Beginning Meditation
2025-02-18
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February has been a stressful month. I find that when I'm stressed, I go back to engaging in activities that are bad for my health, like being sedentary and eating sweet foods. As a result, my weight went up slightly last week.
I'm trying to replace unhealthy habits with healthy ones, one at a time. And part of that process involves swapping out behaviors I do when I'm stressed. Instead of pulling up some dopamine-triggering video or game, I'm trying to swap in meditation.
Meditation doesn't come naturally to me. I've tried meditating a few times before, but I was far too restless to focus for more than a minute or so. My mind would immediately bounce around from one thought to another: something uncomfortable about my sitting position, a distracting hum in the room, a memory evoked by the sound of a background track, an itch on my leg, a draft blowing my hair and tickling my forehead. In seconds I would give up and return to my normal activities.
Last month I tried guided meditation using the app "Calm." The app contains several meditation courses, and I selected one for beginners, authored by Jeff Warren. To my surprise, I found that within just a few sessions, I could meditate by myself and find a place of calm that I hadn't thought possible before. I now regularly meditate without the app.
In the last few weeks, however, my stress levels have been high, and my schedule has been disrupted for many days in a row. I haven't really built the habit of meditating yet, so it's easy for me to lose track of time and not do it. Meditation is all about mindfulness, and when I'm stressed, I'm not even mindful enough of myself to notice that I haven't engaged in a session of mindfulness.
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[Last updated: 2025-02-18]