Meditation is a beneficial practice that many people use to focus on the present moment. There are many ways to meditate, all of which have proven benefits. Meditation can help you sleep better, change your mood, think more creatively, and improve compassion toward others.
You can also use meditation to transport your mind somewhere else. By adding visualizations to your meditation practice, you can meet goals, reduce anxiety, and reap many other physical and mental health benefits.
About Visualization
The simple and broad definition of visualization is the creation of mental images. Sometimes a mental image just pops into your head without trying. In terms of psychology, spirituality, and self-improvement, a visualization is an intentional act. There is always a goal and an approach to meet that goal.
Uses for Visualization
A person might use a visualization exercise to relax, detach from their current situation, or achieve goals. People have likely been using visualization for thousands of years, but for modern usage, consider the Soviet Olympic athletes of the 1980s.
Researchers studied some of the athletes after the 1984 games. They found that those who visualized themselves succeeding in events or even just in their practices had better conditioning and outcomes. Imagining their goals helped them succeed.
Setting and achieving goals is a primary use for a visualization exercise, but it isn’t the only one. You can use visualization techniques to reach a more relaxed state, calm the mind, manage difficult feelings, improve self-compassion and self-esteem, and for overall well-being.
How Visualization Works
The brain responds well to visual stimuli, both real and created by your imagination. The brain that processes this information cannot distinguish between real and imagined images. This means that by imagining something, you can convince your brain that it’s real.
For instance, maybe you’re visualizing yourself as a more confident person. Your brain believes it, and eventually, this can have an actual impact on how you feel about yourself. Or, visualizing yourself free of physical pain starts to convince your mind that you don’t struggle with chronic pain.
What is a Visualization Meditation?
Visualization is the practice of creating images and scenes in your mind. It can be used in several ways, for instance, to prepare for an event or performance, practice a skill, relax, or distract from a difficult situation.
This isn’t the same as meditation, but you can combine the two. Visualization meditation is similar. Using positive images, affirmations, and mantras for specific goals during meditation. Using guided imagery is a more active type of meditation.
During a basic meditation, you might simply focus on your breathing to relax your body and focus your mind. You can add to this practice a positive image, such as succeeding in a work task, to manifest that goal.
What Are the Benefits of Visual Meditations?
Visualization is a technique long used in psychology and therapy. Guided by sports psychologists, athletes use visualization to imagine meeting their performance goals. Musicians or actors often do something similar.
It’s not just athletes and performers who can benefit from the practice. Anyone can use visualization during meditation for many health benefits:
Improve Performance
With important origins in competitive athletics, performance is one of the most studied aspects of visualization techniques. Numerous studies have found that visualizing performance success makes a difference.
In one study, researchers looked at brain patterns in a weight lifter. When only imagining lifting a heavy weight, he activated the same pathways as when actually lifting that weight.
Another study involved participants visualizing an exercise or actually performing it for a training period of several weeks. Both groups had increased strength by the end of the training. Even people who did not physically perform the exercise simply by using their imagination improved their strength.
Achieve Your Goals
Using the same principles as getting the benefits of visualization for athletics, you can use it to achieve any goal. By setting an intention or goal and then using a guided visualization to achieve it, you increase the chances that it will actually happen.
As with performance, picturing your body doing and achieving something trains it to do it in real life. It’s no guarantee that you will meet with success, but it should improve your chances.
Improve Your Mental Health
Apply the power of your active imagination to improve all areas of your life, including mental health. A regular meditation and visualization practice is an effective tool to help you:
- Reduce stress
- Manage anxiety and depression
- Improve emotional stability and control
- Reduce negative thoughts and boost positive thoughts
Improve Physical Health
If guided imagery can help you heal from psychological stress, it follows that it might also benefit your physical health. There is evidence for this. If you can imagine your body healing, sleeping, fighting off an infection, or experiencing less pain, you might get some relief.
Visualization meditation is not, of course, a substitute for medical care. However, studies have found some proof that it can help improve physical health in several ways:
- Boosting immunity
- Managing insomnia and sleeping better
- Lowering blood pressure
- Reducing nausea
- Reducing chronic pain
These benefits can come from a placebo effect, but the reason it works doesn’t matter. Visualizing yourself as healthier makes a real difference. A visualization meditation can make you feel more in control of your health, which is impactful.
Boost Creativity
Because a visualization meditation requires the active use of the imagination, it can help you build creativity and creative thought. This kind of guided meditation can help when you feel stalled or need to create something. It will condition your mind to be freer and more creative.
Enhance Compassion and Self-Love
A meditation practice focused on visualization can be a powerful tool for improving your self-image and how you see others. If you struggle with confidence or imposter syndrome, a visualization meditation in which you are stronger, happier, and more capable can help you begin to believe it.
We can all benefit from a little more empathy toward others. To improve how you relate to people and to try to be kinder and more compassionate, visualize it during a meditation session.
Imagine good feelings toward yourself and others. Picture situations in which you could be nicer to other people or more understanding about your own flaws. A compassion meditation goes both ways: for you and for others.
Enhance Overall Well-Being
All these benefits and many more individual and less tangible benefits make visualization a vital wellness tool. It can improve your overall sense of being well, complete, and creative.
Visualization and meditation don’t have to go hand-in-hand, but using them together generates even greater wellness. Combine the creativity and achievement aspects of picturing what you want with the mental health benefits of meditation to get the most from both.
How to Practice Visualization Meditation
Practice visualization meditation whenever you feel you need it. The more you picture your goals, sense of self, and well-being, the better the results.
Choose a Type of Visualization Meditation
There is no real right or wrong way to do a visualization meditation. Some are simple and good for beginner practice, like a color meditation. To do this, simply close your eyes and picture a color you associate with a negative emotion, like stress.
Focus all your stressful energy on that color and visualize it leaving your body on each exhaled breath. Visualize a color you associate with relaxation and picture it enveloping you with each inhaled breath.
Guided imagery is a more complicated type of visualization meditation. This is when you imagine something more involved. For instance, if you are struggling, you might visualize your favorite vacation spot in great detail, imagining all the sights, sounds, and smells.
Guided meditations are led by experts or voice actors using a soothing voice. You can find a lot of guided visualization meditations on the BetterSleep app with various goals and imagery types. These are useful for when your imagination needs a little push.
Find the Right Spot to Meditate
Both visualization and meditation require focus and undivided attention. The more you practice, the easier it will be to focus in the face of distractions.
Regardless of your skill level, it’s best to find a location where you can be alone for some time. It should be as quiet as possible. If other people are home, just be sure they know not to disturb you for a while.
Get Comfortable
Once in the perfect location, find a comfortable position you can hold for a while. Most people prefer to sit cross-legged on a soft but solid surface. Use pillows and other props to support your body and prevent muscle fatigue or the very distracting pins and needles feeling.
Focus Your Mind
Start every meditation with calming, deep breaths to prepare your mind. Place your attention on your breathing until you feel focused and ready to start the actual visualization meditation. If your mind wanders, don’t get frustrated; just guide it back to the visualization.
Visualization Meditations to Try - Establishing a Meditation Practice
The only limit to using visualizations while meditating is your imagination. If you’re not sure where to start, try these guided meditations and meditation programs that lead you through positive journeys:
Autumn Night Visualization
This visualization meditation focuses on a crisp, refreshing fall night. During those summer days, when you find it difficult to sleep on a hot night, try this soothing meditation of a cool fall evening in the woods.
You’ll spend nearly 20 minutes in this peaceful wooded area with the leaves turning brilliant shades of red and gold. If fall is your favorite time of year, this is an excellent visualization for finding happiness.
Tranquil Lakeside Journey
This is a great visual journey for relieving stress. Imagine yourself on the shore of a remote Canadian lake, immersed in the sounds of nature and the feel of your feet in the water.
Imagine yourself alone but safe, in the wilderness. There is no one else there to disrupt you or to make demands. This setting can bring about deep relaxation when you fully embrace it.
Walking Woodland Visualization
For city dwellers who have little access to the great outdoors, this meditation will transport you. Enjoy the sounds of the woods as you imagine yourself relaxing in them.
This is another good nature setting if you need to remove yourself from your current location. Use it to foster gratitude, compassion, and a connection to nature and the universe.
Shine Your Light Morning Practice
Face your day with confidence and enthusiasm with this guided visualization. Picture yourself conquering any challenge the day throws at you. It’s a great way to start any day with positive feelings and a good attitude.
Tropical Moonlight Visualization
Take yourself even farther from home; try this tropical nighttime visualization that transports you to a beach under the moon. It’s hard not to relax while lying on a beach and listening to the ocean. At just nine minutes, this is a perfect visualization meditation for getting to sleep at night.
Night Jungle Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra is also known as yogic sleep. It is an ancient practice for deep relaxation but not actual sleep. If you want to feel refreshed and build self-confidence, take this vigorous journey through a jungle.
By imagining yourself surviving in a frightening, potentially dangerous setting, this meditation helps you improve self-efficacy, confidence, and self-worth.
ASMR – Whispered Secret Garden
If you enjoy the soothing sound of a whispering voice, then try this gentle ASMR meditation and visualization.
Some people respond positively to whispers and similar sounds. Combining it with a visualization and meditative focus can change a bad mood and ease depression and anxiety.
Soothing Savannah Hypnosis
This destination visualization focuses on stress relief as it transports you to the African savannah. A journey to a place you’ve never explored can be a great way to stimulate creative thought.
Visualization for Tinnitus
This is an excellent example of a meditation you can use to address specific health problems. Follow your guide through imagery that will distract you from tinnitus symptoms. It will help you get relief in the moment but also develops your ability to manage tinnitus at other times.
Visualization meditation works by helping you train your brain. Still, it isn’t the only way to get the benefits of focused thinking. Meditation has so many great benefits, and there are many different ways to practice it. You don’t have to limit yourself to traditional methods. Try adding visualizations to your meditations to see where it takes you.
