Meditation

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I've been doing a little bit of dedicated research recently, mostly through Youtube, various articles on the internet, and a couple small books. I have been experimenting with what I've learned as well. I came to find that some forms of meditation for me is quite helpful in easing the mind, a refreshing experience, which isn't actually all too difficult for someone like me, a beginner to do. I feel like I may have more benefits from meditating as I learn more about it.

Does anyone else here practice meditation? How do you prefer to do it? What does it help you with?

The way I have learned to do it, basically goes like this...

Sit cross legged, back straight, hands in lap. Clothes the eyes and keep them closed, focusing on breathing naturally up and down with the stomach in a way that feels comfortable. While breathing up, say inside calmly "Rising rising rising", and while breathing down say "Falling falling falling", and keep repeating. Maybe some stress, anxiety, hyper active thoughts will come to mind that makes mediating difficult, simply repeat what is felt as you would with rising and falling, an example would be while breathing up "stress stress stress" and while breathing down "Stress stress stress", the mind will kind of rationalize itself with that feeling, until it goes away. Continue with rising and falling afterwards. Eventually, the mind clears, breathing comes more naturally, without thinking of rising and falling, or breathing and that is where the mind and body reaches a deep relaxation.

I am doing meditation at the moment specifically to calm my mind, these OCD and ADHD thoughts and behaviors. Meditation seems to help a little bit for more than just the time that I meditate and I look forward to doing it much more often so I can fully benefit from it. So far my longest meditation session has been around 45 minutes, although I hear to achieve great results 45 minutes is not even needed.

Good to know that you are getting on well, meditation can be a technique to learn and I have quite a few books on Zen Buddhism meditation, transcendental meditation and meditation.

Meditation for dummies is a good place to start and it has some great exercises in it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEuxNsvPjww[/youtube]

These videos will definitely help, they are long and they have seven parts but they will develop your understanding of meditation and Zen to a great extent.

I'm a big proponent of meditation - it helps a lot! I actually became interested in meditation through Buddhism last year, mainly because I learnt through Buddhism (although it is NOT my religion) how to control aspects of my mind that were bothering me - like having lots of intrusive thoughts and flashbacks to traumatic events. I'm sure anyone with OCD can probably relate, right Pondering?

Well, firstly, it helps calm me down - I get very worked up and stressed and it helps to put things in perspective. Secondly, it generally helps the day overall go better. I make better decisions, I respond better. I am trying to get into doing Yoga every day as well, so that I have the opportunity to meditate and stretch. The breathing exercises are very useful because you can use them in stressful social situations as well.

Also, it just gives my mind a "rest".

I usually use guided meditations I find off the internet, but I would like to do more concentrated meditation like what you guys are describing.

Meditation is great and should in my opinion be part of the school schedule. Everyone benefits from a regular practice. Before I started to meditate I was stressed out, chronic anxious and over sensetive. It was my first tool to aliviate the challenges of being an Aspie (although I didn't know it at the time). I still remember how hard my first sessions were, when 3 minutes was a fight. Since then I have tried a lot of 'spiritual' (don't like that term) pratices - or rather self change techniques - but meditation is always part of the routine. Keep it up and you'll see an increasing effect.

Meditation is like weight training. One has to do it regularly to see results. It is akin to training one's mind, so it can't be done all at once.