DeKALB | For Deborah Brandt, meditation is not only soothing, but also a way to connect with the present.

Brandt, a yoga instructor at the Campus Recreation Center, teaches a slower-paced Hatha (physical) yoga with 10 to 15 minutes of meditation at the beginning and end of each class.

Though there is no wrong way to meditate, students can learn by focusing on a mantra (internal word or focus), paying attention to their breath or by counting to 10 in slow repetitions, Brandt said.

“The focus in the beginning and end of class is to come back into a quiet state, and reacquaint yourself with a deeper breathing pattern,” she said. “Lie still and just tune in deeper with your body and your breath.”

For beginners, Brandt suggests meditating for only a few minutes at a time. Meditation can be done sitting, standing or lying down as a way to clear the mind. The mountain pose, a foundational pose, is a form of meditation done by standing up tall with feet planted and head held upright.

Some of the benefits of meditation include lowering blood pressure, increasing respiration and oxygen flow to the tissues, reducing stress, lowering anxiety and coping with insomnia, Brandt said.

“The idea of meditation came through Indian Vedic writings, to America through the Transcendentalists,” Brandt said. “Transcendentalist thought was here in the 1850s, but except for a few Quakers, the concept of meditation as a practice in people’s lives was not commonplace.”

Brandt said the Beatles’ Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh, was also influential in making transcendental meditation popular in America. Today, meditation for relaxation is taught to many elementary school children, she said.

Though, in India, yoga and meditation are taught as religion, Brandt said it is important for students to know that yoga classes at the Rec are taught as stress reduction, not as religion.

Sarah Costa, a senior speech and language pathology major said she has been practicing yoga and meditation for more than a year.

“I like [meditative yoga], especially since it’s a little bit slower, and that’s nice for relaxing,” Costa said. Suhong Yu, a graduate student and physics major, attended three of Brandt’s yoga classes.

“With the music and the quieting environment [in the class], I think meditation isn’t very hard to do,” Yu said. “You just need to listen to your body, like the instructor said.”

Meditative yoga is offered at the Rec Center from 4:45 to 6:15 p.m. Thursdays.

For more information on meditative yoga, call Recreation Services at 753-0231, or go to www.stuaff.niu.edu/rs.