Good Habits: Meditation

I had mentioned back in October that I was assigning myself the resolution to acquire and maintain one new good habit each month.  I am pleased to note that my October and November habits, while kinda small boring things (November was consistently getting out of bed before 7:30am) have gone very well.

I'd been casting about a bit for a good habit for December, and the internet cookie demons that follow my Google searches and subconscious thoughts put an app called Headspace in front of my face.  I had been considering taking up some light form of meditation, and Headspace is an app that provides resources to help towards that very goal.

So far, it's been going very well, and I think I owe the success in some part to a co-worker I had once upon a time.

Years ago, upon remarking that I'd been having some serious trouble sleeping because I couldn't get my brain to simmer down and rest, said co-worker recommended meditation.  I felt like that was extreme and silly, but he described to me the most basic form of meditation--just focusing very specifically on breathing and what it felt like to breathe.

I took this up on the many nights when I encountered trouble sleeping.  When ever I felt my mind wander, I would direct it again to consider very specifically what it felt like to breathe.  I had remarkable success with this for the considerable majority of my troubled nights.

And so, these short daily sessions (over the course of a week I've progressed myself from three to ten minutes daily) have seemed very familiar and comfortable to me.  And I find this quite an easy thing to do as part of my new, stable evening routine.

In short, it's been a pretty positive experience so far, and I find the app and the gentleman guiding me through the app to be quite pleasant.

www.Headspace.com

Update (12/19/18)

Meditation with the app has been pretty successful.  This week, I tried to transition to self-directed meditation and... it's MUCH harder.  I'm finding that either my brain goes off on 5-10 minute tangents that I can't track back to their starting point or I fall asleep and just wake up the next morning slightly befuddled.  It's definitely a journey.