365 Days Together!

It is embarrassing to admit that I cannot maintain a daily routine, save the basic needs for food and personal hygiene. More than two weeks ago, I happened to listen to an interview of Christopher Plowman, CEO of Insight Timer, regarding his commitment to a daily meditation for a year as a way of sharing his vision for a kinder and calmer world. I appreciate his idea and also want to challenge myself so I joined the group of “365 Days Together” on Insight Timer.

Last year I shared my personal experience of meditation and wrote the article recommending Insight Timer, a web app as well as a mobile app, available on both Apple App Store and Google Play. It offers free memberships for people all over the world to use its vast library of guided meditations, Podcasts, self-configuration Timer for meditation, and groups.

In general, meditation constantly on a regular basis can provide the following health benefits:

• Reduced depression & anxiety
• Enhanced creativity
• Increased intelligence
• Increased adaptability
• Change people’s neuro-structure to improve the brain health
• Increased empathy

Dr. Kevin Chen of the Medical School of Maryland University summed up some of the recent research on how meditation changes the brain. I reported the remarkable findings in Meditation can improve your brain health in June 2015.

With more functionalities and better userability, I predicted that Insight Timer’s popularity would grow. One nice feature of the app is that it reports in real time how many people are meditating at the moment. It used to be less than 100 when I first used it. Last year, it was regularly in the hundreds and sometimes over 1,000 simultaneous meditators. Nowadays, it easily has 3,000-4,000 people meditating at the same moment globally.

There were 697 guided meditations at the end of 2015, which has since mushroomed to 3,497 in 27 languages. Playlists of guided meditations are set up for easy reference that include Breathe, Gratitude, Mini Moments, Music, Mornings, Explore, First Time, Inner Peace, Sleep, Self-Love, Nature, Relax, Sound Healing, Recover, Chanting & Mantras, Stress, Binaural Bests, Ambient, Chakras, and more. It is nice to have playlists designed for Kids, Pregnancy & Parenting, and Movement.

5,000 people already signed for the 365-day challenge when I joined the group on Dec. 8. Now the group has almost 30,000 people. It is exciting to see so many people joining this healthy and meaningful movement. Hopefully, I can report to you that I made it at the end of 2017.

Please visit www.VioletLiTaiChi.com for more articles on Tai Chi, Qigong, and healing arts. Share the article on your social media to raise the awareness of the art. Thanks and Happy New Year!!!