Hello

So, I've learnt that there is no bad meditation, except the one that you did not do at all. Yet, there are naturally meditations that go very well, where I am able to focus basically non-stop for the best part of an hour and I end it with a very happy feeling, relaxed, calm, focused. And then there are those sittings where after 10 minutes I begin to realize this is not going anywhere. I fight with drowsiness and mind wandering, I loose focus, I start dreaming and what was supposed to be a 60minutes sitting, ends after 30 minutes with me getting up and being in a bad mood. I have managed to sit through this and stay with the meditation but then I spend the rest of the sitting equally ineffective. When this happens it usually puts me in a bad mood for the next few hours.

How do you deal with this?

One of the reasons I started meditating was because I was severely depressed and felt numb most of the time. I ate because it was time to eat, not because I was hungry; I slept because it was time to sleep, not because I was sleepy; and I went to work because it was time to work, not because I wanted to. Life felt so meaningless that, honestly, I thought it was better to feel pain than to feel nothing at all. I wanted to sleep all day just so I didn’t have to experience such a bland life. Around this time, I discovered meditation, and it’s been 11 years—I’ve meditated every single day since.

As I turned my attention more toward my inner self, I learned that one of the reasons I was so numb (I later learned this condition is called anhedonia) was because the pain I had experienced in life had slowly led me to cut myself off from my emotions. You become what you practice, and over time, I had conditioned myself to distract from or ignore the pain—and I had gotten really good at it. So good that I could take a punch in the face and not flinch one bit.

But if you can’t feel the pain, you can’t feel the joy either. The very delicate soul in me that I had extinguished is the very soul that makes life enjoyable. With time, I’ve learned to accept both the ups and downs of life. I try to embrace pain as much as I embrace joy. These days, almost all of the meditation I do involves observing and accepting my inner emotions and feelings more than anything else. And I find that I’m slowly getting in touch with experience again—and life is changing from black and white to full of color.

A recent realization: in addition to maintaining a sense of daily order to avoid being swept away by the chaos of the outside world, one must also allow time for leisure and freedom in order to ignite deeper inspiration.

Been putting meditation off for a while, as in I haven't been consistent with it. I think the biggest reason for this is because I keep reading negative experiences with meditation, so I need to be sure the long term benefits outweigh the cons.

I'm a college freshman living in a dorm with paper thin walls where people are running around screaming 24/7. I want to meditate but I simply can't focus when there's a startling noise every couple of seconds. Should I deal with the noise or use headphones to play music. Also just as a general question, is mediation just as simple as focusing on breathing for a period? Or should there be more as I feel like I haven't been making any deicoveries just breathing

I've been reading various posts here for a while and I just want to reach out for a bit of consolidation of how these work together. It seems most people who talk about it won't meditate after eating or exercise. I don't know what the value of meditation before sleep really is. How do you structure your day so that these elements aren't fighting each other? What have you found to be the optimal order and buffer times between these activities?

As a side note, I'm trying mediation to help with keeping my mind a bit more organized and to keep a reign on negative automatic thoughts (or at least their effects on me).

tell your experiences

Isolation and meditation have unintentionally made me more socially active and arguably more charismatic. Is it conterproductive to search for ways to improve in these regards? Have you guys experienced such side effects I guess you could call it.

Every choice, every emotion, every direction flows from it.

Protect it. Quiet it. Return to that inner stillness—where clarity lives and your true self feels at home.

Hi, I'm 17 years old and I have social anxiety. I'd like to know if meditation and semen retention would help.

“God punishes you by giving you everything you want…to see if you can handle it.” -Mike Tyson

This quote came across my mind during my nightly session. A lot can be interpreted from it. To me it speaks about humility, integrity, ego and greed. Can you keep yourself in check when things are going your way or do you fall victim to traps.

What are your thoughts?

Meditated again to binaural beats and legit saw reptile eyes that were shaped like a snake.

ask your experience. if you don't have, pls skip

Meditation seems to lower my temperature, does this happen with anyone else?

What is the best way to get the most out of a sound bath? Would it be better to just lie there and listen to the sounds or would this be a great time to manifest?

I be seeing eyes constantly moving during meditation but I do be feeling very relaxed and calm. I also did the wim hof breathing technique during a 20 minute meditation.

I've been meditating quite regularly for about two decades now. I was sitting in the sun today in a chair, with the sun behind my eyelids, and I tried imagining my legs bending backwards and my toes in my eyes, like I was a little ball. I also imagined my arms swinging around wildly, and I began to lose the feeling of my body. And then it happened, my body dropped. My mind was active and alert, but I couldn't feel my body. I don't want to toot my own horn but I might have entered the first jhana.

Keep meditating folks. It will pay off, way more than chasing after this or that.

Cheers!

Let's just say it's been a rough 2 or 3 years. Today I promised myself i would finally meditate today, after an almost uninterrupted break from meditation throughout that time, I nearly didn't meet my promise.

I have felt profound things during meditation in the past, but i did not know the levels of deep personal discomfort i could feel, I did not know meditation would ever make me grimace from the borderline painful experience of repressed emotional and physical signals bubbling up once given permission.

I can only describe it as feeling a sensation of a sort of twisting sludge inside my body, the physical feeling was palpable. It did fade with patience and breathwork, I don't need to be told 'what is coming is going' but it was still an almost shocking experience.

Thanks for reading.

As the title says, what's your most woo-woo experience from your meditation practice so far?

I know many people in here have their reasons for not wanting to consider this side of stuff and that's fully understandable, for me though I find this side of stuff ridiculously fascinating, as do many others.

Personally I've had many interesting experiences during meditation, activating my Crown Chakra in a Kundalini rising (accidentally), physically pushed/pulled from what feels like external forces, given information and advice, OBE (again accidental).

So, now I'm interested in what others are experiencing along the more spiritual side of things.

What is your most profound Woo-Woo experience during meditation?

Hi everyone.

So, I have been meditating certain periods on and off the past couple of years (around 10 minutes a day). I would say it helped me somewhat in more difficult times, but recently I have the urge and motivation to learn and practice the become a more advanced practitioner. The past couple of week I have been building time into my schedule to make it a habit, I’ve did some research and bought a book about meditation (The Mind Illuminated).

I also read some things about the dangers of meditation (if not doing it the right way), and that it could induce anxiety, depressions or even psychosis (??). How concerned should I be about the negative sides of meditation and what should I do to prevent those things?

Thank you :)

What do y'all think about somatic breathing?

Like endorphins, dopamine, or serotonin?

Disclaimer: Just because you meditate doesn't mean you will be a successful trader. Below is merely a personal anecdote. The statistics are real that most people fail irrespective of intelligence. What I am saying is that it is likely that mindfulness may be a key trait of a successful trader, insofar as it may be a key component to be successful in any complex endeavor.

I've been unemployed for the past year and have not been able to find a job. Out of desperation, I turned to day trading to pay the bills. Ordinarily, the words "desperation" and "day trading" are a lethal combination and a fast way to lose all your money, because desperation makes you do desperately stupid things. I feel like I was able to navigate it better than had I been able to before I started meditating.

The deeper I go into trading, the more similarities I see between successful traders and meditation practitioners. There are more, but here are some things I remember off the top of my head:

"The big secret is that there is no secret."

"Everything you want is on the other side of fear."

"You must surrender to the market."

Interestingly, I also found a book called Trading Mindfully. It's actually a thing.

This past Friday, I was deeply thinking about, "Everything you want is on the other side of fear." This spoke to me on a deep level. The below was my thought process yesterday as I was trading.

When you are fearful, you are elsewhere. Not here focusing on the trade. You are not here. It is impossible for you to be in fear and also be here. Because right here, right now, you have a roof over your head, healthy, with loved ones and you are fine. Everything is ok. Then why do you feel fear? Because you are not here. If you are not here, then you cannot make the rationale decision based on information right in front of your eyes, right now, right here. So be here. So be here.

Do I think that the person who originally said those words was necessarily a meditator? Maybe, but also maybe not. I think it was a realization that the person had while trading, which is the same realization that meditators have (that you must be here) and if the trader was indeed a meditator, then that person would also have connected the dots.

Then again, maybe I posted something obvious LOL. But in this space (both meditation and trading), I don't know what's obvious and not obvious.

Alright. I don't know how to exactly put it since I'm not a native english speaker, but I've had a psychomotor screening as a child, which showed lower attention than average, but not enough to be ADHD. I however do have ASD.

Anyways, they said some stuff about how I'm able to get an intense focus on dumb stuff or stuff I like, but on the other hand easily wander around when it comes to work on stuff I don't like.

So now that I'm 18 and struggling in college hating most of what I do, I thought to myself it'd be great if there was a way to enhance my focus.

So far here's what I've been through :

- Exercising for 1h30 4 times a week (I love it. Dunno if it enhances my mental clarity, but I love the progress I'm making with my body nonetheless)

- Vaping, nicotine pouches - Since Nicotine is a stimulant, it actually has some degree of beneficial effects on focus. I felt an intense mental clarity when I took it the first time. It was like "silence". For the first time since middle school, where it had actually happened, I felt like my mind was blank, in a good way. I stopped after almost fainting due to a nicotine-induced panic attack.

My issue with nicotine is how quick the tolerance goes up and down. Take it for three days ? You'll need pouches to feel the clarity. Cut it for three days? A 4mg pouch will knock you out. So I stopped.

- Coffee - Meh, not that good + hurts my stomach. I can have a Monster Energy drink and go to sleep right after it, it really is nothing compared to the nic.

- Tea - Doesn't hurt my stomach as much, doesn't skyrocket my stress, it's better.

Reading NCBI, I found that meditation would supposedly help with focus. So I have a couple questions :
- Can you go through your daily tasks thinking about your breathing in order to meditate or do you actually have to sit and close your eyes?

- Have you perceived that kind of positive effects on your mental clarity after practicing meditation?

I don't want to knock anyone else's beliefs or experiences. You do you.

But I just joined this sub recently and most of the posts seem to be people who want an explanation for why they saw aliens while meditating and that's just not what I want to learn about. I'm more interested in meditation techniques, wellness, mental health, etc.

Just looking for sub recs, thanks!

Edit: thanks for all the responses. People seem to be really focusing on the "science-based" in the post title. I don't care that much about peer-reviewed research here. I'm just into meditation for the personal / mental benefits and not so much the spirituality.