[Broken_Hippo]

I've an odd question for you: How did you wind up sticking with meditation? What made you notice that it helped and how long did that take?

I generally quit after 2-3 months. At first it is kind of nice, but as time goes, I become a bit frustrated and bored. I don't notice a difference in myself, and I always wonder if it isn't just that I don't know what I should be looking for.

I'm mostly asking to get your personal perspective on it, in the hopes that I might identify with it.

[swimorsinka]

I'm careful about suggesting meditation to my friends because I think it's different for everybody.

For me, I've always had high anxiety. OCD is essentially anxiety when you boil it down to its core. That means I carry around a great deal of stress, sometimes to the point where I can feel it in my stomach all day every day.

3-5 days of meditation makes this feeling go away. I've seen studies that show your cortisol drops after 3-5 days of doing it for 20-30 mins a day.

So to answer your question: I notice it a lot when I stop. I still fall off on the habit periodically, but I see the benefits shortly after I start again.

Some of the benefits for me: * Less Stress. * I make better eye contact with people because I'm not anxiously looking away. * I listen to my employees (and everyone) better because I'm not so tempted to interrupt them when they're speaking. * My body feels better - any pain or injuries I have get better. * My focus during the workday is dramatically improved. I don't get distracted nearly as easily.

But for someone who has less natural anxiety, I can imagine not having as many benefits. So use the classic test: if it helps you, keep doing it. If you don't see any benefit, then don't bother. Don't do it just because you think you ::should::.

[itschekkers]

Sorry to hear about your experience, but I'm glad you have found ways of managing symptoms. Like you say, people absolutely do respond differently to different medications. I'm a researcher at Yale, and we've been developing algorithms to figure out which antidepressant is most likely to help a specific patient. We've published some papers, and made our algorithm available online through our startup (www.spring.care/spring-assessment). If you find it helpful, please do send us feedback!! hello at spring dot care

[artifaxx]

I find that yoga classes that integrate meditation (such as hatha) tend to work better. It also forces you to sit and work through it for at least an hour. Here is a page to get started with the evidence: http://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/yoga-for-anxiety...