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Does Meditation Work? What Happened When I Tried It For The First Time

All dem zen vibes.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - 16:04

When someone recommended Mindfulness: Finding Peace In A Frantic World to me I had no idea what to expect. With a CD at the back, the book guides you through an 8-week meditation course. It teaches you to be mindful of your surroundings and your thoughts through exercises designed to "settle and ground you in the present moment". Mindfulness is supposed to help you to feel calmer despite the hustle and bustle of our crazy busy lives.

Here's what creator Anna Akana has to stay about mental health online...

Without sounding dramatic (it’s totally dramatic y’all), what I learnt over those next eight weeks really changed my outlook on life. Although meditation is not for everyone, I’d 100% recommend giving it a good try. Here’s why…

(It’s about to get spiritual all up in here.)

I started noticing my thoughts

I always assumed I was totally aware and in control of my thoughts but, because meditation teaches you to actively notice every thought arriving and leaving your mind, you suddenly realise just how many thoughts go through your head without you even realising.

At the beginning it sometimes took me a while to recognise that I was actually being consumed by a thought too. Weird.

Things became less complicated

When your thoughts are constantly steering you, simple tasks can seem harder - there’s a load of background noise in your head distracting you.

Once I understood what my brain was doing I sat in the driving seat for the first time in what seemed like forever, and everything became a lot clearer and simpler. I was concentrating on each task as I was doing it, not worrying about other things I needed to do.

I felt more positive

Once I started meditating I realised that my thoughts had been on a negative loop. It wasn’t because I was a pessimist or even really because I was having negative experiences – having a few negative thoughts had spiralled into a cycle of thought-negativity. Not the one.

Now that I was aware of my thoughts coming and going, not trapped inside them, I felt more positive about everything.

It felt good

When you think of meditation you think mind-only, right? I thought the same thing, so I wasn’t expecting meditation to actually feel good physically. Your whole body feels GREAT after a good meditation sesh.

It can supposedly help people deal with pain, too.

I wasted less time

The more I thought “I just don’t have time to meditate” and put it off, the more I realised how much time I wasted doing things like being sucked into an Instagram-stalking hole or flicking aimlessly through TV channels.

The meditation exercises took around 10 mins each time, which was only a fraction of the hours I spent doing pointless stuff per day. And it made me feel way better than all of that pointless stuff.

I felt more connected to other people

I found myself listening more intently to other people and really focusing in on them and their experiences.

Maybe not having to deal with the weight of your own thoughts any more means that you become less inward and more outward-facing? It was pretty refreshing, anyways.

I was on time more

I began moving around more measuredly, but also mysteriously being more punctual. Now I’m usually someone who rocks up at least five minutes late to social occasions, out of breath from legging it there, so I was pretty surprised to suddenly find myself leisurely arriving bang on time, if not a little EARLY.

I guess cutting all the BS out of my head meant I was clear about what I was doing and what needed to happen next in the getting ready process… it was pretty unnerving.

I felt like I had woken up

I felt like I had woken up from a deep sleep. Everything was brighter and clearer, and I was totally on the ball while everyone (especially on public transport) looked distant, clearly worrying or thinking about other things, or engrossed in their phones. I was totally present, and not many other people were.

My senses exploded

All of a sudden I would notice the sound the rain was making, the smell of flowers as I passed them, the changing colours in the sky. I realised I used to walk around in a cloud of my own thoughts, and each day blurred uncharacteristically into one. Now, every day really was a new day.

Oh, hey Haz.

Thoughts stopped having so much power over me

Having an imagination can be a great thing but our brains also make up plenty of un-useful sh*t. Like, “Everybody is looking at my new top and not saying anything because they hate it”, or “Everyone’s thinking how bad I am at public speaking right now”, and many of these thoughts aren’t even processed - you’re so in them that you’re convinced they must be true.

The most powerful thing I learnt from meditation was that thoughts aren’t facts. Yes, your thoughts may be telling you that everyone hates your top or that you’re doing an awful job at something, but they’re just thoughts and they actually don’t mean anything. And if you actually pay full attention to them and notice as they pass, you’ll remember that the only thing that’s real is you, standing there, probably in a really nice top and doing a stellar job.

While meditation isn’t necessarily for everyone, I’d recommend giving it a go. Meditating once (or better twice) per day is recommended and you have to be quite committed if you want to see results. I found that the more I did it, the better I got and the better I felt. So for me, it was worth it.

Click here to learn more about mindfulness from young person's mental health charity The Mix.

18 Inspiring Celebs Who've Spoken Out About Their Mental Health

  • "I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self-hatred...I'm focusing on filming and trying to learn not to pick apart my every flaw" - Cara Delevingne
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  • “If there’s anyone out there going through [depression], I think for them to see that I went through it, it would help… for a long time I used to think...strong people in life... they just get on with it” - Stormzy
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  • “I really felt like I was dying – my light completely out. I said to myself, ‘Whatever is left in there, even just one light molecule, you will find it and make it multiply’… I learned that my sadness never destroyed what was great about me” – Lady Gaga
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  • “Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day. I know I have fans out there who have been through this kind of thing, too, and I wanted to be honest for their sake, if nothing else” – Zayn Malik
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  • “I had to stop because I had everything, and I was absolutely broken inside. And I kept it all together enough so that I’d never let you down but... I let myself down… if you are broken you do not have to stay broken” - Selena Gomez
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  • “My anxiety and depression have ruled my life for as long as I can remember and I never leave the house because of it... I’m tired of being held back in my life. I deserve to have peace. I deserve to be happy and smiling. Why not me?” - Kid Cudi
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  • “It’s so normal. Everyone experiences a version of anxiety or worry in their lives, there’s nothing wrong with you. To be a sensitive person that cares a lot, that takes things in in a deep way, is actually part of what makes you amazing” – Emma Stone
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  • [About his OCD] “I remember my makeup artist and assistant walking me to the set and going, ‘Oh God, we’re going to need 10 minutes... he has to walk back and step on that thing, touch the door and walk in and out again" - Leonardo DiCaprio
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  • “You can’t let panic or anxiety change the way you do things because you get one life… I’m never going to get back the years that I’ve wasted being too terrified to ever leave my house” - Zoella
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  • "Mental health disabilities are an illness, not a weakness. They are an issue, not an identity. It’s ok to suffer from a mental illness, but it’s not ok to not talk about it" – Jack Harries
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  • “[My fans] know that I've struggled with depression, and [they tell me that I] helped them get over theirs. That gives me a big purpose—a reason to wake up in the morning” - Miley Cyrus
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  • “I’m struggling just to get through the days. I think a lot of people are. You get lonely, you know, when you’re on the road. People see the glam and the amazing stuff, but they don’t know the other side. This life can rip you apart” – Justin Bieber
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  • “Not being able to leave the house [because of panic attacks] was so debilitating… I couldn’t go to the studio unless I was lying down in the car with a pillow over my face. I used to beat myself up about it” – Ellie Goulding
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  • “[When filming Deadpool] I never, ever slept… The expectations were eating me alive… Blake helped me through that. I’m lucky to have her around just to keep me sane” – Ryan Reynolds
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  • “[My eating disorder and self-harming] was a way of expressing my own shame, of myself, on my own body… There were some times where my emotions were just so built up, I didn’t know what to do” – Demi Lovato
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  • [About a documentary in which he cried] “It scared me that people were going to see me at my most vulnerable… but that conversation changed everything… everything was out in the open and I was able to then talk to my friends about it” – Professor Green
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  • “I had to reprogram myself to see the good in me. Because someone didn’t love me didn’t mean I was unlovable. That’s what the break-up of my marriage reduced me to. It took away my self-esteem. It beat me down to the lowest of lows” – Halle Berry
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  • “Antidepressants help! If you can change your brain chemistry enough to think: ‘I want to get up in the morning; I don’t want to sleep until four in the afternoon. I want to get up and go do my s**t and go to work’. Reset the auto-meter" - Jon Hamm
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