meditation Tag Archive

Tips for Consistent Meditation

Here’s how I was able to consistently meditate daily.

  • The best time to start meditation is now. Start with the basic 10 minute guided meditation (Headspace if you chose to)  It’s free!
  • Be clear about your goals on why you are meditating. Is it for personal, career, relationships, relaxation or any other reason?
  • Do guided meditation in areas full of distractions (too much noise, movements)
  • If you have tinnitus, a low non destructive sound should help negate it. Surprisingly, I can meditate now without sounds even if I have tinnitus.
  • A familiar, silent place for meditation is desirable for starters but is not necessary. I do meditate on the bus or inside my parked car.
  • Comfy but not slouchy chair is recommended.
  • The most comfortable sitting posture for you is recommended. You don’t need complex sitting postures to meditate.
  • Don’t fret when you are distracted, because you will be, often and a lot. The most important thing is, you bring back yourself to meditation as soon as you notice you’ve been distracted.
  • Practice meditation as consistently as possible preferably on a regular time schedule. I do mine consistently in the morning and set alarms for this.
  • Practice “breathing in meditation” for a minute or two in situations you’re really stressed out. Mind you it works wonders!

That’s it! I hope you will start and enjoy the benefits of meditation yourself! 

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Meditation for Busy People (Like Me)

If you want a simple, actionable meditation practice to jumpstart your own meditation here’s my ridiculously simple guide for busy, upstart professional like me.

I once thought meditation is for people who have hours to spare doing some weird postures on rubber mat. Well, I don’t think I would be able to do those postures and I don’t have hours for mediation. I was dead wrong. You don’t need those bone stretching bends nor hours just to reap the benefits of meditation.

Before anything though, let me clarify something about my meditation practice:

  • I’m always searching for ways to optimize my time, effort and finances to achieve life goals. I read “optimisation’ books and resources online, snatched a few ideas, tried a method or tool onto myself or tweak it to my context. Meditation is one on these optimisation tools (termed mindful tools in this site) I’m currently learning. Thus, I can only attest to the result of my own experimentation.  
  • I’m not a meditation expert, nor I teach meditation in any form.  I’m not prescribing a particular meditation technique for you and your lifestyle. You have to find that out for yourself.
  • You might be tempted to ask but no, my meditation does not have any religious dimension to it.  I,  as well as many well meaning practitioners ( Tara Brach, Sam Harris, Tim Ferriss ) shy away from such undertones because no single denomination has the monopoly of meditation and its benefits. There are more similarities than differences you can find in meditation that cuts across beliefs and religious denominations.
  • The benefits of meditation are also not confined to a single method or the level of meditative practice you’re in!   Case in point, me!  I had all those benefits even if I only allotted 20 minutes of my time each day!

Having said that, I enumerated the benefits of meditation in this post. After experiencing some of the benefits I listed, I decided to include meditation in my must do tools daily.

Most meditative practice I’ve tried contained 3 basic foundational elements:

  1. The first element is on body posturing and finding an anchor to focus your attention. This rely on the body’s contact to environment and breathing.
  2. Second element is about collecting the mind, called “coming back” when one is distracted during meditation.
  3. The practice of “being here”, the practice of being mindful, recognizing and allowing  non-judgmental presence completes the third part . 

Let’s jump to my current meditation practice. This is a guided meditation based on Headspace Take 20.

  1. 5 minutes to 0 minutes : This is me settling on my meditation area. I often fidget so I make sure I’m well seated upright, free from distractions. 
  2. 0- 5 minutes : With eyes open and sitting comfortably on a chair, hands/arms on my lap, feet on the ground, back on the chair support, I familiarize with my environment. Then I start deep breathing.  After 5- 6 deep breathes,  I close my eyes with the last out take of a deep breath.
  3. ~5-10 minutes : I return  to my normal, regular breathing. I use the five senses to be “aware” of my surroundings- the feet on the floor, my back on the chair, those smells in the air, the sounds I hear. Then I go on identifying my present emotional state and feelings, doing a quick head to toe scan for any discomforts. The idea is to acknowledge these stimulus but not being judgmental about it. It is in this part also where I clarify my goals on why I am meditating.
  4. ~10-15 minutes: All about breathing- taking note of the intake and out take, how regular or irregular it is and where is breathing felt on my body. Then I start counting my breaths from 1- 5, then going back to 1 and start counting again. If I’m distracted, I just going back to one and start counting again. The “bringing back” exercise is very important here. Some practitioners consider meditation a success if you are able to “come back” from distractions !
  5. ~15-17 minutes : I let go any control of my thoughts. I just let my mind to do what it wants to do or what it wants to think.
  6. 17-20 minutes: I bring back my mind to my anchor points– breathing, environmental stimuli etc, making sure I am aware again of my environment. Once I do, I open my eyes, blink and remain seated while focusing on what I’d be doing next. After that, I’d do a bit of upper body stretch then get on with my daily activity.

    If  you noticed all of these foundational elements (plus some) are in my meditation practice. You can copy and tweak this to your liking. Better yet, try first Headspace Take 10 before jumping deeper into meditation. I listed tips on meditation in this post. For more tips, tools and updates on meditation, do subscribe to this blog and get it right in your email.

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    How Meditation “Win the Day” for Me

    I started with a ten minute guided meditation just a few months back. I’m now on Day 20 of a longer Take 20 minutes guided meditation.  My meditation routine is far from perfect (not one are, according to many veteran meditation practitioners) but I plan on continuing this habit. Here’s why:

    I started with Headspace‘s ten minute guided meditation (Take 10)  just a few months back. I’m now on day 20 of a longer, Take 20 minutes guided meditation.  My meditation is far from perfect (none are, according to many veteran meditation practitioners) but I plan on continuing this habit. If you are wondering what made me take on this habit, here’s why:

    1. Laser sharp focus to what I value most– family, career, education, finances and advocacies. I could analyze efforts and results calmly and start with actionable steps right away.  Finding balance between too much analysing and decision making paralysis also improved noticeably!
    2. Decluttered my life – together with journaling, I’ve cut down excesses like unnecessary expenses and mindless going outs.  I also had some success on achieving my low information diet goals like reducing TV time and social media glut. For example, I managed to take off  1,000+ friends on FB without noticeable effects on my social media advocacies.
    3. Balanced Optimism– I’m taking every information as constructive as possible, avoid whining or debating minutiae and would rather find solutions or actionable steps.
    4. Boost in energy level with less caffeine.  Brought my caffeine sensitivity level down (3 cups) but added a kicking hour to my productive day.
    5. Patience– able to could withstand mean people, events or happenings longer. I empathize more than before. 🙂
    6. Creative thinking and doing. I went back to actively finding solutions myself to challenges I used to outsource before. Read on reports and papers meticulously than before. Renewed interest in fixing things around- appliances, furnitures and hacking ones I needed. I also had more time to read books!

    My routine is so simple I could meditate while inside a bus, inside my parked car or just about anywhere you’re comfortably seated!  So give meditation a shot! Take the simplest meditation to follow and stick to it even just for ten days.

    Interested what or how I do my meditation routine? Stay tuned for my next post on this.

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