After four weeks of meditating, I have nothing to say for my mind is at peace and the concept of thought is behind me. Kidding of course. I really enjoyed this trial. Meditation has been something I’ve done on and off for a couple years, but struggled to stick with it. Beyond this trial I want to maintain the habit.
Presence
One of the key takeaways I have from meditation is taking a moment to recognize the present. Sitting still trying to clear my mind makes me exist in the here and now. My mind might wander to what I’m gonna eat for my next meal or that stupid joke I made six years ago, but the goal is to come back to now and let those thoughts go.
This is something I try to notice at all times now. If I’m supposed to be focusing on something like work or writing a blog post and I start to wander, I recognize that I’m distracted and come back to the task at hand.
Other Benefits
Being the nerd I am, I watch a lot of weird videos on YouTube, and if you follow this blog you can probably guess I watch a lot of self development videos. One channel I follow, What I’ve Learned, did a video on the benefits of meditation. He shared a very interesting study that found a pretty cool benefit of meditation, the impact on sensory nerves.
To summarize a complex study, brain scans showed MORE activity when meditators were exposed to a painful level of heat. Here’s the interesting part though, they described the pain as LESS impactful than non-meditators. I’m not a total science expert I’ll be honest, so I can’t say for sure how conclusive the study is, but it’s interesting.
There are documented cases throughout history of people doing what seem to be superhuman feats as a result of meditation. Fasting for extreme periods and facing harsh conditions seem possible with a trained mind.
In the end, I like meditation as a regular habit. It has it’s days where it feels more like a chore, but on the days it really helps, I appreciate making myself do it. I hope to continue the practice going forward. I’ve been playing around with a morning routine more, so that might help me get in the groove.
On to the Next One
On a related note to morning routines, the next trial I have involves the piece just before getting up in the morning, sleep. This trial is one I’ve wanted to do for probably about a year. I am going to try out sleeping on a Japanese mattress, a type of futon called a shikibuton. It’s a thin, relative to a standard mattress, pad of cotton that rolls out directly on the floor. I’m really excited for this one!
Trying Out Before Buying In 