I Challenged Myself To Meditate Daily. It Was Life-Changing
For the last year, I stopped meditating daily at the height of the worst year of my life, and it was a disaster.
But why did I stop?
Getting off track with habits that are good for us is something I hear about far too often. It’s easy to get off track when we’re busy and try to tackle too many things at once. Some practices are worth the effort though.
We all have a superpower waiting dormant within us that will defend us from burnout and enhance our focus to be laser-sharp.
Ever since I learned about the value of meditation and how it improves our brains in psychology class close to 15 years ago, I’ve appreciated the power that comes from this skill of honing our focus on the present moment and taming our thoughts.
It not only allows us to focus better, but it opens a whole world of physical and mental capacities that are untapped within us by making the flow state more accessible. Through learning to meditate I was able to push myself physically beyond what my body is normally capable of in training and competing as a strongman. Not being the typical body type for the sport, I’ve always attributed a big part of my success to my mental training to perform so well in competition.
But meditation isn’t only about getting your body to do things physically beyond your normal means, I also become so much more mentally resilient to stressful situations through learning how to hold my focus in the present moment instead of ruminating about the past or getting anxiously caught up in future what ifs.
And for the last year, I let my practice slip. I was regularly having panic attacks and uncontrollable anger at the slightest inconvenience, and I was an emotional mess. A big part of the reason I stopped meditating consistently is the same excuse most of us have about it when we say that there’s no point in meditating because we just can’t get our mind to turn off or we don’t have the time.
I knew I needed to make a change and I went back to the drawing board to figure out a solution.
I started using the Muse Headband daily again at the start of this year. The Muse Headband looks like a pair of sunglasses you put on behind your ears and across your forehead that reads your brainwaves and provides immediate sound feedback while you’re meditating. I figured the advantage to using the Muse is that it helps to guide your brain into a calmer state and gives you a follow up report of what your brain was doing during the meditation session.
Imagine the soundscape of sitting on a beach and listening to the waves and wind on the water. As you calm your brainwaves into a meditative state the wind settles and the waves get softer. You hear birds chirp as a reward signal that you’ve reached a meditative state. When you get distracted, like when you start thinking about the next task on your todo list, a future event, or any other thought, the wind picks up and the waves get rougher, immediately signalling to bring your attention back to the present moment.
I had forgotten how great it was to meditate and the joy of the soundscapes in Muse. There’s a blissful feeling that comes after meditation that you carry with you throughout the whole day. And with time, you start to reign in those intrusive thoughts pulling you out of flow and the present moment. Thankfully, and even more important to me, my emotions are back under control and I am far less anxious.
The skill and practice of meditation will make virtually everything else in your life better.
This can look like sitting cross-legged and doing a formal practice that you’d picture in your mind when you describe meditation, or it can look however you need it to be comfortable enough to keep it going consistently.
I’ll let you in on a little secret, I lay down on my bed when meditating and turn it into a replacement for an afternoon nap. When I started back up I had just herniated a disc in my lower back so sitting upright was out of the question and if that had to be a prerequisite of meditating then I’d be in too much pain to keep it up.
I’d suggest starting with more traditional meditation though. You’ll probably want to be in a comfortable position, seated or lying down is preferable to draw your attention to what your thoughts are doing in a non-judging way or focusing on your breathing.
For now, make your plan to meditate every day this week.
Then try to extend it to 30 days. The difference might be so subtle you hardly notice, but it’s life-changing and well worth it.