Until recently the word "meditation" only caused things like raised eyebrows, ideas of magical tricks and even feelings of irritation. What many do not realise is that meditation deals with mental power and self-control.

Our brain has to deal with so many impressions and stimulants that often we just end up feeling overwhelmed. Meditation deals with this sensory overload, allowing people to become both more aware and more relaxed. They live less on "automatic pilot" and learn to live in the present moment.

Meditating is any technique that frees the mind of unnecessary thoughts and brain activity. It's not an end in itself or a special experience, just an efficient technique to control the mind and to relax the body.

Generally meditators follow three principles:
1. Focus on one thing or object. This focus could be breathing, a repeated word, bodily sensations or even thoughts.
2. When the mind wanders off, it is brought back to the object of meditation.
3. Irrelevant thoughts and sensations are ignored. We still hear the sound of passing traffic, we still think of the jobs we will have to do tomorrow but these distractions do not disturb us.

The whole process is like focussing a camera. An object comes to the fore and all other things are present but they disappear into the background. Every time background objects distract us we focus again on our foreground object.

Meditating differs from other forms of relaxation in that we are relaxed yet still alert. The mind is concentrated on what is happening now. Every thought has by definition to do with the past or the present; by maintaining a continual focus on the present we reduce the clutter. Concentration is exclusively on what happens now, at this very moment.