5 lessons I learnt from 365 days of meditation
5 Lessons from 1 Year of Meditation
Meditation is never something I'd considered. I have an allergy to the term 'spiritual' and avoid anything that has a whiff of being unfounded in science.
Meditation is often bundled up with various religions and is a practice as old as the hills. It's become more mainstream in recent years as increased research into both the psychological and physiological impacts have produced some fascinating findings.
Harvard research on meditation and depression
20 scientific reasons to start meditating
What pushed me over the edge was Tim Ferriss describing his initial hesitations towards meditation as being worried that 'it would take his edge away'. But instead, he found that it gave him his edge back by quietening his 'monkey mind'.
Silencing the monkey mind? Sign. me. up.
Personally I was looking to minimise my brain 'jumping around' (multi-tasking) by approaching tasks more mindfully, regulate some stresses and wind-down to sleep better.
So in my quest for a quiet brain, in August 2017 I decided to break my 'woowoo taboo' and start using the Headspace app.
Headspace provides multiple streams and styles of meditation for different situations - from falling asleep to managing pain to sports performance. (Other meditation apps are available, this was just the one I chose... maybe I had a bias towards Andy's dulcet British tones).
5 Lessons from 1 Year of Meditation
Having the meditation app on my phone did not help my goals
My preference was to meditate before bed. Given I was also trying to switch off and reduce my tech use, these things do not go well together.
New techniques
Through regularly listening to some of the tracks I was able to use those same techniques but 'unguided' - this has been very helpful when travelling or 'offline' situations where I need to quieten my mind.
My mind is a vortex
There were multiple occasions where the whole meditation track would finish and I realised I'd missed it all because I was too busy thinking. This was always a sign to reflect on how I'd spent the last few hours of my day and whether I'd set myself up for sleeping success. I sometimes paired my bedtime meditation with journalling to 'close' the day - a very useful supplement.
Awareness
The greatest benefit and lesson has been to my awareness. I'm now much quicker to realise when my mind has run away, my multi-tasking has taken over or when I'm feeling overwhelmed. I can now identify, name and control these feelings much easier.
I am addicted to completion streaks
Which isn't a bad thing as it kept me consistent but there were a couple of occasions when a technology bug / change in timezone threatened my 180+ day run-streak and stressed me out... which is more than a little ironic.
Most importantly I found that the benefits were not instant and needs regular tries and 'fails' to find your own flow. The streak is vital.
What's next?
This year intend to build a deeper practice of meditation that doesn't rely on an app. This will involve divorcing myself of technology at night (investing in an alarm clock) and building new habits to allow for meditation at other points of the day (mainly in the morning and at lunchtime) and reintroducing journalling into my practice.
So if, like me, you find the term 'meditation' slightly confronting, it might be time to break your own woowoo taboo and give it a try.
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."
Baba Ram Dass
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