from running around like crazy, to a post-lunch siesta.