[backend_dev82]

I kept hearing about meditation. And at one point I tried it. With one app that was given to me for free through my employer's benefits.

It had a counter of your current uninterrupted streak. (Meditating every day) I kept at it. First for 5 minutes a day. Soon for 10m a day. Then 20m

Then twice a day at 20m.

Then semi-guided, and in the end unguided (only a beep at the end).

I never felt anything from it. Truly. Nada. Not better, or worse or calmer or more present or really really nothing.

Yes while meditating I would catch my mind drift, I would come back to the breathing and continue the count.

After this has been on for over 6 months and my counter of my streak was nearing 200. I decided to skip a day, only to see if I would get back to it if my counter was back at 0.

Result?

I never meditated again. Could it be that did it wrong? Possibly.

Could it be that it just doesn't work on me? Possibly and this is the one explanation I'm going with

The whole thing is just...nothing

[BarryMilo]

As someone who used to meditate, I don't think you did it wrong. There are many right ways to do it, depending on what you seek.

Maybe it's not what you needed at the moment, especially if you're not an anxious person. But these days most people are anxious or stressed out, and the barest amount of meditation can help tremendously. Or it might do nothing, everyone is different.

[jonteru]

Thank you for sharing, I had the very same experience as you and also did some thinking about the why.

My theory: I'm a very non-anxious, relaxed person, hardly affected by stress. So mindfulness did nothing for me, I don't need more calming down.

What I tried next was transcedental meditation (I think it's also called mantra meditation, basically pick a word and kind of focus on it) and this was when meditation got really interesting for me. I fell into different states, and came back from it with intense focus and energy. This was the first time I felt something from meditation and it was way more interesting.

Unfortunately I also stopped that after a few months. Also talking to an experienced friend, wanting more interesting things or trying to achieve different states in meditation is an antipattern, you shouldn't wish for anything, so I guess it's just hard :)

[sn9]

There are several different popular meditation techniques. It's not a single thing to try.

It's like saying you heard about this food thing and tried eating beans every day for months and didn't see what the fuss was about. But maybe you just needed to try bread and butter!

[samiskin]

In the west we tend to think of meditation as just the specific type of mindfulness practice that happened to catch on here, but there's really a whole plethora of meditative practices and traditions and different practices will resonate with different people. Its like how there's various different exercises and certain people might resonate with weightlifting while others resonate with calisthenics. Different practices are also meant to create a different effect.

Respects to you for being able to stick with meditation for that long without seeing a result, perhaps the plain mindfulness didn't do much for you since you already had a mentality that was capable in the way it would've helped.

If you were mainly focused on that one app though, if you have any remaining curiosity / patience for this what I'd suggest is experimenting with all sorts of practices for a short period of time each and just see if you feel particularly pulled to any of them. They all are "meditative" and involve specific ways of directing your attention/awareness/consciousness, they're all different paths to the same place, and I believe that different people are meant to take different paths.

Here's some areas you can look into and what you might be able to receive from it:

- There's contemplative practices of reflecting inward not to notice thoughts but to notice that which is doing the noticing. It's trying to seek out your true nature by taking the argument of "I can notice my thoughts therefore they are not me" further than that to "I can notice the noticing of thoughts too, so I'm not that either, so what am I?". The app "Waking Up" has some guided stuff in this area. Aside from simply an exercise in curiosity, there's a difference in how you move through the world and feel moved by the world as your understanding of what "you" are changes, just like how understanding that you are not your thoughts can be a radical change for someone. Advaita Vedanta is a whole field of philosophical inquiry around this type of thing if you're more attracted to that logical side.

- There's all sorts of breathing practices that can calm you or energize you or bring about all sorts of subtle changes that are really hard to put into words.

- There's chakra-based practices which rather than having to entertain chakras as a real thing you can interpret as just "this is a practice that is meant to produce a specific type of effect around what the chakra represents". You can think of them as categories of practices like exercising different muscle groups. Whether they work in the way they're described or not who knows, it's something you can just experiment with.

- There's practices that help with restfulness and sleep like Yoga Nidra, where it genuinely (scientifically proven, some people call it NSDR) can bring similar benefits to sleep

- There's the whole space of Yoga and Tai Chi if you want something more physical or flowy

So perhaps "the whole thing is just... nothing" is true for "the whole of what you tried for you", but the _real_ whole is much much more than just that.

Though in your position I'd be far too lazy to try these lol, I'm lucky in that starting off with the app _did_ feel like it produced a notable mental benefit so I had the reinforcement loop to keep exploring.

[joveian]

Another popular one is "forest bathing", being mindful and present in the moment while walking in a forest. Tai chi is quite an involved skill and is based on qigong, which I found much easier to get into on my own in an apartment. I've done some Vipasana style medication which helped reduce racing thoughts in bed (but unfortunately didn't help as much as I hoped at actually getting to sleep :/).

The one that had the most distinctive effect for me is zhan zhuang. Song Gao has a really excellent instructional video on YouTube about the basic method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCVUojtpS80

Remember that the people who teach this type of stuff (when they aren't fraudsters) put a huge amount of time into learning the technique well and need to find at least a few people that interested to pass on the technique but if you aren't working towards doing that you can get a lot of benefit in much less time. Song Gao recommends in a different video doing zhan zhuang for at least 30 mintues a day, but I would say (agreeing with the tai chi instructor whose blog pointed me to these videos) that just doing it once for 15-20 minutes (it may take some time to work up to that) provides a lot of benefit (in my case including both a distinctive feel of enhanced perception and eliminating, for at least a couple of months until it came back less intense than previously, the fairly minor pain I would get in my shoulders when I end up standing at a computer for a few hours nonstop, though of course I still try to move around more often). I started doing it a bit more often a few months after that first time so I can't say how long the pain reducing effect would retain some effect not doing it again but it is clear to me that you don't need to do it anywhere near daily to have major positive effects. While doing it I've noticed both muscle soreness in a number of places and had mild panic attacks but unless it gets too severe it seems like the brain can work through it just by holding the pose (I have a couple of times needed to stop due to increasing pain). I didn't the first time but since then often listen to music which I suspect like with qigong is not offically correct (though the videos I watched didn't say one way or another that I noticed) and likely reduces the meditative aspect in some ways but makes it easier and I enjoy it.

The article mentioned how we have a tendency to want to move on to the next thing even when doing something we enjoy, which I have definitely found to be the case (though I am disabled and have more time available than most people and already do almost everything more slowly than most people). One potentially impactful form of mindfulness would be to just focus on this part and try to be more present in the moment when doing whatever it is you enjoy. As I understand it this is a major focus of tantra (where the thing it is know for in the US is just one possible application, nothing intrinsic or even common). I haven't tried any formal methods around this but have found it valuable to intentionally be more mindful and at times consider and untangle the related ideas of satisfaction, fun, enjoyment, etc.

[evo_9]

Similar experience for me as well.

I switched to a five minute breathing exercise to encourage deep sleep, and that actually has been profound.

Getting 7 to 8 hours of good / deep sleep every night is quite literally one of the best things you can do for yourself.

Maybe give it go.

[mnsc]

That sounds nice, care to share the breathing exercise?

[brianweet]

Every now and then I do one as well, while lying down in bed. Based on Wim Hof: 30 quick breaths, breathe out and wait until you get the urge to breathe (can take a while), inhale fully and tense all your muscles for 15 seconds, release your muscles and breathe out. It can cause fainting. Maybe I don't sleep, maybe I just faint for 7 hours.

[evo_9]

2 seconds inhale, 2 seconds hold, 6 seconds exhale for 5 minutes. I use iBreath on iOS.

[meyerdav14]

I find it equally deifficult to be in the moment, mainly manage it if I work on something that I really enjoy.

[kelseyfrog]

It doesn't sound like you did it wrong. It sounds like you practiced something more on the concentration[shamata] side of the spectrum and that you became rather adept at it.

There's a whole other vipassana side of the spectrum focused on insight. The way it's been described to me is that the concentration side, while having its own merits, is often used to support the insight work, rather than necessarily being a goal on its own.

[MomsAVoxell]

You do not meditate with an app.

[cyanregiment]

I'll meditate when I'm dead, I think that's the only way you can do it properly