Comment by swatcoder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swatcoder | Hacker News Reader

Regular meditation. Specifically, transcendental meditation in my case. I'm sure other forms can offer equivalent benefits. I committed to twenty minutes, twice a day. It made no demands on me besides the time, and so I could just sit down and do it no matter how my mind or body were feeling. Some days I sink deeply into it, some days less so. But with the regularity and commitment, I never needed to be anxious about which day would go which way.

It became an anchored daily practice that I could start hanging other practices on. If I wanted to develop some other focus or habit, I could just plan to do it before or after a meditation session. And that regularity gave me space for really intentional skills building and habit development, which I had always struggled with.

It also meant I had two anchors in my day where my mood and mind and body could find some kind of center. Again, the precise impact wasn't the same everyday, but it provided a check against things spiraling away like they sometimes can.

And then the other lovely benefit is that it left me needing less sleep at night. I don't nap during my meditations (or very rarely, anyway) but they seem to provide an early down payment against my sleep needs, and so I ended up ahead on total waking time. For 40 minutes of meditation spread throughout the day, my night time sleep needs dropped by an hour or two. It took me a while to realize this had happened, but it did and research seems to confirm the phenomenon. I'm not a Type-A Go Go Go person, but it's nice to have a little extra time in my days!

That's interesting. I'd like to learn how to do transcendental meditation. Could you please site some good references for me to learn how to do it?

Technically, you can only learn it through the TM organization. They have centers in most major cities around the world. They price the training differently in different markets. Honestly, the big advantage of learning it through them is that by paying them a non-trivial amount of money you put some "skin in the game". For most people, it encourages them to stick with it and derive that value back out through practice, when they might slack off with something they just learned about for free. It's the sunk cost fallacy put to good use.

That said, there are some teachers who have taken TM practice and taught it privately (even though you agree not to do that). These teachers usually adopt a different name for their practice and avoid mentioning TM directly. They may be a little cheaper, but still give you that "skin in the game" effect.

There are also some people who have "leaked" the practice for free online. I don't have any of those in front of me, but the ones I've read do describe the practice reasonably. Whether you can commit yourself to practicing without an instructor to confirm your effort and clear up any ambiguities is another matter.

And if you happen to be young, the David Lynch Foundation supports programs to teach it for free to children. I have no idea if there's access to it outside of the schools they've partnered with.

Ultimately though, TM worked for me, but there are plenty of meditation techniques out there and in vogue. If TM proves to be hard for you to learn the way you need to learn (cost, access, whatever), do look for other styles and options! Meditation is great!

It's the first time I've heard of TM, and having experienced some benefits from more traditional meditation in the past, I was curious.

So I ran into this document, which offers a comprehensive introduction into TM: http://minet.org/Documents/TM-FAQ .

Later edit:

My personal unqualified opinion on the matter: too much involvement of religion and bullshit in this program. While there is a scientific basis to the benefits of meditation, TM is not the most direct and straightforward way to reaching that, as it seems to be organized more as a money-making machine than as a non-profit for helping people.

Personally, meditation has helped me a lot in getting rid of anxiety, letting go of a lot of worries and stress, and simply having a better mental well-being, and with that comes a higher level of cognitive performance and general effectiveness. But I haven't stuck to a habit of focusing the attention towards breathing or anything like that, although I've practiced many forms. At this point it is simply a set of thought patterns, when I notice that I'm in an undesirable mental state, I simply breath, and let go, in a sort-of automatic fashion. This may be something entirely different from meditation, but I think it's a result of that practice.

For a while I've actually considered meditation to be counter-productive. In most matters, if something is causing you stress and worry, there's an evolutionary purpose in that stress and worry, and namely it's pushing you to solve the problem that's at the cause of it. Meditation in a way relaxes that push for solving the issue, that stubbornness, and also helps you let go of desires and wishing the world was in a certain way. It has the effect of making you more grateful and accepting of the state of things. But of course, there are some people for whom this stress and worry is kicked into overdrive by small things, and getting rid of that effect provides an immense benefit to their well-being and productivity, and I count myself to that group. But still, I think meditation is great in moderation, like most things.

Where do you fit these meditations into your day? If I wanted to do this I don't know the optimal time. In the morning before work, and in the evening before bed?

I do the first one as literally the first thing in my morning, before coffees or breakfasts or showers or anything else.

The second is definitely the tougher one to find time for. Since I work independently, remotely, and on a lot of different things, I don't keep a regular daily schedule. But I usually aim to fit the second session in at the end of my "workday" -- making it part of the transition from workday focus to evening focus (whatever that is).

Worst case, I do it in the late evening before bed. (Per TM tradition,) I try not to do it right before sleeping, but maybe before some final reading or TV or straightening up.

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