The Impact of Meditating Every Day
pascalprecht.github.io
The Impact of Meditating Every Day
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Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#2Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#3In my experience, apps (like Headspace) mostly distract you from witnessing. Any type of guided mediation has an entertaining aspect to it - you have to follow the guidelines instead of pure witnessing.
I've been meaning to get into the meditating for a quite a while now. But never seem to find time/motivation to research how to start.
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#4In my experience, apps (like Headspace) mostly distract you from witnessing. Any type of guided mediation has an entertaining aspect to it - you have to follow the guidelines instead of pure witnessing.
Would you mind elaborating a bit more on that? I've been meaning to get into the meditating for a quite a while now. But never seem to find time/motivation to research how to start.
An app is helpful to guide you at the beginning, but past a certain point having someone talking during most of the session seems a bit detrimental to your actual focus or awareness. I even wonder if there isn't some sort of Pavlovian response, whenever you listen to Andy Puddicombe voice, you want to meditate.
The core of the issue is that there is a conflict of interests between an app that want to keep you subscribed forever, and the idea of teaching something universal. In any app, I have never heard the teacher saying that you don't need the app to actually meditate (which is obviously true). By making you dependent of an app, you are actually less free than before.
Understand that these meditation apps (Headspace/Calm) are mostly VC funded , and they don't only want to teach you something, their investors also want some hockey stick curves. There is nothing wrong with that but it also explains how some features are designed.
That being said I think it was helpful to use them, they provide some value so I would rather recommend them, just not forever.
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind elaborating a bit more on that? I've been meaning to get into the meditating for a quite a while now. But never seem to find time/motivation to research how to start.
I started meditating using some written guide/books and Headspace. An app is helpful to guide you at the beginning, but past a certain point having someone talking during most of the session seems a bit detrimental to your actual focus or awareness. I even wonder if there isn't some sort of Pavlovian response, whenever you listen to Andy Puddicombe voice, you want to meditate. The core of the issue is that there is a…
There are probably diminishing returns once you are able to focus through the technique, however, even in monasteries with experienced meditators simple cues like bells are used because everyone gets distracted once in a while!
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#6After meditating for 6 months every day (starting with 5 minutes daily, ending with 20-30) I've completely got rid of it. A nice side effect was that I got to be a happier person overall (though that wasn't ever a problem for me), and learned to deal with any kind of stress whatsoever.
I'll happily recommend the, oh so often mentioned on hn, book "the mind illuminated" it really is great to start with: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrati...
Recently I haven't been meditating as much as I'd like to unfortunately (I'm trying to get back to it), but the effects are lasting nevertheless. And I still know how to calm myself in a matter of minutes or get more distanced to the situation.
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#7I find that doing any Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity will improve your life tremendously, meditation being just one type of SIDCHA.
While the benefits differ slightly, the magnitude of benefit from other SIDCHAs -- like exercising, drawing a picture, writing a blog post, writing three business ideas, cooking a meal from scratch, etc every day -- can be just as great. You develop discipline, ability to overcome internal resistance, self-awareness, etc.
I'm a big fan and practitioner of SIDCHAs and wrote them up: http://joshuaspodek.com/sidchas-the-series.
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind elaborating a bit more on that? I've been meaning to get into the meditating for a quite a while now. But never seem to find time/motivation to research how to start.
I started meditating using some written guide/books and Headspace. An app is helpful to guide you at the beginning, but past a certain point having someone talking during most of the session seems a bit detrimental to your actual focus or awareness. I even wonder if there isn't some sort of Pavlovian response, whenever you listen to Andy Puddicombe voice, you want to meditate. The core of the issue is that there is a…
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#9https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha
It won't be long before the West I hope catches onto the next phase which is learning about Mudras - kind of an accupressure to target certain nerves.
Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind elaborating a bit more on that? I've been meaning to get into the meditating for a quite a while now. But never seem to find time/motivation to research how to start.
I started meditating using some written guide/books and Headspace. An app is helpful to guide you at the beginning, but past a certain point having someone talking during most of the session seems a bit detrimental to your actual focus or awareness. I even wonder if there isn't some sort of Pavlovian response, whenever you listen to Andy Puddicombe voice, you want to meditate. The core of the issue is that there is a…
I even wonder if there isn't some sort of Pavlovian response,
whenever you listen to Andy Puddicombe voice, you want to
meditate
YES. I've wondered the same, it almost seems like a waste if that's not what they're going for because it's right there. Understand that these meditation apps (Headspace/Calm) are
mostly VC funded , and they don't only want to teach you
something, their investors also want some hockey stick
curves. There is nothing wrong with that but it also explains
how some features are designed.
I don't know if that's completely fair. Both of these seem to really be trying to go after a model where businesses buy group subscriptions as an employee wellness perk. I think there's also untapped potential in trying to team with large healthcare providers because mental health is treated in the US in one of the most cost-ineffective ways, and it isn't even especially an effective way from a patient outcome standpoint either.Anyways -- that's just all to say that achieving hockey stick growth in a B2B model should create better alignment and it shouldn't mean that they don't want to teach you something, I'm sure lots of people with good hearts are working there & want to do good for people/users.