Meditation: 4-7-8 Breathing for Sleep: How to Do It, Science of It, and More |
- 4-7-8 Breathing for Sleep: How to Do It, Science of It, and More
- A silver lining - wearing a mask encourages us to be more mindful of how we breath.
- Hey. I’m releasing a free, quarantine-focused guided meditation tonight.
- It gets more joyful
- What is the point of life?
- Question
- Synchronized daily meditations starting 3/20!
- I Love Meditating
- My technique
- All my problems exist in my mind.
- Daydreaming Less?
- Proper guide on how to increase meditation time?
- Well anything magical happen?
- Concentration is mind masturbation
- "Keep your mind ever on the Star, but let your eyes watch over your footsteps, lest you fall into the mire by reason of your upward gaze."
- Meditating for the first time after smoking weed seemed very successful
- Hi, i have made this [playlist] with soulful/peaceful instrumental music. It will help your mind levitate from your body, to finally become a free Spirit ;) Perfect for relaxing, reflection and meditation. 9 hours of music and frequently updated. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6soJ4N2BicjVtT510Fq
- Hey folks, so I wanted to make a post here just to share some of my recent experience with starting meditation not too long ago. I'm doing this to one, possibly entertain or inspire somebody, and two, to attempt to keep track of the things going on.
- I created a meditation YouTube channel
- "People with autism shouldn't practise any meditation" All but TM are allegedly inappropriate.
- On reshaping your reality..
- Recs on chair to meditate with?
- I don't know if i'm doing it right
- Im seeing weird things during meditation
| 4-7-8 Breathing for Sleep: How to Do It, Science of It, and More Posted: 19 Mar 2020 08:22 AM PDT 4-7-8 Breathing for Sleep: How to Do It, Science of It, and More How can a simple breathing technique help with insomnia and stress? The 4-7-8 breathing method has been really effective for many people – myself included – at helping relax the body and mind ready for sleep. The first time I tried it I was genuinely surprised the next day at how quickly I'd fallen asleep! It's also been successful for some sufferers of PTSD and anxiety at reducing their symptoms by stimulating the Vagus Nerve. In this article I'll explain what it does to relax the body, and why it is so effective. How To Perform 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise
To understand why this breathing pattern is so effective, we need to look at the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for regulating the automatic functions of our body, such as heartrate, immune function and digestion. Two Halves of the Autonomic Nervous SystemSympathetic Nervous System (SNS) – activated when we perceive danger or need alertness:
Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) – activated when our body feels that it's safe to relax
The sympathetic nervous system is super important, but with the busy modern life that many of us lead, full of stimulus and stress, it is activated too much of the time. Our PNS rarely has a chance to take over, which causes problems for recovery and especially for sleep! Using 4-7-8 Breathing to Regulate Your Nervous SystemEffects of Deep BreathingWe have minimal direct control over what our autonomic nervous system does, but via specific breathwork exercises it is actually possible to switch its state between the SNS and PNS. When we breathe deeply (i.e., from the diaphragm rather than from the chest) we activate stretch receptors around the diaphragm linked to the parasympathetic nervous system. Any deep breathing will have this effect, but it's especially powerful in the 4-7-8 method as we pause for 7 seconds in the slightly stretched position for a stronger "rest and digest" effect. For many people, the level of cortisol (the "stress hormone") is chronically high and this can hinder sleep. Deep breathing, such as in the 4-7-8 method, has been scientifically shown to reduce levels of cortisol. Effects of Slow Breathing Furthermore the rhythm of breathing affects our autonomic nervous system, with slow, controlled breathing activating the PNS. This should come as no surprise (given popular advice to "take a deep breath" when feeling overwhelmed) but it was only in 2016 that scientists first found the part of the brainstem that seems to cause this! In the 4-7-8 pattern, each breath is very slow – around 19 seconds, so again it stimulates the part of the nervous system that allows us to sleep. Reducing Effort for the Muscles The last thing you need when trying to sleep is physical effort. It generates unnecessary heat, increases heart rate and generally prepares your body for sport rather than rest. Even something as simple as a breathing exercise can require some physical effort. In particular, to extend the exhale for as long as 8 seconds, it is necessary to restrict the airflow out of the lungs. This would ordinarily be done by tensing up various muscles around the lungs and windpipe. The 4-7-8 method avoids this by simply placing the tongue against the upper gums to restrict the airflow considerably. The muscles have minimal work to do and we can physically relax a lot faster. SummaryIf you're like many people who have difficulty physically relaxing, this breathing technique may help you like it helped many before you. It quickly starts to activate the PNS and reduces cortisol, all while performing a meditative activity with minimal physical demands. --- I'm sharing it here since this technique helped me a lot, and this is a good explanation to see what's going on. (Originally posted in Huma Blog about 4-7-8 Breathing.) [link] [comments] |
| A silver lining - wearing a mask encourages us to be more mindful of how we breath. Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:58 PM PDT We'll need all the silver linings we can get to get thru this crisis. [link] [comments] |
| Hey. I’m releasing a free, quarantine-focused guided meditation tonight. Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:29 PM PDT Musician and clinical psych doctoral student here. I have been meditating, and writing music, and studying psychology for a really long time, and I thought this would be a good time to do this. I designed a full length, muscle relaxation and guided imagery meditation in surround sound for people who are impacted by current events. I will release it on this subreddit tonight, as in like 18 hours from now, so come and check it out and let me know of any other good places to share it. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 03:16 PM PDT I just want to encourage everyone to keep meditating consistently, even if often it seems boring or unpleasant. I've meditated for about 10 years now (with some slacking) and can reach some joy in meditation fairly easily now. When I started I just had distractions and mind wandering. But now, most times I sit, I pleasure arises and I enjoy it. This will happen to you too. It's just mind training. Just learning a habit of focused happiness through repeated practice. Especially to those who are isolated at this difficult time, know that you can use your time alone well. Sit, meditate, focus on your breath and on thoughts of loving-kindness. You'll gain a lasting benefit through the time you've spent alone. Greater happiness, greater peace, more joy. An ability to return to happiness after stressful experiences. All the best. Sit and focus, it's worth every second. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 11:32 PM PDT I have had bad luck after bad luck and I'm still trying to push forward. But in all honesty it's getting to the point where I just don't care about anything. Why do we suffer so much for no damn reason. We are powerless and useless when we think about it. Many of us are entitled and even then still aren't happy. Humans are just shitty people in general. No ones happy with what they have and I simply just want one thing and that's peace. Like why are we even on this earth if all we do is suffer? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 20 Mar 2020 12:30 AM PDT Hello, I've been meditating for a month, and I was wondering : When you're outside of meditation, do you guys still try to keep the habit of observing the thought without judging it? Because I feel like I do that a little too much and it somehow makes me more in my head because if i'm not able to always ignore it, it brings more and more thoughts with it. I don't feel like this should happen with meditation, not sure tho. Thoughts? [link] [comments] |
| Synchronized daily meditations starting 3/20! Posted: 19 Mar 2020 04:43 PM PDT I've organized a daily synchronized meditation that will begin tomorrow, 3/20 and continue forward indefinitely. Please participate for however short or long you choose. It will be at 3 PM NYC time. Here are the time zones that coordinate with that.
Happy meditating! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 09:36 PM PDT I know the next stage is the dark night of the soul, but I don't care. I love meditation and I love meditating. There's so much to learn and I'm only just scratching the surface! At first, I thought I reached Nirvana just because of how wonderful I felt! If that wasn't Nirvana, I can't wait to find out what is! Perhaps I'll never reach Nirvana. Perhaps, I'll die or I'll forget everything, but right now everything is ok. Living in the now is beautiful. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 20 Mar 2020 02:14 AM PDT I am a non-dogmatic meditator. I am not a buddhist or hindu or taoist. Though I am familiar with a bit of those philosophies/religions. I prefer meditation to be a discovery of my own. I have done it for years now. My technique came to me through experimentation. It is most similar vipasanna I think, definitely effective. I sit with back straight eyes closed. My hand position may change but I often use the cosmic egg mudra, because I find it comfortable, I place no special significance on it. Sometimes I just interlace my fingers. I put my attention on the sound and sensation of my breath breathing in deeply and slowly. I count my exhalations in sets of ten. Eventually if I do a longer session I may let go of counting. I notice the "lightshow" behind my close eyes progress from red to violet, when it does I know I am in a meditative state. I have noticed lower stress, improved memory, greater compassion. More appreciation of life and nature. Dissipation of self deception, creativity and creative insight. I just wanted to share and get feedback. [link] [comments] |
| All my problems exist in my mind. Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:50 AM PDT In reality, here and now there's never nothing wrong. In my life I've never actually had a problem that didn't exist in my mind. I've had challenges, yes, but I've never really had any problem. Problems are just a creation of the mind. The root cause of all "problems" is the mind, so one could say that the mind itself is the problem. Problems will continue to arise as long as there's identification with the mind. But once you start observing the mind in a detached way you'll see that there's no need to solve any problem. What's needed is to just observe the mind. I call this the art of watching, which is the name of a song I wrote about this whole process of meditation. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 05:35 PM PDT So, I've taken up more consistency in my meditation routine, and I really like it. One thing I have noticed though, is that my my desire to daydream has diminished by quite a lot. I'm a bit of a maladaptive daydreamer, so while it's good that my over- daydreaming is getting under control- it does worry me just a little that some of my creative impulses will diminish Is this normal? [link] [comments] |
| Proper guide on how to increase meditation time? Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:46 PM PDT All spirituality aside, I truly believe that we are training a muscle while we meditate, and it's never good to over stress a muscle. I've done 20 minutes of meditation in the morning and at night for a few months straight and felt my mind was overworked, and I'd like to develop a system on how to properly work my way up to 1 hour of meditation in the morning and 1 hour of meditation at night. If anyone has some insight to offer on this, please comment below and let me know how I should progress. Here is what I currently am thinking about doing, instead of jumping straight into 20 minutes twice daily... Start meditating for 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at night. Every 45 days to 2 months, add either 2.5 minutes or 5 minutes to that time. For instance after 45 days of meditating 5 minutes daily, I start meditating for 7.5 minutes. I haven't decided entirely which to add, but 2.5 could possibly be taking things too slow, but I'm unsure of this.. I wish there was a definitive way to make sure I could progress linearly, and not over work my mind, but instead create a calm and consistent practice. Please let me know what you all think below, thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 20 Mar 2020 02:22 AM PDT If i keep this up well i experiece some amazing things, leave my body, see inside myself. See what is? [link] [comments] |
| Concentration is mind masturbation Posted: 20 Mar 2020 01:30 AM PDT |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 07:28 PM PDT Reading The Kybelion for the first time, and I can't believe some of the wisdom it contains. Yeah, this stuff may seem like common sense, but how many actually do it? Full quote below:
[link] [comments] |
| Meditating for the first time after smoking weed seemed very successful Posted: 19 Mar 2020 06:12 AM PDT I'm not sure what my goal of this post is, but I felt like I wanted to tell someone about my experience. Sorry for the long read. I've been wanting to try meditating for awhile now, and last night while I was relaxed but still not too sleepy I decided to smoke and try meditating. The outcome and mental feelings I felt were amazing. I started out listening to a guided meditation for positive thoughts. The first steps getting into a relaxed mind and body worked great for me, but then the guide was almost talking too much. I was so focused on picturing what she wanted me to picture that it was distracting and felt like I was straining to visualize everything. I decided I would just turn on some meditation music and go through the beginning steps again to refocus my mind and then let my mind go where it wanted to go. I focused my eyes on a neutral point in front of me and thought about my breathing. Slowly letting my eyes get heavier, I eventually closed them but kept thinking about my breath. I started to feel the vibrant but soft tones of the music radiate through my body. I tried to picture the vibrations as negative energy leaving my body and being replaced by positive, relaxing energy. Very slowly, my fingers and toes started tingling. Little muscle spasms started happening; my fingers and hands, legs and feet. I realized the tingling feeling and spasms were kind of what happens when I fall asleep, but my mind felt fully awake. Gradually, the thoughts about my hands and legs faded away. Almost like they weren't even there. I felt like I was simply a brain in endless space. This is where I basically started lucid dreaming with very intentional focus. I started visualizing my emotions and core memories as similar to the movie Inside Out. I could see islands with the pillars of my life that are most important to me. There was a love island that had a soft reddish pink color to it. On this island, I could see a house that my girlfriend and I had (I'm thinking about buying a house soon), and other mini islands with various of my closest family members. Looking at this island, I felt like living with love in my heart was my biggest goal in life. I'd been so focused on finishing college and getting a good job that I thought that was my biggest goal, but this proved myself otherwise. Another island was my creative island, which is something that I've been starting to want to expand more recently. I didn't get a chance to explore this island for long, when I started to feel my hands and the rest of my body coming back. The endless space started fading away, and I slowly came back to the room I was sitting in. I sat in the low light for a few minutes and tried to actively reflect on what I felt and thought about. And that was it. It felt amazing and I didn't even know what I was doing in terms of true meditation. Thanks for reading :) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:42 AM PDT |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 01:25 PM PDT So, I began meditation maybe a month ago or so. Something I have come to realize is that I have already been entering a state of focus my entire life. That, and being right in the moment. Meditation has expanded my mindfulness literacy. The first thing that I experienced was calmness. It was nice to be able to handle my own state and remove myself from the anxiety or depression. It is very obvious now that this is an extremely useful tool for that sort of thing. The second milestone experience was an outpouring of emotion. I'm not really sure where it came from or what caused it but thats ok. I let it come forward and, out. This caused a lot of crying for most of a day but afterwords I felt much lighter. At some point along the line, I started experiencing bouts of extreme irritation. I'm not really sure why, I've only read that this can sometimes be a side effect of meditation? It has since gone away. There have been many realizations made along the way. At some point I just thought: Why am I reacting to all these external forces? That was when I began to shift from depending on external things and turning that inward. This felt extremely liberating. I am still in the process of doing this. It was a big leap at first, but now I am recognizing little things I am still doing or depending on and letting go. On the topic of letting go, I have also realized this absurd attachment I have to some things. This is a hard one to convey. I am still in the process of just noticing. A lot of negative feelings can come from being attached to some thing or some outcome. I found that I am able to let go of some of those things, some are easy to process, some take more time. Recently I seem to have lost interest in eating sugar and watching porn. Those used to be things that would make me feel good, but now when I go to them, I get nothing. I feel good about not needing or wanting those things, but I feel this panicky feeling like: what do I do now then? I noticed how reactive I am. Reacting to everything and everyone around me. This has to do with having an external dependency. I am still reactive a lot of the time, but there is a shift to where I am less reactive and instead just observing. There have been lots of little observations and little ah-ha moments that I don't really recall. But I am sure they are tucked away nicely somewhere in my subconscious mind. My final big realization so far is my ego. My ego is huge and powerful but extremely elusive. It's like it can take the helm at any time, and I have no idea. I could even think I don't have one, but that's the ego talking. I am still in the process of noticing this, but it is the most elusive thing. In recollection, there have been times when my ego took charge, and things went badly for me. I don't blame myself or my ego for this. I believe it was more of a protective measure if anything, and I would like to try to allow it to just relax, and feel less threatened. Anyway if you made it this far, thanks for indulging me. [link] [comments] |
| I created a meditation YouTube channel Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:48 PM PDT I have meditate for a short time, like 2 weeks but I really didn't felt like the meditation was helping me and I couldn't concentrate, but some days ago I tried LSD and holly shit that thing really changed my life, now I feel really well when I meditate, so I wanted to share my road to the spiritual wellness and I created a YouTube channel with this porpouse. https://youtu.be/_ef2RtHSghU With this channel I just want to talk with people that want to learn to meditate and I want get help about meditation too. I'm sorry if this post isn't enough for this community, I just want to share my experiences. (I'm not native English speaker) [link] [comments] |
| "People with autism shouldn't practise any meditation" All but TM are allegedly inappropriate. Posted: 19 Mar 2020 06:50 PM PDT Throughout all internet the only suggestion I've found that people with autism shouldn't practise mindfulness meditation was on this reddit post, specifically here: https://www.reddit.com/r/transcendental/comments/1r43te/the_new_eeg_research_on_autism_may_be_a/ OP's specifically states that the research presented "suggests that such practices are completely inappropriate for individuals with autism" and only Transcendental Meditation offers positive effects. He also states other other serious affirmations like the following: "Sooooo... in every study I could find, mindfulness and concentration meditation looks like it would potentially be damaging for someone with autism." "Any anti-stress effects would probably be very minor compared to the other issues." Can anyone give me insight about this, how true is this? This doesn't make sense to me and seems like a very biased conclusion from OP. Also being that u/saijanai, the OP, is still active on reddit, could you give some additional insight on these conclusions? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2020 01:49 PM PDT You are in the middle of shaping your sword, you are just heating up the iron so that you can work with it and whenever you are going out and meeting your current friends/family/environment you are projecting the current shape and they are projecting it back to you The only way to actually reshape the way we want it is by having it spend more time in a "form" where it can get shapened in a particular way.. A dagger is shaped in a heated environment until it reaches its desired form then it can be used. The mind is shaped by various programmings in various mental states, through frequent repetition. A dagger can be shaped in a low temperature environment just like the mind can be shaped in a "low focused" manner..though the effectiveness is vastly different compared to using the right methods [link] [comments] |
| Recs on chair to meditate with? Posted: 19 Mar 2020 04:31 PM PDT Hi All, I'm looking for a meditation chair and wanted to see if anyone has any recommendations. I'm looking for a chair with legs (I can't cross my legs), with back support, and a cushion. It doesn't have to be especially made for meditation. Should I just buy any random office chair? Or is there something that would be more effective for meditation? Thank you. [link] [comments] |
| I don't know if i'm doing it right Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:15 PM PDT Hello, I've been meditating for a little bit now (1-2 months) pretty consistently. I'm kinda trying to get rid of having a racing mind and just generally being too much in my head. Lately, something that has been helping me is putting A LOT of focus on my breathing. I know that's just the general point of meditating, but whenever I get a thought, I used to look at it without judging and then come back to my breathing. But sometime, it's just so hard to not get the bait and u just so far into your thoughts. So now whenever I get a thought, I don't only avoid judging it but I immediately try to bring back my focus into the breathing. Something I also do outside of meditation as well. For example, if I'm talking to somebody and I get thoughts in my head, I don't have time to just look at the thought without judging it, otherwise I lose my focus on what the person in front of me is saying. I just don't know if that way, i'm running from the problem(because I redirect my focus whenever a thought pops up) rather then fixing it. I don't know if i'm training my brain to run away from the thought rather then training it to see a thought as a thought and to separate it from my emotions. [link] [comments] |
| Im seeing weird things during meditation Posted: 19 Mar 2020 09:16 PM PDT When I meditate I usually see many strange and weird entities, shapes, diamonds, stars, pyramids and circles (while My eyes are closed. So I am wondering if I should ignore those things or pay attention to them. (When I pay attention I feel like I am getting sucked into a wormhole but then the feeling stops after 10 seconds or so). Please help, thank you [link] [comments] |
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