Silver Linings: Creativity and Meditation

Flickr image under CC license by HaPe_Gera

I've frequently written here on the benefits of meditation for your brain and your heart, how you can make meditation a habit and my personal explorations.

In my opinion, meditation is the necessary exercise for your mind, just like you would work out your body, and a must for all knowledge workers such as researchers.

When I stumbled upon this heartfelt speech of David Lynch on what meditation means to his life, and his creativity, it resonated with how I feel much clearer in thinking thanks to meditation.

You can watch his speech here:

Silver Linings: Meditation, your Brain and your Heart

Two months ago, I shared a podcast that shows the beneficial impact of meditation on the brain.

Along the same lines, I am glad to be able to share this GoogleTechTalk with you. It shows some very interesting research on the reaction of the brain and heart to compassion training.



You can sign up for a mindfulness course online here - I recommended it wholeheartedly. Thanks to this course, I now get up early in the morning to meditate.

Silver Linings: Meditation and Your Brain

While randomly browsing across interesting courses on iTunes university, which I enjoy listening to while cooking or doing random housework, I discovered Stanford's 'How to Think Like a Psychologist".

The third lecture of this series is titled "Meditation, Anxiety and the Brain", by Dr. Phillipe Goldin who masterfully blends neuroscience, psychology and Eastern meditation practice.

Not only is it very interesting to see how meditation actually influences the patterns that can be seen in the brain, it also can work as a motivation for you to get started on meditation.

Consider meditation the necessary mental training your body needs, just like it needs exercise. I previously discussed how you can make it a habit, and a recommend all (PhD) students to use meditation to bring more clarity and focus to their minds.

Treat Yourself to Relaxation: Silva Relaxation App

Silva Relaxation is a free app that can be used as part of your meditation practice.

If you enjoy these recordings with headphones, you can use them as a means to relax and shut out the outer world while you are on-the-go.

The relaxation exercises guide you through an extended version of a body scan, and then help you to be centered in your breathing.

After a stressful day of thesis writing, or an overly busy conference or meeting, I've used these recordings to let go of the day and get some quiet time.

Pranayama iPhone app

It's been a while since I wrote about mindfulness and meditation, and the reason is that in all the thesis stress, I've been slacking off.


However, I recently started doing some breathing exercises, based on the instructions from an iPhone app. It is called Pranayama by Saagara and -of course, as a cheap graduate student- I use the free, lite version of the app.


Here's what I really like about the app:

1. Guided with just two sounds

The app uses a sound for inhaling and one for exhaling. As a result, you can simply close your eyes and focus on the breathing meditation.

2. Different levels

The free version offers two breathing schemes, and for each scheme you have 5 options for the length of breathing. So, even though it has way less options than the full version (of which I read in the comments that it still has ads in there, so probably it's a bad buy!), it does have enough material in there to keep you entertained for quite some time.

3. Time

You can chose from different options between 5 minutes to 60 minutes to time your breathing meditation session.

4. Automatic tracking

The app also has a log, that gives an overview of what you have exercised so far. However, I just checked my own log and apparently the memory is cleared...

More mindfulness

Roughly 3,5 months have passed since my last post on mindfulness.

Facts

I try to practice daily, but in reality I practice roughly 1 out of 2 days. By now, I'm able to sit in silence and concentrate on my breathing for about 10 minutes, without even noticing the time. While it used to feel like a terribly long time in the beginning (is it time yet? is it time yet? is it time yet?), it now feels very natural.

Results

I am starting to feel the benefits (finally) and my concentration is in fact improving. It's been taking my quite some effort to take the time to meditate, but it starts paying off now.

Progress

One of the major advantages which I am experiencing now, is that I can switch to a more focused state of mind easily. All it takes is to sit back in my office chair, focus on my breathing for 3 to 5 counts to 10, and my head clears up.

Since I've been very busy lately with finishing up some deliverables of my project, I've been applying this method, and the results have been great. I've been steaming through stacks of work with such a sharp concentration that the hours were flying by without my noticing.
It's been a great way to tackle the afternoon dip, too.

Links

I haven't been using guided meditations that often, but here are some more links I've collected:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFvelHlN9Rw
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2S9YKY/www.adaringadventure.com/life-coaching/how-to-be-confident
http://mindbodyexperience.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diBGtabwDaQ&feature=grec_index
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyy0ra2WcQQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svzll1ywBkk

Four mindful habits

Admittedly, I've not been regularly practicing the breathing and meditation exercises lately. I've noticed that whenever I'm stressed out and should get enough rest and sharpen my brain, I slack off, talk on the phone to rant about whatever is bothering me, get migraines and neglect my well-being.

However, I've done good progress on incorporating mindfulness into some activities throughout the day, which help me to do a quick round of recharging for my mental batteries:

1. Eating

Eating, and keeping my full focus to my food has become a way to practice mindfulness. I've been eating more and more slowly lately, to make sure I keep my focus to my plate, chew properly and avoid wolfing too large amounts of food. Sometimes I still am already with my mind in the next thing I am going to do, and then I end up eating too fast and without much noticing and enjoying a quiet moment.

2. Running

Now that spring is finally here, I've started running outside again. I used to either use my running to think about my work, or about the fact that I am running and that I am feeling bad and out of breath. Even though I enjoy a run for problem-solving purposes, I now am also trying to run while keeping my full focus on the act of running. Just keeping my focus on my feet which roll over the ground, one by one... just noticing the blossoms on the trees and the water in the canals.

3. Relaxing

I've started to do my breathing exercises while taking a bath, or while being in the sauna of the gym. I've been combining these relaxing moments with a simple breathing meditations, and afterwards I was feeling doubly relaxed.

4. Sit and breathe

This one is still quite a hard one for me. Every now and then during the day, I am trying to take a mini-break in which I sit back into my chair and focus on myself: my feet touching the ground, my back against the chair and my breathing. It's a wonderful way for a quick energy-refill, but I tend to keep running around during the day and not allowing myself to take a moment to stop and think.

Mindfulness - an update

One of my resolutions for 2011 was to start meditating and practicing mindfulness. Soon, one quarter of 2011 will be gone already (time flies!) and so I thought it was time for an update on my trials.

Facts

The first 1,5 months of my trials, I was practicing roughly 4 evenings per week. I first followed some online guided meditations, then I started focusing on my breathing in silence for a set amount of time, and now recently I started to listen to guided meditations on my Ipod.

Results

As I've been trying out different styles, I think different styles of meditation have their pros and cons.

Guided meditation:
+ Help me to focus on the voice
+ Can guide me to very deep relaxation
- Less "active"
- I tend to fall asleep

Focusing on breathing:
+ More active, I cannot relax and follow a voice
+ Makes me feel very "aware"
- My mind wanders terribly
- I don't have a good timer, setting my cell phone stopwatch for 10 minutes is not the nicest way to have a meditation ended

Progress
The positive progress is that I've started to live more mindfully, or at least I'm trying to. I'm trying to point my focus on one thing at a time. I try to focus more on what I'm precisely doing when I'm eating or biking and I try to give my undivided attention when I"m talking to someone.
The negative progress is that I've been slacking off with the meditation practice for the past few weeks. These past weeks have been quite stressful and overly busy, so it would be great to clear my head with a short mindfulness exercise, regain focus and then get my work done. Unfortunately, old habits die hard and in my most stressful times I tend to slack off, procrastinate and panic.

Favorite links
Here's a collection of websites with guided meditations:
http://portlandpsychotherapyclinic.com/mindfulness_and_acceptance_exercises
http://quietmindcafe.com/sympathetic-breathing.html
http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/index.html
http://integraleric.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-learn-to-meditate.html (although I"m still not getting the point of their audio file at all)

Mindfulness - your thoughts as leaves on a stream

I've practiced the leaves on a stream guided mindfulness exercise today to keep up my new year's resolution.

Even though I'm far from getting completely into a mindful and focused state of mind, I found the exercise very interesting. The goal of the exercise was to actually look at my thoughts, instead of looking from my thoughts. Again, I was trying to become the observer of myself, as I already learned from a previous exercise. 

When following the exercise, I could imagine the scene the guide was describing. But when I was supposed to walk to the tree, the scene became scattered. It is as if my mind is currently able to hold only a picture, and not a video. That's definitely a point to improve, and it should improve my ability to focus as well.

Apart from the fact that in the middle of the exercise I opened my eyes because I wasn't hearing the guide's voice anymore, I was also a bit disturbed because my cat decided to come and walk over me. That also made the scene in my mind's eye shattered and much darker.

After the exercise, I felt very relaxed. My breathing is still calm and deep, and my thoughts are very clear. I can write all this without the need to rephrase much and with the overall idea in mind. I can understand why according to some, it is preferable to practice mindfulness in the morning before going to work. If you can start the day with such a clear head as I have now, you probably will have a very focused and productive day.

A few thoughts on the video "Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn"

I just had a relaxing time following this presentation on mindfulness.

What struck me in this presentation is at the end, during the questions, Dr. Kabat-Zinn points out that there is a part of yourself which is aware: it is that part of yourself which is aware when you are falling asleep during your meditation exercise, it is that part of yourself which knows that your mind is drifting off, which realizes that you are commenting on the fact that you are meditating.

So, in a sense, we always have this part of ourselves which is watching us. It is watching us thinking and commenting to our environment. You might ask yourself: who is watching the commentator? What is this part of our mind that is able to see what we are doing, which is, somehow, outside of ourselves. In that way, that part of our mind is infinite, and -I think- it must be very powerful.

I need to practice and set aside time to dig into my mind and nurture this neutral observer in the back.

First steps into mindfulness

To tame my ever-wandering mind and try to find focus and concentration, I've decided to try out mindfulness and meditation.

In the PhD course which I am currently attending, every session involves a mindfulness exercise. Initially I was a bit surprised to find mindfulness to be part of a course for PhD students, but now all the participants of this course agree that they look forward to the guided mindfulness sessions in the course.

Outside of this course, I have never practiced mindfulness. Today, I decided to look on-line for a guided mindfulness exercise. I came across this exercise and enjoyed it very much.

Since this is the first time I practice such an exercise with guided audio, I've noticed a few differences between this and a guided exercise in a group setting. I need to practice more, but I am inclined to think that solitary exercises suit me more. This, however, is completely my personal experience and I am sure many people benefit from mindfulness and meditation courses offered by skilled instructors.

The observations I made are the following:

- My thinking, now while I am writing this post, is much clearer. I did not navigate away from this site yet to go and click around on other websites, even though I see new Twitter and Facebook alerts.

- I have a cold, and I could clearly feel how this impairs my breathing. I'd like to think that it's just a cold and can work through like normal, but with my body doing a little bit more effort with every breath I take, I realize I should take it easy the coming weekend and focus on conquering this cold.

- The position of my head and shoulders mattered. Hanging shoulders and a hanging head made my breathing speed up and feel less free. I clearly felt how much better my body and breathing feels when I sit up straight, with straight shoulders and my head upright and proud. While I sometimes go into a position with hanging shoulders and a curved back to "relax" or show my respect/inferiority to another person, it feels as if my natural relaxed position is upright and proud of myself.

- I need to practice more to get my thoughts under control. However, I am hoping that regular practice (I am scheduling time for this in my planner), will result in a clearer mind.

My next planned session is scheduled for Sunday, and I hope I will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed this exercise.