Raphael

Meditation basically works like any other domain, the more you practice, the better you get. So, yes there is a difference between 30 min, 1 hour and 2 hours. I personally never did more than 1 hour, but when you do it, you can clearly feel that it's not like 30 min. You will not necessarily see an "exponential growth". Growth is not exponential, I don't know if it is with psychedelics as I never try them, however, the learning curve has stages where sometimes you feel big progress, sometimes little progress, sometimes no progress at all, and even sometimes regress. But it's really like anything else, practice and put theory into practice. Take a lot of time, and you will get better.

@Siim Land I completely agree with this. Three months ago I was always dead tired and sleeping too much. When I choose to take 200 mg magnesium supplement per day, everything just improved: I have more energy, less fatigue, I'm more focused and can work more and better while sleeping less. Conclusion: Take magnesium, it's awesome!

Personally, I do 30 - 40 minutes affirmations daily. They are always the same, no matter the day. Your mind needs to impregnate them, so in my opinion, it's better to not distribute affirmations between days. However, I think that I have maybe too many affirmations per day (14 affirmations). Does anyone have recommendations on the limit? Because finally, it's a little like multitasking, the mind cannot do everything at the same time.

I recently started following Thomas Frank on youtube. His channel is dedicated to studying and learning effectively, it's a very good resource and he also wrote a free book on this subject. If your not comfortable to study, do not try to do it too much (like more than 4 hours per day). Have a timer with you and set a study time session, a good one would be 1 hour, or 1 h 30, or more if you feel that you enjoy it. But in your situation, if it's really hard for you, try with 30-45 minutes sessions, and then take a break. If you study on a computer, install browser's extensions such as StayFocused on Chrome, or Leechblock/Forest for Firefox. However, if your a geek like me, you know that you will find a way to disable this. The solution would be here to create an environment that would make procrastination impossible. Turn off your phone and put it in another room, and also cut all your social medias, and all toxic people around you. You should not want to study quickly, but rather take your time, be calm and relaxed. You can try to meditate 10 - 15 minutes just before your study session, chances are that it will calm down your brain and put you in the study state. Be conscious of what you want to do, take responsibility for it to not backslide, and create that magic flow state!

Hey, I was just wondering if there is anyone here that never eat a little dirty? Like really nothing. No biscuit, bread, ice cream, etc. I'm asking that because I'm a vegetarian since almost a year now, and I've been removing a lot of things from my diet. I eat very simply and I never add spices, sauces, salt, nor sugar. I am very thin and don't easily take weight. I used to go to the gym regularly, except since the beginning of that month because I have no access to it where I am, but I still train (less regularly and less seriously), and sometimes go to the swimming pool. I never thought before about being addicted to sugar, however as I have so less sugar everyday, I sometimes crave for it. One day, I was craving so much after a long period without sugar that I bough a pack of six chocolate breads and eat five of them. It was more than 3000 kcal in one shot, then I felt bad as I shouldn't do that. Do you encounter difficulties like this ?

@Loreena I don't think that we should always eat 100% clean, but why not improving this? After all, food is part of the self-actualization process.

@Leo Gura Do you still sometimes eat junk food?

If you want to quit the internet, you can, it's your choice. However, in my opinion, it's not a good one. The internet is one of the most awesome technologies that humans have created until now. There is a lot of bullshit on it and it's also often very difficult for me to stay focus, nevertheless, there is so much incredible high-quality content that quitting it would be very dumb. Your quote says everything, the internet is not the problem, the problem is how we use it. In my case, I see that I'm wasting too much time looking at stupid shit, but I'm trying to make some move to reduce that. We should try to use technology in an intelligent way, but stay mindful and detach from it. One thing that I noticed recently is that it's better when you are organized, for example when you have a todo list you waste less time as you know what you need to do. Another point is about being tired. Using the internet when you are tired is cancer, because you don't have the energy to do anything, and you start procrastinating a lot. In this case, it's just better to have a break or go to sleep. My final point is about motivation and life purpose. It's simple: if you're really passionate about something, you're not going to waste your time with technology, contrariwise you can embrace technology and use it as the most powerful tool to make your passion extraordinary. For me, it's how I understand why sometimes I procrastinate so much, as I still didn't find my life purpose.

@Pallero What is your budget? I'm very interested in travelling, but I don't have much money.

@Key Elements Well, compared to average people, my lifestyle is already a little different as I meditate every day, do self-development work, and take care of my physical and mental health. However, I sometimes think about being homeless and travel the world with few personal stuff. I'm a little into minimalism as I remove more and more useless things from my life. I sometimes think about go live naked on a desert island or in a forest How about you?

Yes

I'm really not an expert, it's only a thought that I'm having right now. I think that we first remember bad experiences because they are much more enriching than the good ones. When we badly fail at something, the most painful it is, the more we learn from it. Therefore, such experience is going to be useful for an entire life, as we generally don't want to suffer we remember it.

I don't listen to a type of things in particular, but today I've watched several motivations videos and listen to a study music on youtube while working. When I procrastinate I tend to watch stupid stuff on youtube, but also read a lot of politics and news in general. I know that it's not helping me, but I'm sometimes so bored with everything that I'm just clicking on random links on the internet.

Hey everyone I need help and wise advice here. I'm currently a college student doing an internship that will end in less than one month, I'm going to drop out of college because it doesn't satisfy me. But, I have no job for the moment, I plan to return to my parent's place the time to find a job. However, I know that I will not be able to stay there my entire life, and if I don't find any job I will maybe become homeless. I don't like my family so much, living with them is going to be difficult again. A big problem that I have is a lack of motivation, I was really motivated in the past but my world collapses more than one year ago when I realize that what I was searching for was only success and that it will never make me happy. So, I'm completely lost from one year now. I'm a vegetarian since almost one year and I go to the gym four times per week. I was very skinny and shy most of my life, at school, I was bullied because of this and that led me to depression and social anxiety, so at the gym, I like to push myself. I did a lot a progress since two years, I'm not really so shy nor depress now (thank you so much Leo), but I'm completely lost and bored with most things. I was thinking that the gym would help me to sleep and reduce stress, but it didn't change anything. I'm really stressed and cannot sleep at night, in addition to that I'm always tired. I've recently bought three food supplements: 5-htp, magnesium, and maca. Yesterday I've taken two pills of 100mg of 5-htp, I was still stressed and didn't sleep well. During my days I always feel sleepy, so I tend to procrastinate and read/watch stupid shit on the internet whereas I have three fucking reports to write. I try to wake up early and not sleep too late, but because I take times to fall as sleep it's rare that I get at least 8 hours, so my days are difficult and unproductive. And there's also enlightenment, I'm not enlightened, but I meditate every day for 30-45 minutes, sometimes more, sometimes less. More and more I meditate, I feel like "It's ok, you will be homeless, you will die, it's ok nothing is important, it's not bad to be stressed, to procrastinate, to do stupid shit, to waste your life". I think that my ego is playing with me, I'm stuck into doing and going to the truth, I cannot decide, and nothing happens anywhere. I fell lime I'm missing some theories about enlightenment (I've watched all of Leo's videos on it), and also enlightenment itself. If outside it feels like I'm calm and relaxed, it's not the case inside. My brain is like a tornado, I'm bored with all theses people always complaining about their life where I'm not. Sometimes, I think like "Let's go to the street and slap all theses assholes in their face", or worst "Let's go and rape someone" (I'm still a virgin who never had any relations with girls). But I don't take this seriously, and hopefully, don't take any action on it. I consider myself as an open-minded person, enough open to admit that I'm unconsciously closed-minded in some fields. I always try to put myself into others perspective, so I don't do any of theses silly things. So, I'm stuck now, can someone help me? Thank you

I meditate just after showering and before going to bed. I've read in one of Leo's insights that it's maybe not the best time to meditate, but I don't have any other time and I know it's better for sleep if I disconnect myself from distractions before bed. When I meditate, I sit on a chair with my back straight, hands on my knees. I've been meditating for more than one year now, when I've started I was concentrating on my breath, observing my mind and always trying to bring it back to the now when it was going into monkey mind. I did this for severals month, then one day I've had a very strange experience which I've described here. After that, I choose to not try to do anything while meditating, and now most the time I'm trying to let go. I can meditate for one hour and I also do a 5 minutes concentration meditation after waking up in the morning. The results that I get until now are quite awesome. I mean, it destroyed my entire world and really kicked my ego in his ass sometimes, but it helped me a lot on social anxiety. I don't take peoples critics very seriously now, I'm still sometimes afraid of doing unfamiliar things, but it's really less painful than before. Now, my problem is that I don't know what to do with my life and where I'm going

Hey ! I know what you are feeling, I have the same problem, but my states are more irregular and not so black and white. I'm currently not in my best state from a little long period (maybe one month), but my bad states are not so bad compared to yours. I don't have a lot of motivations, but I don't think that my life sucks, and I'm still meditating every day. I've had periods in the past where I didn't meditate for several consecutive days. Currently it's a little hard for me, I'm stress and under pressure because I'm going to quit college in one month and I don't have any job, but my still meditating, eating well, doing sport five times per week. It's very difficult for me to sleep, I'm a little sad and anxious My advice for you is simply to not give up your goods habits, you need to break the loop, you will have to do another big effort to reduce the bullshit. Good luck man !

"Don’t be distracted by surface appearances or unnecessary features; start by solving the immediate problem with a “beautiful” solution." I've get it from this post.

It's a nice place for medidation and personal introspection. The do nothing technique is working well

Hello, I want to show what is meditation to a group of people that maybe don't even know what it is. I want to make them feel quickly relaxed and calm in 3 minutes, so I did this : Be in the present moment and put all your attention on your body. Feel completely your body, from your foot to your head. Notice your respiration, feel this movement in your body. Feel yourself breathing in and then breathing out. Notice every others sensations. The pressure of your body on your chair, notice your heart beating, feel your clothes on your body. Now let go of everything that’s in your mind and just be in the present moment. Let go of everything else and continue to feel your body. Imagine that there is no past and no future, the only thing that exist is this present moment. Notice the sound of my voice, now notice this silence. Become the silence. You are this silence, you are calm and relaxed. Enjoy this moment. I’m going to count to ten, when I’ll will be at ten you will open your eyes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Open your eyes. What's your thoughts on this guided meditation ? Thanks

No it's not for a youtube video, it's only for a school classroom. I don't think that it's too short, I've already done some experiments and it seems that speaking more make concentration a little bit harder. I'm going to make some blanks of 5 - 10 seconds and speak slowly.

Hello, over the last three month I've been seeing a psychologist to help me work on myself, but I found that it's a frustrating waste of time. In more than three month I've didn't learn anything on me, and it's also seems that she doesn't like her job and has some personnal problems. There are many blanks in our sessions where no one have nothing to say, it's very awkward. I feel resistance to speak with her, our sessions never last one hour it's more 45 minutes. It seems that she is pressed to end the session. It's just like thinking alone and doing some personnal introspections, which I already does and I also meditate 40 minutes per days (10 when I wake up, and 30 before going to sleep). Should I stop seeing her ? Until now for me it's just a big waste of time that can be useful for doing other stuff.

I've cancel my next appointment and chose to stop the therapy, but she called me recently. She said that she did some researches on a diagnostic center that can help to specify my type of disorder (development, etc.) and which therapy could be better for my problems, than a simple psychologist. @Lynnel I've already saw three of theses videos, but I didn't really applied it. I actually know that this is what I should do, but my ego is always very resistant. So like Leo's said : I speak a lot of shit, but didn't applied this to myself.

Thanks for the answers guys, I've never feel good at speaking with her since the beginning. With Leo's videos and others content that I've read/watch I already understand more the way of how my mind is working and that the big problem is the ego. Another problem that I have is social anxiety, I'm a very (very, very, ...) solo person, I've thought that it was great to see a psychologist to help me on this point.

Note : English is not my native language, sorry for language mistakes. Hello everyone, I've start meditating five month ago for 20 minutes and now I am starting to be a little more advance. It's past midnight for me, and I did my last meditation two hours ago, I don't want to go to sleep because I'm scared of what happened to me during my last meditation. After a moment I've start to have some tingling sensations (if the expression is correct) in my right hand, my breath speed increased, I've stayed like this but my timer rang, and then I opened my eyes. I was feeling very lightweight and in a state of vertigo, in a certain way I wasn't really in my body. This sensation scared me a lot, after this I've start to do some movements, to run very quickly because I didn't wanted to die. This was my sensation : feeling of death. Now I'm afraid of meditate, and going to sleep. What should I do ? Is it normal ? Have you ever experienced sensations like this ? Thank you

Since this experience I don't look at myself the same way. I don't always feel that my body is really me, sometimes I have the sensation that a part of me is floating around the body.