Day 2 — Waste 1 Minute on Meditation Today
In the first article in this series, I introduced this whole 30 day experiment and how I got here. Today I want to share a tool for your mindset arsenal. You’ve probably heard the terms ‘metacognition’ and ‘mindfulness’ — particularly if you’re an educator, as most of our audience tends to be, metacognition is familiar to you. If you haven’t heard those terms or you’re not quite sure the difference, mindfulness is being conscious or aware of something — thoughts, feelings, sensations. Metacognition is a specifically being aware of one’s thoughts or thought-process. Mindfulness is often coupled with meditation. Meditation is like the mental weight-lifting that leads to the mindfulness gains. There are documented benefits to mindfulness and if you’re thinking it’s is a bunch of granola hooey, meditation has shown a positive impact on the autonomic nervous system and it helps folks deal with stress and anxiety. Why is this relevant? Both of these are essential to any kind of personal change. In order to change something, one first has to recognize what their current state is. Let’s take Jules for example. Jules is late often. However, she may not even realize it. She messages her friends or colleagues whenever she is running late, but she may not consciously realize how frequently she’s tardy to scheduled events. The same is true of Arjun. He feels sluggish so he drinks an energy drink. That’s the extent of his thought about it. He might not make the connection between his sleep habits and his sluggishness. To him, that’s just his default setting and his thought doesn’t go beyond that. By practicing meditation and/or mindfulness, however, both Arjun and Jules start to recognize how their behaviors are impacting their lives. This recognition is the first step in shifting toward the more desired behavior. “Webs, meditation is a stupid waste of time,” some of you might say. I thought so too. If there were two things I was *sure* weren’t worth investing in it was sleep hygiene and meditation. About a year ago, my anxiety reached a fever pitch and I wanted to exhaust every option before I decided to take medication.
Sidenote: Taking medication is absolutely a valid route. Some people aren’t born with the right mix of brain chemicals and if your best self is achieved via medication you should 100% do that and that’s totally cool. We need to be better about not shaming folks with mental health struggles and not shaming folks who take medication to help those mental health issues.
So I started using the Headspace app on my phone because I had heard good things (Not a paid advertisement by the way). I had used Calm before as well but more as a cool down after a workout. I started with just 1 minute of meditation and challenged myself to do it for a week. One misconception I had was that meditating meant sitting quietly with my cup of coffee staring out a window. I soon became aware that despite staring out the window and looking seemingly peaceful from the outside, the thoughts in my head were a screeching repetition of my to-do list, unrealistic worries, and far-fetched what-ifs. I started doing 3 minute sessions then 5 then 10. Sometimes I even do 20 minutes. I meditate while I’m on the subway, walking back from karate class, and sometimes just because I feel like it. The practice — because that’s what you’re doing, practicing — of meditating made me aware that I was ruminating (just learned this word) on these thoughts and creating my own subtext of stress. As I continued to practice, I started to notice the calm I felt and that I was using the breathing techniques when I realized I was starting an anxious episode (what’s up mindfulness to be aware it was happening). This worked for me. It won’t work for everyone, but I hope what you’ll take away is that it’s worth wasting a minute on today and maybe even for the next week just to see how it makes you feel. Take a minute to jot down how it felt in your journal. If you do it for more than one day, make a note after each session or, if you journal each evening or morning, log it then. To take a line from the Headspace dude, I’ll see you back here tomorrow for day 3.
