If you’re looking for a wholesome hobby to pursue and enjoy, look no further than meditation. Meditation is one of the most popular hobbies around the world, even though some people do not classify it as a hobby.
So helpful is the practice of meditation that some companies are encouraging and helping their employees to pursue meditation.
If you want to learn more about meditation as a hobby, learn more below.
What Is Meditation?
Meditation is the practice of focusing on a particular object, activity, or thought to achieve a state of mental clarity and emotional calmness.
Additionally, meditation allows participants to train their awareness. The pursuit of mediation is a practice steeped in history and has evolved over thousands of years.
By focusing on one activity, thought, or object, you train your brain to eliminate the typical stream of jumbled thoughts that permeate your mind, inducing or exacerbating stress.
Some of the more popular types of meditation include:
- Spiritual meditation
- Mindfulness meditation
- Focused meditation
- Visualization meditation
- Mantra meditation
- Progressive relaxation
- Transcendental meditation
- Movement meditation
- Loving-kindness meditation
Can Meditation Be A Hobby?
Yes! Meditation can be your hobby. After all, hobbies by design are pursuits that make us happy with how we spend our time away from work, school, or any other aspects of our active lives.
Meditation can improve life by enhancing relaxation and decreasing stress levels, all of which will improve your overall happiness.
Additionally, a hobby is something we do out of interest and passion. Hobbies are something we are interested in and are motivated to work to get better in the craft or practice.
In this regard, if you love and are passionate about meditating, learning more about, and improving in every aspect of this pursuit, then meditating is indeed your hobby.
What Types Of People Like Meditation?
The interest in meditation is wide-reaching across people with different personalities. A survey by 16 Personalities on whether their respondents had tried meditation revealed that about half of their respondents had tried meditation.
This interest in meditation stands in spite of the respondents’ personalities. Some of their respondents were classified as analysts, explorers, sentinel, and diplomats.
Other traits that were used to categorize the respondents include social engagement strategies (whether one is introverted or extroverted) and people with thinking or feeling traits.
In all, the survey indicates that the interest in meditation is across the board, and more and more people are willing to try it. Whether you need to distress and relax or you’re interested in increasing in picking up a healthy hobby, meditation is a good choice of pursuit.
Benefits: Why Meditation Could Be A Good Hobby?
There is a wide range of benefits to meditating. In itself, taking up meditation as a hobby can be beneficial as it gives you something you are passionate about pursuing.
However, if you want to know what you stand to get by pursuing meditation, continue reading.
1. Helps Reduce Stress And Anxiety
Meditation has been shown to alleviate anxiety and stress. By focusing on one thing, you can train your brain to eliminate the constant stream of thought that cause anxiety and stress.
You can also induce a state of tranquility and relaxation, which further reduces stress and anxiety levels.
2. Improves Your Ability To Focus And Increases Your Attention Span
By training the brain to focus on one thing through meditation, you improve your ability to pay attention to a particular task for much longer. Additionally, meditation improves your ability to focus on the present, which increases your attention span.
3. Improves Your Happiness
Meditation also helps improve your happiness. Practicing meditation helps the brain develop new neural pathways that improve the health of the brain.
Additionally, it’s been shown to promote cortical plasticity, thereby improving the areas of emotional and cognitive well-being. Such improvements increase the overall happiness levels among participants.
4. Increases Your Self-Esteem
Practicing meditation allows you to learn more about yourself, especially how to control you’re your thought and emotions.
Consequently, when you’re faced with challenges and stress, you can control your emotion rather than lashing out, which in turn improves your self-esteem.
5. Heightens Your Sense of Empathy
Studies have shown that meditation helps participants become more empathetic to other people and feel more connected to fellow human beings. For instance, this study showed that people who practiced mediation showed improvements in empathic accuracy and could better identify expressions in photographs.
Other ways in which meditation is beneficial include increasing self-awareness, increasing creativity and imagination, and increasing tolerance and patience.
Are There Drawbacks To Choosing Meditation As A Hobby?
On balance, there are no drawbacks to choosing meditation as a hobby. It improves your overall well-being while costing you little. That said, novices can find getting into meditation a tad challenging.
The meditation market is saturated, and there are numerous options of guides, types, and meditation coaches. You might find it difficult to choose one guide and type, or coach to follow, resulting from analysis paralysis.
How To Start Meditation As A Hobby
Equipment Needed
To start meditating, you don’t need to invest in a lot of equipment dedicated to the pursuit. In fact, you can start meditating without buying anything.
However, if you want to structure your meditation by creating space for meditation with equipment specifically crafted for the practice, you can buy a meditation chair, a meditation bench, or a meditation cushion.
Additionally, a meditation timer. A free meditation timer mobile phone app should surface.
Start-Up and Ongoing Costs
The ongoing cost to participate in meditation is minimal. Once you purchase your gear and equipment, there isn’t much running cost to practicing meditation.
Obviously, to learn more and improve your pursuit of mindful meditation, you’ll need to invest more in meditation guides that cover different aspects of the pursuit.
This might mean buying guides or simply looking for other free guides on the internet.
Can You Make Money From Meditation?
Like with other popular hobbies, meditation can also make you money. Once you master your craft through practice, you can share your experience and knowledge with the world.
For instance, you can create meditation classes with a physical brick-and-mortar location to serve your community.
Alternatively, you can create online classes to help novices in the meditation scene get caught quicker. You can charge a small fee for the classes, thereby earning some money from your efforts.
Finally, you can create meditation guides and publish them on YouTube. Such guides and popular as they’re freely accessible to the public. On your part, you can monetize the videos with YouTube ads, earning some money from your videos.
To maximize your earning potential, simply use a mix of these strategies.
Similar Hobbies To Meditation
The most similar hobby compared to meditation is yoga. Yoga is a body and mind practice that combines elements of intentional breathing, physical postures, relaxation, and meditation.
Like meditation, yoga focuses on bringing harmony between your body and mind and strengthening your awareness.
However, unlike meditation, yoga also works to build physical strength and flexibility and improve your balance.
Assuming the different poses that characterize yoga ensures you engage your physical body. On the other hand, the intentional breathing techniques and mindfulness encourage yoga participants to meditate.
Learn more about choosing yoga as a hobby here.
Alternative Hobbies To Meditation
There are numerous other meditative activities that make for a relaxing experience. If you seek stress relief but want to engage your body some more, consider taking up gardening, dancing, walking, and meditative crafts.
There are plenty of ways you can engage your body whilst clearing your mind.
Where To Learn More
Due to the popularity of mindful meditation in today’s society, there are numerous avenues one can learn more about it. Importantly, there are plenty of resources available for meditation across the internet.
From video platforms such as YouTube which has thousands of channels dedicated to meditation to thousands of blogs and websites that provide meditation content and courses, if you want to learn more about meditation, the internet is your best friend.
Check out my detailed guide to choosing a hobby here for more information.