Meditation/ Mindfulness etc

Meditation has been shown to have very clear positive benefits.

One caveat though: if you have OCD or you suffer from genuine delusions, meditation needs to be approached cautiously because in some cases, sitting alone with your thoughts like this can actually have negative impacts. This doesn't get talked about much and it needs to be said.

I think there are two streams of meditation:

There's the calm, quiet relaxation kind of meditation and then there's the more complex form of meditation that you find in religious practices like Buddhism and Hinduism, which has a quite a bit more to it.

I think that anyone can benefit from spending time in calm, quiet relaxation.

If you practice it, you will find it gets easier to do and you'll be able to do it in situations that are less than ideal.

If you are feeling particularly stressed out, tense, worried, preoccupied with thoughts, emotionally overwhelmed or similar things then meditation can help with this.

I'd say that, at least to begin with, practicing meditation is best to do when you're already feeling calm and centred. This will help you to familiarise yourself with the experience. If you are experiencing a lot of distress of some form, it can be a lot harder to reach a meditative state so that's why it's good to get practice in when things are okay for you. It's a lot like a muscle - you need to train before you can expect to do the heavy lifting.

You can meditate anywhere. You don't need a special place to do it in, you don't need a special posture, you don't need any particular environment. There are things that can be more conducive or less conducive to meditation though. If you have room, creating a designated place for mediating can help cue your brain so that it recognises that it's meditation time, a lot like how it does the same thing with bedtime cues.

There's really no limit to how often or how long you should meditate for. Even just brief moments of meditation can be very beneficial. I'd say that especially in the early days of trying meditation if you find yourself getting agitated or you have a strong urge to do something else, that's probably a good sign that you should wrap up the meditation for now.

Just some parting thoughts:

• Meditation and mindfulness is really heavily commodified. Don't believe the hype, don't buy the tools or the special programs or anything like that. On a basic level, it's just sitting calmly and allowing your mind to settle - nothing more, nothing less. There's no need to buy stuff because of it.

• Meditation can take on a lot of different forms and there are also more active types of meditation that can be particularly useful for people who have ADHD or who have physical difficulties with sitting for longer periods of time, such as walking meditation or yoga.

• Beware of the cults and the gurus.

• If anyone tells you that you have to do meditation one particular way or that their meditation is somehow superior to other forms of meditation, those are red flags.

• I can talk in more depth about meditation but tbh a lot of that info just serves to overcomplicate the whole thing.

Meditation is a good, good to do and good to feel.

I always do 20 minutes before bed and I'm out like a light.

Meditation is amazing for stress especially if you are good at ignoring stress and don't notice when it is starting to fuck you up. Its hard to pinpoint the effects because they build slowly but eventually you'll deal with some situation and think "wait, before I would have never done 'this' I would have done 'that' and then I would have to deal with these types of fallout from 'that'"

Generally like once a day for 10-30 minutes is enough to make a big difference. You can do it in the morning as preparation for the day or in the evening to unwind. If you have issues sleeping I'd suggest right before bed.

Just find somewhere to sit comfortably with good posture and no distractions. (cross legged on the floor or a pillow is generally the best) You close your eyes and think about your breathing. Try to sit still obviously but if you are uncomfortable do change how you are sitting until you find a good posture. You breathe in and out and if something distracts you from thinking about breathing you just acknowledge that you were thinking about something else and go back to thinking about your breathing. In .... and out.

It'll take a while before you can sit even a few minutes without getting lost in your thoughts and that's ok. The harder it is at the start the more room for improvement you have and the more there is to be gained.

I used to be super anxious and procrastinatey and now I meditate every day for at least forty minutes and I’m not anymore. I wake up at five to do so. I don’t (usually) do it at night because I naturally feel best then, and would rather journal and read.

Yes, it's helpful. Depending on your particular mental health profile, it could even be a primary tool for treatment.

There are lots of different kinds of meditations, and you won't be good at them at first. Don't get discouraged and say "oh, I'm not very good at this, maybe it's not for me." You need to imagine you're learning a new skill, so of course you're not going to be good at it.

There are meditations that ask you to focus on sensations in your body, or things or sounds in your environment. Others instruct you to let thoughts pass like leaves on a river. Some ask you to focus on mantras or imaginary imagery.

After years of practice, I still can't do some of these, but others work for me very well.

Based on what you're saying, I might suggest a meditation that focuses heavily on breathing because it will help calm your body which seems to be reacting to the stress.

But try out a few and see what works for you.