If there was one Superdrug that gives you life-changing benefits by literally doing nothing… that would probably be meditation.
Just think of Adderall without the nasty side effects…
Or drinking coffee without any of the jitters…
I think incorporating into my morning routine was probably one of my better decisions I made in my lifetime (despite making countless mistakes in my life…)
I was actually even reluctant to start meditation because “I was so busy” that I wouldn’t be able to fit 10 minutes of doing nothing into my lifestyle.
Well, as it turns out it was all bogus in my head and I do have enough time in my life for some peace and quiet…
Anyhoo…
So what are the supposed benefits that you should be caring about from meditation?
Instead of a giant 100 list of things meditation can do for you I’m only going to list the things that I cared about (if you are oh so curious just search up “meditation benefits” and ‘ol Google will help ya out…)
So here they are:
- Reduces stress1
- Fights depression2 (Super important when you are working by yourself for long periods of time and seeing no progress on your goals whatsoever…)
- Increases attention span3 (I don’t know about you but I get distracted by my dog…)
- Fights addiction4
- Improves sleep5 (which leads to a better day for me on average…)
- Increases gray matter in your brain (I always wanted to be smarter by doing nothing)
Then here’s a list that’s pretty nice to have but I didn’t really care too much about (that you might find super useful instead…):
- Controls anxiety
- Improves emotional health
- Increases self-awareness
- Decrease blood pressure
- Preventing Cancer
- Helping you with Irritable bowel syndrome
- And the list goes on…
But the main reason why I wanted to learn meditation was that I had zero focus whatsoever in my life.
Like I would have this motivation inside of me to of wanting to change my life… and then I’d screw it all up by playing on the computer all day.
Or I would spend 5 minutes writing a blog post (like this..) and then all of a sudden I have this urge to check social media (and see how everyone else is happy in their lives…)
So I decided to sit my booty down for 20 minutes almost every single day and tell you what I personally experienced.
In other words, this post is all about me telling you guys what I actually experienced from doing all of these hours of meditating.
Look, there’s a difference between these “supposed” benefits that you read online and the “actual” benefits you get from practicing meditation.
Sure, meditation can help if you have irritable bowel syndrome but you won’t actually know unless you have irritable bowel syndrome and tried out meditation.
What I want you guys to take away from this post is to have another a regular guy’s perspective on the actual benefits he sees in his everyday life.
So let’s get started with numero unos…
1. You Get This Weird, Rational Third Person Perspective Added To Your Decision-Making
Let me explain…
Let’s say you are chatting with your friends about your day and you are having a great time talking about the exciting adventure of driving to Starbucks and getting a little annoyed because the guy in line called you a ‘lil phony.
So now while talking to your friend you are feeling all sorts of emotions: being excited, being annoyed, maybe even being a little tired.
Now after meditation, imagine you are in a movie where a soul that looks exactly like you is watching you talk to your friend.
Now this little soul-like creature doesn’t feel any emotions and looks at you having fun objectively and is calmly analyzing what is happening at that very moment.
Now if you are confused with that weird explanation here’s the short version…
Imagine after meditating for a long time that you now have two perspectives: one emotional and one rational perspective that influences your decision.
This is what they mean when they say that you have better control after your emotions after meditation because if I get emotional for let’s say someone stealing my cookie I can not get pissed off immediately.
It is the weirdest and greatest thing that has happened to me because now I have this emotionless robot inside of me who adds another perspective to my decision-making abilities.
This can be used for trivial things or even really important stuff if you have to make a decision without your emotions clouding you… (Think of stressful business situations where the stakes are high…)
I actually didn’t have this at the beginning of meditation either… it just started to pop out of nowhere at around 40 hours of meditation.
Either way, I find it pretty useful when I need to make decisions based on the goals I want to achieve rather than the impulsive stuff my body wants (like ice cream.)
2. I Get This Nice Tranquil and Peacefulness Focus Rather Than a Jolt From A Power Nap
So some people like to take naps (like me) when they get exhausted in the afternoon from working but I decided to try out meditation instead just cause…
And what I noticed was that instead of that jolting and groggy feeling you get after a short nap (that feeling where you are still tired but awake at the same time) you get this peaceful focus and groggy feeling instead.
It’s not much of an improvement but I notice this peaceful focus is better if I need to be more creative.
You know, things like…
- Playing the guitar
- Writing
- Stretching
- Etc.
When you do meditation you become very contemplative about your life and your existence, the purpose of your life, your midlife crisis, etc. (it happens to everybody…)
Now imagine taking that contemplative focus and channeling it into something creative like writing…
Well, your writing is going to be shaped from an introspective perspective!
What I mean is let’s say your name is Sally and you like to write about baking.
Now if you just decided to write an article you can probably pump out a nice 500-word article about how to bake chocolate chip cookies.
But let’s say you finished a 30-minute power meditation before you decided to write your article.
You would probably ask yourself these questions as you are writing your article…
- Why do I enjoy baking chocolate cookies?
- Why am I writing this article on the blog?
- Why does baking make me feel happy?
And then you would probably answer in your head something along the lines of “I like baking because I get to see the happy faces on my kid’s face and want other mothers to experience that same feeling…”
And what happens is that there is a transference of feelings into your writing where people could actually feel that.
It sounds kinda woo-woo but that’s what I noticed before I did meditation before some creative work.
I don’t do it all the time but it adds a nice flavor whenever I play the guitar or write another blog article.
3. There’s a distinct difference between when you do it during the day (morning, afternoon, night)
So I also experimented tried out meditation throughout the different days to see if there was any noticeable effect on myself…
And there was some kinda effect!
So I tried it throughout all the different time periods and here were my findings…
- Doing it right after waking up is quite difficult mainly because you would want to fall asleep but that peaceful focus carries on throughout the day.
- The afternoon meditation was kinda meh. It carries along the rest of the day but I personally didn’t like it.
- The evening is perfect for you to be contemplative and letting it all go and helps you get better sleep (since I believe meditation is the go-to phase before you actually fall asleep.)
4. There is also an effect whether you meditate before and after exercise
Another thing I was curious about was the effects of meditation on me before and after I exercised.
And again… here were my findings:
- Before exercise gives you a more focused outlook on what you want to achieve with your actual workout. The problem was that it relaxed my muscles too much that I kinda felt lazy whenever I did my workout in the beginning.
- After exercise was better for me since I was trying to cooldown and having to meditate became a lot easier after pumping some iron and doing some heavy lifting.
So I became a fan of meditation after exercise just because that feeling of the afterglow from working out plus the meditation peaceful lookout was a pretty deadly combo.
5. Becoming much more mindful of everything around me
This one is kinda obvious but I started to notice that I became a lot more observant for both the environment around me and myself.
I can catch myself whenever I’m feeling angry or the actual sensations of focusing when I’m starting to become cold. Now it sounds kinda useless but being aware of yourself and how you are feeling is actually the first step in controlling your emotions (and therefore yourself.)
And being much more observant with the environment and the people around me helps me understand a little more about how they are currently feeling (aka body language.)
6. Lastly, meditation slightly improved my self-discipline
It takes some serious discipline to take time out of your day to
- Do nothing at all
- Make sure you aren’t thinking at all with any thoughts
When you try out meditation at first it is going to be impossible to sit down for maybe 5 minutes because you are extremely bored.
And you are going to find out that…
Meditation is pretty difficult.
Of course, I also experienced things like being able to follow my other positive habits better and being less stressed but I thought those things I don’t need to go in-depth.
Conclusion
I would highly recommend you take some time to just meditate.
It doesn’t even have to be sitting down but it can be doing something like running or stretching.
And those were my experiences meditating.
If you have experienced anything similar or anything different feel free to let me know in the comments below.
See ya later,
Anthony