My best productivity hack – The 5-minute meditation
It is like coffee, but bullet coffee. The goodness of meditation distilled in 5 minutes, from solid experience.
Long before meditation became a hot trend it is now, I had started my inquiry ten years ago. The technique detailed here is an account of what has proven to work (from experience, literature, gurus, guides and everything under the sun that I experimented with) for you to explore.
So first things first, meditation is not supposed to be done for just 5 minutes. But were it not for each drop, there would be no ocean.
And so I hope the effectiveness and taste of these 5 minutes would propel you forward. Keep you wanting for more. Affect a larger change. One that I have no doubt would, unbeknownst to you, trickle down to just about anything — from eating, exercise, work to healthy relationships. Its ripples would reverberate in every aspect of your life without you consciously designing for it.
And all that would start with these 5 minutes.
For me it surely did, the charts in an end-of-day meeting stopped flying over my head, accurate recall of esoteric stuff from dungeons of memory when put on a spot grew, coherent logic formation even in emotional distress, processing power shot up in stressful situations, smartphone compulsion went down significantly without me missing it, better control while in and post the heated arguments to the effect that their frequency itself dropped down, quick recovery from lows and overall a better happier fulfilling existence continues.
So without further ado here it is :
Step 1
Sit with your spine straight, chin slightly raised (by about 10 degrees) such that head tilt backwards . This means no sitting against a wall and nor a chair with back support.
Step 2
Take a deep breath in through the nose and then exhale.
Remember how you clean your glasses. Trying to fog up a glass, but with your mouth closed. That’s how you exhale
Listen to the sound it makes — it might be very close to the sound of someone breathing in sleep just before they start snoring.
Count 10 exhales (inhaling as you please keeping count focused on exhales)
Step 3
Now shift attention to Inhale. The same way, deeply gently swallowing the air at the back of the throat.
Once, A) the sound and duration of the inhale matches the exhale and B) you feel no air rush in nostrils, instead at the back of your throat; you know you have arrived.
Inhales are trickier and would come with time by intuition once exhales are mastered. Till then, practice is your best friend.
Count 10 inhales (maintaining foggin-up exhales as above)
Step 4
Now shift attention to the pauses.
This is the magic.
Once you exhale completely, wholly, fully, and you feel there is nothing left in any atom of your body to be let out, hold softly. There is this space between exhale and inhale that you will feel will answer all your questions (and if you keep at it, one day it will). Linger in this space for as long as you wish, till the next deep inhale comes in on its own.
Repeat.
Conclusion
The eventual goal of this practice is to lengthen this ‘magical’ lingering — beyond space and time. Both literally and metaphorically, in this practice and in life — while eating, bathing, working, talking and even sleeping.
There is a moment between the ongoing thought you are having and the next thought that will come. The idea is to stretch that moment. That’s the holy grail.
Call it Reality. Call it Now. Call it presence. Call it the notion of ‘I am’ or Call it ‘God’. We haven’t yet invented the language that describes the utmost power of this experience.
After a few days of practice, you might even begin to feel some sensations in the middle of eyebrows when you linger in these pauses, continue to observe them and love yourself for giving yourself this opportunity.
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
— Carl Sagan
Exit the Matrix. Now.
Thanks for staying thus far. Now, the stage is yours. Tell me if you have done something similar, the changes you feel. If something here would inspire you to do something, how do you plan? Or simply add to my knowledge base, if you have something to share.
Gratitude & Sources (for those inclined to know, where it all comes from)
I haven’t just discovered this hidden pearl, I have dug it up from under the layers of knowledge (both ancient and modern), tested and mastered it in the fire of my own relentless practice and polished it with the wisdom of others to whom I feel eternally grateful for sharing. My only hope, in the same spirit, is to pass this nugget forward. While I can not mention all, for that will take a separate post, I will mention the significant ones that I also know are widely available and I highly recommend you to pursue/read for your own further inquiry.
My experience comes from ethos of Vipassanna (taught by SN Goenka in tradition of Sayagyi U Bha Khin), it also takes from the recent cutting edge research done on the minds of long-term monks to see how different kinds meditation changes your minds, brain and body differently as penned in the book Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson. It is inspired by ancient techniques & mudras from Hatha Yoga Pradipika and Patanjali yoga sutras and Sri Nisargadatta’s book ‘I am That’ . It is also informed by the neuroscientist Sam Harris’s book Waking Up which itself is a stellar encyclopedia of no-nonsense meditation. Thank-You!
