When I was younger and starting in mediation I had no real structure as to how to build my skills up. Most structure and education into meditation happens though religious organizations that I was wary of.. That was probably a good thing as I did not trust any religious lunatic to teach me without attempting to brainwash me, so I had to experiment alone.

One of the things that I didn't know how to properly relax and enter into the meditative state.

The first few times that you try this it can be hard as you have no reference points as to what changes should happen in the body and mind to make the whole thing happen.

With the passage of the years I have noticed that the body reacts to the meditative state and I can more readily discern the different states of being associated with the lighter and heavier states of trance that I have needed to initiate as a result of mediation. I have also been able to use concentration on some “moods” to help me to reach different states of mind.

But firstly one must develop the skills that are needed. I am a firm “believer” that meditation works well if the body is well nourished, as when I have had times of nutritional deficiency, I have found it harder to enter into the necessary trance state, as a certain level of concentration and attention is needed to make the meditation happen.

Most meditation I do is lying on my back. This is primarily because of back problems that I have had and certain meditation positions don't help a bad back! But there is one inherent danger there and that is falling asleep. However, I guess if my body needs to sleep I had better let it :) I will point out that when I am doing more ritual style meditations, I may use a wide variety of postures.

Meditation happens with a certain level of single mindedness, holding the attention on something and keeping it there.

One of the things that I have historically concentrated on was breath. Breathing in through the nose and out though the mouth, feeling the cool eddies and ripples of cool air entering in the nose and the hot carbon dioxide and moisture exiting the mouth. Generating a comfortable rhythm and keeping the attention purely on the breath. Try and keep that going for a total of 10 minutes straight daily until it feels natural. With practice, if you can keep the mind off the shopping list, paying the rent and mortgage and all that jazz, you will notice that the body starts to relax in a different way, you will start to feel the peripheral circulation “opening up” and warm blood flowing in parts where it has been previously restricted from flowing to in your daily waking state of consciousness.

Thinking using language may be detrimental to your progress in meditation, as that requires certain regions of the brain that are best left to sleep when you rare concentrating on meditative relaxation. But at some moments you can interject and use suggestion to make changes happen as a result of suggestions based on neuro-linguistic programming methodology. This can be psychosomatic as in control of the heart rate, or control of the cardiovascular system and the like or more organ specific work such as increasing the activity in the liver or aiding the digestion, or maybe you want to do an experiment with self healing at this time?

Other forms of suggestion can be affirmations or a imaginary visualized journey and visualizing yourself performing certain tasks to allow your brain to grow in some ways that are constructive to executing certain tasks. It is believed that the neuro-plasticity effect may take 3 months of practice to achieve statistically significant change in the brain structure as a result of meditation. Use it! Be disciplined and work towards results.

If concentration breath doesn't do it for you, try mantra and experiment with other altered states methodologies. Most of all, be disciplined, and work to wards results. (it can actually be one of the most pleasurable things that you can do alone!)