I have been intrigued by meditation for a while and researched it on the internet but although there was lots of opinion about people finding it beneficial there seems to be little scientific evidence on why it works. Being the sort of person I am this lack of scientific understanding made me quite sceptical and so I never actually gave meditation a try... until recently.
As my depression started to improve my thinking became more positive and so when I saw this book called "Meditation for beginners" with audio CD in a local shop I decided I had nothing to lose and gave it a try. Later that day I began to read the book and was surprised on how easy it was to read. It was good that it didn't contain lots of fluff about crystals, religion and other things I wasn't interested in and just concentrated on providing all the information you need to practice meditating. I was expecting a book that was all about the theory and history of meditation but actually it doesn't take long before the book starts you off on your first meditation and actually you could learn to meditate just using the book.
Jack Kornfield comes across exceeding well on the CD, his instructions are clear, sometimes contain some light-hearted humour and the pace is just right. I haven't yet used all the meditations on the CD and have instead concentrated on the first three of them. I had imagined that finding even 10-20 minutes each day to meditate would be difficult and with four kids I expected lots of noisey distractions but what I have learnt is that you can meditate virtually anywhere and with some practice the noise isn't really distracting so there isn't any real excuse for not practicing meditation regularly.
Since starting to meditate my thinking has become clearer, my anxiety and perfectionism have become easier to manage and my amount of patience increased. It is possible that other changes in my life have contributed to the improvements in my mental health and I certainly couldn't point to anything in particular where I can say it was definiately meditation that helped me but I do enjoy the regular time each day that I spend meditating. Even without any new hard evidence to suggest that meditation actually works I do feel much less skeptical about it's benefits and intend to carry on practicing.
I can certainly recommend Meditation for beginners by Jack Kornfield for anyone interested in starting out with meditation.