Standing meditation is as simple as it is powerful for the overall improvement of your health and wellness. It enhances mental clarity, boosts energy levels and promotes inner strength.
If you practice this pose daily it will bring a feeling of being more alive in everything you do.
This idea behind standing and meditating is that the more still you are on the outside the more movement can begin to happen on the inside…healing movement.
Build Strength
Standing in meditation you develop a better postural alignment, stronger legs, body awareness and a more relaxed mind.
There are thousands of forms of Qigong and most of them derive from this one simple posture: The Tree Posture.
The tree pose is where you stand while you have your arms up as if you are hugging a tree. Your legs are the trunk with your feet sinking down into the ground as the roots. Your arms are the branches and your hands are the leaves that blow in the wind.
Standing like this for even only a few minutes a day improves your core strength, balance, and bone density. You must use different muscles to stay standing still then you would if you were in movement or sitting on a chair.
By using these different postural muscles that are normally not activated when using furniture as a support, you align your body and stand straighter.
Since it is so hard to stand quietly in this position it calms the ‘monkey mind’ and brings more awareness to your mind body connection.
Doing this practice before bed can also improve sleep quality. Especially when you turn off all screens at least one hour before sleeping.
We live in such a stressed-out society and this stresses the heart. Then we go to the gym and do hard exercises that also stress the heart. As much as this exercise is good for the body it also drains the body of energy.
Standing meditation is a form of Qigong where you can realign and energize your body without draining it with hard exercise.
The increase in energy comes from correcting your posture. Improper postures drains and fatigues us because it slows or even stops the flow of energy throughout the body. In other words, improper posture creates energetic blocks.
Contrary to a workout at the gym during standing meditation the nervous system is resting while at the same time the body is being trained and strengthened.
References:
The Gokhale Method
scottjeffrey/zhan-zhuang
taichibasics/benefits-of-standing-meditation
bluegrasstaichi/Meditation/1st-StandLikeATree