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Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

calm.com

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Re: Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

#81

Post by csmeder »

zenbowman wrote: post #75

This picture sums up my thoughts perfectly: http://anticache.img0.joyreactor.com/pics/post/comics-before... Anyone who has looked into causes of stress cannot avoid the fact that a lack of PHYSICAL activity, a lack of PHYSICAL presence, and a lack of PHYSICAL stimulation is a major, if not the major factor. Trying to get the average person today to meditate on a computer screen is like trying to get your average desk…

It saddens me such a cynical response made it to the top. I will use this app. Some days I walk to a local park to meditate. Some days I go to the meditation class we have at work. However, some days I plan to use this app, even if for just the 2 minute meditation. In my experience, in regards to stress prevention even 2 minutes of meditation is better than none.

Re: Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

#82

Post by iguana »

sehr wrote: post #36
volaski wrote: post #25

Apparently, they raised $415K investment http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/26/relaxation-resource-calm-co... I wonder how they will pay it all off

does anyone else feel this is a bit.. ridiculous?

If the app is useful, a premium version could be made, as well as a company branded version for an entire company, etc. HR is tough to sell to, but that doesn't mean impossible. It could be a nice corporate perk.

Re: Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

#83

Post by thucydides »

andrewcooke wrote: post #27

what kind of meditation needs (or is helped) by this? i kind-of do mindful meditation (i'm no expert) and this would be just one more piece of sensory data to acknowledge and then largely ignore. if you're doing "concentrative meditation" (i'm using terms from wikipedia) then i would have thought this would be distracting. is this more like new age tv?

Good question. The site's 10 minute guided meditation right now does not sound like the forms of Zen meditation I'm familiar with, and it doesn't sound like mindfulness meditation. What is it? And is it evidence-based?

I practice Zen-style breath-counting meditation (susokukan) now. No doubt many different kinds of meditation are beneficial, but I suspect they have different effect sizes. Probably some do nothing for you at all.

The most unexpected consequence of breath-counting is how dispassionately I see my random intrusive thoughts during meditation, whether it's anger at someone, a happy memory, or a worry about some future task. It sounds crazy to non-meditators, but it's actually hard for me to not to laugh during meditation sessions at how ephemeral and "unreal" these thoughts are... and how quickly all emotions, sensations, thoughts move in and depart like blips on the screen of mind.

After breath-counting for half an hour, I feel a much deeper, more substantial calm than if I'd done something like listening to relaxing noises in the same time. It's a calm of mind that bleeds into the rest of the day, because meditation gives practice at seeing the shape-shifting nature of thoughts and human identity.

Does the kind of meditation practiced on this site have similar effects?

Re: Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

#85

Post by [deleted] »

zenbowman wrote: post #75

This picture sums up my thoughts perfectly: http://anticache.img0.joyreactor.com/pics/post/comics-before... Anyone who has looked into causes of stress cannot avoid the fact that a lack of PHYSICAL activity, a lack of PHYSICAL presence, and a lack of PHYSICAL stimulation is a major, if not the major factor. Trying to get the average person today to meditate on a computer screen is like trying to get your average desk…

[deleted]

Re: Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

#86

Post by mikeg8 »

csmeder wrote: post #81
zenbowman wrote: post #75

This picture sums up my thoughts perfectly: http://anticache.img0.joyreactor.com/pics/post/comics-before... Anyone who has looked into causes of stress cannot avoid the fact that a lack of PHYSICAL activity, a lack of PHYSICAL presence, and a lack of PHYSICAL stimulation is a major, if not the major factor. Trying to get the average person today to meditate on a computer screen is like trying to get your average desk…

It saddens me such a cynical response made it to the top. I will use this app. Some days I walk to a local park to meditate. Some days I go to the meditation class we have at work. However, some days I plan to use this app, even if for just the 2 minute meditation. In my experience, in regards to stress prevention even 2 minutes of meditation is better than none.

This response isn't that cynical, it's pretty accurate. I've been using Calm for about 6 months now and while it's been very nice and beneficial for my use cases, I truly believe meditation is a solely physical experience that will ONLY be hindered by the introduction of technology.

Re: Meditate in front of your computer with Calm

#88

Post by primitivesuave »

Such an awesome website and startup mission.

Back in high school I took a free class put on by the Art of Living (www.artofliving.org) - it was the best thing I ever did. They taught us the Sudarshan Kriya, which is a 20 minute meditation and breathing exercise. For people who practice it regularly, it is literally a substitute for a morning cup of coffee.

The Sudarshan Kriya is just one of the many yogic exercises out there, and the yogic exercises are part of a huge ecosystem of meditative processes designed to enrich one's ability to live in the present. It would be amazing to see at least a small subset of these exercises incorporated into this.

It doesn't need to have nondescript names like "Sudarshan Kriya" - what yoga practitioners call Pranayama, Buddhists call Anapanasati, and regular people call "breathing exercises". The revelations about how to live in the moment are fairly universal, so it would be more about incorporating these fundamental ideas into an online meditative course.

If you're from Calm, just want to say that I absolutely love what you're doing - by far, the best startup idea I've seen in a while.

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