Practical Benefits of Meditation Thread

[quantumspiral]

I've ignored taking meditation / mindfulness very seriously as I still need to handle my foundations before pursuing higher levels of consciousness / mystical states etc.

I believe this was actually a pretty big mistake- and may be a common trap some of us are falling into. I say it's a trap as the practical benefits of meditation are enormous, and may actually be critical for some of us to get our foundations handled in the first place.

I wanted to make this thread for people to share benefits of meditation (specifically maintaining a heightened state of awareness / acceptance throughout your day) that are have improved your life in a concrete way.

Here are the benefits I've noticed:

• Increased ability to take deliberate action (things I've made a conscious decision to do) over compulsive action (things unconscious emotions are driving me to do)
• Observing and dissolving the driving emotions (both negative and positive) behind compulsive action and emotional resistance to doing work that needs to be done
• Maintaining a process focus, rather than fantasizing or obsessing over the results (which of course, leads to better results in the long term)
• Derive more enjoyment from the process itself
• Better subjective moment to moment experience of life- each moment feels fresh, new and vibrant
• Be emotionally unaffected by negative results- just process the information and use it to course correct
• Able to avoid auto pilot- as each moment feels new my actions are more connected to what's going on in reality. I can make the decision to change courses of action and think outside the box at any moment
• Ability to maintain a state of high concentration for many hours
• Become aware of resistance within myself and drop it
• Able to be disciplined and work hard in a more effortless fashion
• More engaged with life and more detached simultaneously
• Improved cognition generally

 

I think the practical benefits of meditation don't get enough attention here. It seems sports psychology has really noticed and tapped into the performance benefits of meditation, but the applications are pretty much endless.

Edited July 30 by quantumspiral

[Recursoinominado]

Tell us about your practice (what technique, for how long etc)

[Davino]

Silence

Oh blessed Silence!

[gettoefl]

meditation is to practice being the created you not the manufactured you

for example you may feel angry but you are never angry, so when anger arises and tries to take you over you let it go because angry is not what you are

slowly you become what you are

same with all thoughts, they try to tell you who you are, you bid them farewell and leave them to their next victim

you didn't come here to be a cog in the wheel but the wheel that turns the whole universe

[quantumspiral]

@Recursoinominado My practice sucks- I need something much more rigorous and structured. I often just try to maintain a state of mindful awareness throughout the day. Useful- but unlikely to improve my skill.

Truthfully, I'm still a novice in meditation. Most of these benefits are only just blossoming- I'd like to cultivate them as much as possible

[Raze]

https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/art_benefits.pdf

[Ulax]

Just now, Raze said:

https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/art_benefits.pdf

Hey dude, where do you find all these articles by shinzen?

[Raze]

1 hour ago, Ulax said:

Hey dude, where do you find all these articles by shinzen?

https://www.shinzen.org/resources/articles/

[Ulax]

@Raze Thanks

[zazen]

Here is a reddit post on the benefits of meditation which are quite detailed and which I find line up with my personal experience when I've been diligent with my practice also (20 min morning and night, sitting staring at a point on the wall while focusing on the breath).

Here is the users post:

''When I meditate, I keep a journal where I record how my session went and how I felt meditation impacted my life on the day-to-day level. It's a record I can return to and read when I get discouraged or drift away from meditating for a period of time. It gets me back on track when I read and remember all the positive changes in my life, and pushes me to work through the difficult sessions.

I used to always google "Benefits of Meditation" when I needed inspiration, but all the articles have the same, vague answers. I wrote up a list culled from my journal of my personal experiences with the more specific daily benefits of meditation I've experienced, and thought I'd share to remind everyone that it really is worth it to start meditating, get back to it if you've stopped, or just to keep going!!!

I've been meditating for 2.5 years. I started doing ten minutes a day for a long time. I did a Goenka retreat about a year ago. Lots of long stretches where I got away from it in the meantime.

Now I do an hour a day (ideally— more realistically I meditate maybe 4 times a week). I generally do half an hour of concentration then half an hour of insight/Vipassana. I believe most of these benefits accrue primarily from the insight work.

This is just my personal experience, and many of them items overlap or build on each other. But most of these things I've found to be common results of meditation through discussing with friends and reading others' experiences. Meditation is the closest thing to a "magic" cure-all I've found in life so far.

Please add your own benefits you've found, I think it will inspire people to keep working and coming back to the cushion.

Easier to Talk

Not Meditating: I'm pretty shy, so this is huge. I often freeze up, trip over my words, or get nervous and talk too fast when talking to people.

Meditating: I find my words flow smoothly, I'll just spontaneously talk or add to the conversation without overanalyzing and freaking myself out about whether or not I'm saying the right thing and what people are thinking of me. Quick to understand and respond; appear more quick and intelligent.

More Childlike

Not Meditating: Get bogged down in the day-to-day difficulty of being a boring, jaded adult.

Meditating: I get more playful, silly, smiley, curious. More likely to turn boring chores or responsibilities into an enjoyable game. Less guilt in doing things just for fun. Life becomes less of a slog and more of a game to explore and play with the opportunity for silly jokes and mischief.

Confidence

Not Meditating: Hesitant, unsure of self, confused, feeling inferior. Submissive, passive.

Meditating: Best described as the sensation that I hold my own. I feel a kind of power, a trust in my own undeniable dignity as a human being, equally as precious and important as every other person.

At work I act like a peer of my boss in how we interact (we're all just people after all) instead of being submissive, and his valuation of me and my work increases. Socially I feel less jealous of others— they're doing their thing and I'm doing my thing and that's cool. If they don't like it, well ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Sensation of Rest

Not Meditating: Mind is crazy with half-thoughts, noisy and jabbering away. A sense of stress and urgency even if I'm ostensibly relaxing.

Meditating: A sense of resting in stillness. A relaxed, light, open mind. Ability to look at what's in front of you and just see it, instead of papering over the reality with words, invented problems, and judgements.

I would compare the difference in the state and texture of the mind as being like the contrast between your mind and emotional state after spending three hours procrastinating on reddit, clicking link after link, desperately searching for the next interesting or funny thing that will make you feel better, drowning in a flood of image/text/wiki/gif/joke/trick/pic/post insanity until you're exhausted. The mind after meditating regularly is more like how you feel after spending a spring afternoon walking through a lush, green forest.

Language

Not Meditating: Say the same things over and over again, using cliche formulations and phrases. Difficulty understanding another language.

Meditating: Meditation seems to have a particularly strong effect on language for me. I speak more fluidly, and I use more complex and larger words perfectly which I forgot I'd even known. My speech has more variation and ingenuity, I coin new strange phrases and ways of describing things that people comment on.

I speak Spanish (fluently-ish), live in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, and work with a lot of Spanish speakers. I was shocked to find that I could suddenly fully understand the conversations happening around me in Spanish on the streets and the quick comments between my coworkers in Spanish. I could speak to them more fluently without having to stop and think about words and grammar, again using words I'd forgotten I even knew and flawlessly using complex grammatical formulations correctly that just came to me without my having to stop and arrange it in my mind.

Less Procrastination

Not Meditating: Put off doing little things (paying bills, laundry, texting someone back, etc). Mind supplies so many reasons not to do it now.

Meditating: Seems to just cut that procrastination loop of thought completely sometimes. A small task is small. I just jump up and do it, without even letting my brain get started on all the reasons I shouldn't do it.

I feel able to take action, where before I was stuck in a swamp of thought and worry. Less hesitation before action. I'll have a thought and I'll act on it. Not that I'm impulsive, it's more that I do the things I need to do without a dramatic mental battle.

Desire to Clean + Organize

Not Meditating: Really messy. Clutter and dishes and stuff everywhere. Can't find anything.

Meditating: Very often have a strong desire to clean, organize, and put everything in order after meditating. Meditating is in a way like cleaning and organizing the mind. The internal sense of order makes me want to have external order. Or maybe for once I'm just actually paying attention to my environment instead of locked in my head. Clear space = clear mind.

Sleep

Not Meditating: Trouble falling asleep at night because of racing thoughts. Shallow sleep. Trouble getting up in the morning—lying in bed, not wanting to get up and face the day, drifting in and out of sleep.

Meditating: Easier to fall asleep at night, especially if using breathing/relaxation techniques. Deeper sleep, wake up feeling more well-rested. Easier to get right out of bed and jump into the day.

Consumer to Producer/Creator

Not Meditating: Consume a lot of content, watch tv, browse reddit, half take in others' work.

Meditating: I become more inclined to produce and create things rather than just passively take in the work of others. More likely to write, journal, create, comment, paint, express myself and build my own works and contributions. When I consume content, it is with deeper engagement and focus, since it's not just passive entertainment but something that's going to inform what I create.

Consume Higher Quality Media

Not Meditating: Browse reddit, news sites, internet junk, bad tv, instagram, Facebook, etc.

Meditating: Start spontaneously wanting to read a novel or a book of nonfiction rather than browse the internet; choose watching a difficult and interesting movie over bad tv. Read more specific subreddits, rather than browsing through the "mainstream" pages.

The quality of what I take in gets better, I feel better, and my ideas and worldview are more complex and diverse. I don't feel trapped in a loop of reposted internet content.

Less Alcohol, Less Caffeine

Not Meditating: Coffee every morning (and subsequent afternoon crash); moderate-to-heavy drinking.

Meditating: Still drink coffee, but less. Because better rested and able to naturally concentrate more easily, don't need as much.

Drink a LOT less. Meditation eases the same problems that alcohol purports to erase. Lessens the craving or need for alcohol to relax. I begin to value the clarity, balance, and focus that I've earned through the hard work of meditation too much to throw it away for the blurring, fuzzing effects of alcohol. Less drink, less hungover, more energy, more awareness, more health.

Social & Personal Magnetism

Not Meditating: Shy, loner, too lazy to stay in contact, nervous around others. Closed off to new people.

Meditating: Often after meditating will feel strong spontaneous desire to text, talk to, or hang out with friends. Communicate with friends who live elsewhere or haven't talked to in a while. Tell my parents I love them. Have e-mail, fb message, and text conversations that are ongoing and friendly, rather than letting those things drop.

Able to make new friends. I find I subtly develop a kind of personal magnetism that draws people to me, an open friendliness that people immediately pick up on. More likely to have little conversations with strangers or acquaintances that aren't the same awkward chit-chat. I feel that people are attracted to me, in that they want to be near me, talk to me, and trust me. It's probably a function of the increased attention and focus that meditation builds— people can sense that you really see them, really listen to them, really think they're "real."

Remember Dreams & Lucid Dreaming

Not Meditating: Rarely/never remember dreams.

Meditating: Dreams are remembered intensely, multiple a night, rich in fantastical imagery. Dreams tend to be interesting/positive/symbolic. Easier to lucid dream. When meditating you are constantly reminding yourself to be conscious throughout the day, and so it becomes a habit that continues into your dreams. You'll be in a dream and remember to become conscious, out of habit, and then realize, oh shit! I'm in a dream!

Efficiency

Not Meditating: Things take a long time, I get bogged down in minutiae.

Meditating: I become very efficient. Things at work can take me half the time they took before. More able to see the big picture and sort out what's important and what's not. Able to use the present to set myself up for success in the future. Can work quite quickly with fewer mistakes because of greater focus, energy, stamina.

Music

Not Meditating: Half-listen to the same songs. Listen to less new music as I get older.

Meditating: Music in particular becomes very alive and meaningful, the way it used to feel when I was younger. Like I can feel every note. I listen to new genres and bands, discover new music that I love. It's similar to listening to music on weed, but without the other impairing effects.

Thinking Long Term

Not Meditating: Bogged down in the day-to-day tasks and habits.

Meditating: Will spontaneously begin to think of the big picture of my life. The overall direction, where I'm heading, what I'm doing to move in that direction— without freaking out and getting stressed.

I think meditation helps us to look at our lives impersonally, and therefore helps us make more calm and intuitive choices without being clouded by our own self-obsession. I begin to calmly examine my life and plan into the future. I think openly and strategically about moving toward a more intentional and expansive life.

Childhood Dreams Return

Not Meditating: Listen to what society/others tell me I should do and how I should live my life. Caught up in the cycle of work and going out, stuck in the same old habits.

Meditating: Again, spontaneously— my childhood dreams will float to the surface of my mind. They contain a certain wisdom. When I was younger, I never really imagined that so much of my future life would be spent in dark bars drinking with people I only kind of like. Is this how I want to live my life? I remember my images of my future life I dreamed of, my creative ambitions. Though many of them in their pure/extreme form are unrealistic (I'm probably not going to live in a treehouse) they contain a lot of information about how to reorient my life to be more inline with my deep desires (I go out into nature more, I buy plants for my apartment). The little things make a big difference.

When we're kids we know that it's our fucking life and we can do whatever we want with it. As an adult, after meditating, I remember it's in my power to fulfill those wishes and dreams in many ways.

More Adventurous

Not Meditating: Do the same thing every day. Locked in habit.

Meditating: Ideas for adventurous, little spontaneous things to do, deviations from the daily rut will jump into my head and I'll be more likely to act on them. This expands my world and enriches my daily reality.

I usually don't even let those adventurous ideas make it to a conscious level, or if I do, I shut them down by asking myself Why would you do that? What's the point? Now I just think, why not?

Visual Thinking

Not Meditating: Hung up on words, chains of reasoning, pros and cons lists, the confusion of too much information to make sense of.

Meditating: This is one of the most useful and most wonderfully mysterious of the effects of meditation I've noticed recently. I'm suddenly more able to think in images. While meditating or while going about my day, an image will appear to me, and I'll instantly know it's a visual metaphor for some problem in my life or a meaningful description in image form of a complex situation I'm trying to grasp.

It cuts through the confusing bullshit of too many words or tortured forms of reasoning. There's only so much information we can hold in our minds at one time. An image can compress a lot of information into one visual. Think about looking at an image versus trying to completely describe everything you see in the image in words. It'd take a looooong time and a lot of words.

We're deeply visual creatures (animals "reason" in images) and worked primarily in images before our species developed language. Many great thinkers use visual analogies to solve complex problems. Einstein was famous for this— he reasoned through relativity with his images of running alongside a ray of light, or his problem of the two people observing lightning hit a train. An image can simplify difficult problems into a metaphorical or story-like visual that I can work with and manipulate without getting all turned around in my head.''

[Applegarden8]

There are many practical ones, but the most important are the subjective ones. The subjective/epistemical ones can be a life and death question at some point in your life whether you have that underestanding or experience to even enjoy basic things in life or just not commit suicide in my opinion.