Routinely meditating is something I’ve wanted to do for years. Movies and comics made the idea of becoming zen and wise while having extreme focus in combat very appealing. I also, by human standards, have a terrible attention span. For no reason at all it just so happens that now, within the last few months, I have started to – or at least tried to maintain meditating on a daily basis.

And you should too.

Since I started meditating, I feel more productive, I am better at dealing with stress and/or anxiety, and I also genuinely feel zen – at least 5 minutes a day. I also find it easier to manage distractions so it’s easier for me to settle into a task once I’ve begun (hence the existence of this very late post).

It wasn’t always easy however, I thought it was all about sitting down, closing your eyes and then just intensely THINKING about something simple and mundane, like a naked flame. Now keeping this up for 5 minutes will just make you frustrated and feel bad for literally failing to think. I soon realized I was going about it incorrectly.

Meditation isn’t actually about becoming MORE focused or somehow becoming more attuned to what you’re currently doing – It’s about control over your thoughts.
A better method for meditating is too simply think without much effort about a particular idea, concept or phrase and once an irrelevant thought inevitably comes to mind, you gently dismiss it. To start, just sit comfortably, close your eyes and simply breathe (don’t mess this up) and count every exhale and inhale. Once the count gets to 10 I start from 1 again. If you think of something else, simply let the thought pass or let it play out and then start from 1 again. It’s simple and it works.

Of course, it will take some time getting into the routine of meditating daily and I would recommend trying to do it first thing in the morning. The results are obvious. I’m more productive the days I do meditate than the days I don’t. I’m more aware of when I’m distracted compared to when I’m not. But perhaps the biggest change for me is the positivity. Negative and disheartening thoughts can appear at any time with no warning. Through meditation, you can allow these thoughts to pass or stop them taking over.

This is reason enough to meditate.

Things aren’t always as they seem and keeping calm has helped me remember that. Sometimes simply taking a deep breath and relaxing for 10 seconds can remind you what’s really going on, you can be sitting somewhere frustrated and anxious, and that will cloud your mind when you’re really just lying in bed, or sitting in a classroom or outside in the park. The reality is that the danger is in your head and the only thing that matters in that situation is YOU and the coolness you bring. If more people meditated, I genuinely think we wouldn’t become as agitated or aggressive and even begin to appreciate and reflect on some of the great stuff that our mind makes invisible. Give it a try sometime.

Thanks for reading. Sorry for the late (really very extremely late) post but I’m hoping to make it a habit again. I mentioned my attention span was weak and so it was but I’m back and hopefully, I can gain some momentum with my posts.