Headspace App and the Purpose of Meditation

I’ve dabbled in meditation for years. Years of martial arts training and many geeky pursuits have produced some weird things in my childhood (and maybe a few times more recently…). I’ve watched way too many martial arts flicks and way had too many attempts at holding my hand in the air and attempting to move objects with my mind a la the force. This is the way of the Super Geek after all. I never really knew what it was truly about though.

The stereotype

We imagine the Buddhist monk centering their chi. We imagine mystical things that wander into the realm of pseudo-science. I did recently pass a Raiki level 1 chi healing class (look it up on www.udemy.com …it’s free!) just for my personal interest. I am a skeptic, and these things do sound really hokie, however I will delve into the realm of chi control and its effects on performance.   I for one don’t knock something until I’ve tried it and I can logically see my way to some true blue geek conclusions.

Think about it from a strictly scientific perspective…as we currently know it there is a limited amount of matter and energy in the universe. We also know that it cannot be created or destroyed, rather it can only be transferred into its opposite (vis a vis matter transforms into energy and energy transforms into matter). Not only that but the basis of all of these transactions are pure energy itself, positive and negative charges jumping from valence shells and bonding particles together.

At its core everything in the world is energy then therefore I think there is something to at least attempting to harmonize with the this idea even if this doesn’t become a tangible transaction.  Sounds hokie still, but a hokie that has reasonable foundations that we can all agree upon. BUT again, we’ll do more of this in a later posting.

I really want to talk about the Headspace App!

I’ve talked about Headspace in previous postings but I’m going to devote some time to it specifically. I’m still a novice, though I am on my 51st day of use, sometimes with multiple sessions per day.  Most of the sessions are 10 minutes long of guided meditation, but I have done some longer ones.

The app itself starts you with a 30 day program (free) which is called “take 10” which involves 30 separate guided meditation recordings that are approximately 10 minutes a piece with a small intro and outro from the head of Headspace: Andy Puddicombe.

Andy, while studying to get a degree in Sports Science, decided to head to the Himilayas and study meditation instead. I highly recommend googling him and see his whole path to becoming the headspace guru that he is.  Suffice it to say, he’s followed a very interesting path and is very qualified for his job.

Like I said I’m on my 51st day. I got through my first 30 days of the “take 10” program and then subscribed because I was hooked. The subscription is small ($12.99 per month) and I found it very worth it as I learned more about meditation. After I subscribed I picked out a new pack to start called focus. Truth be told all of the packs help you focus, even though the packs have different aims.

What is it doing?

This isn’t some hokie practice. This is a program that allows one to unwind, un-clutter the thought process, and become way more productive. I can say unabashedly that this was the case for me.  Work for me is a constant deluge of information and I was having the problem where I would work on 10 things at once. The problem with that is that one becomes approximately 10% effective at each of those tasks. Studies suggest that dividing your attention will lead to a literal division in effectiveness aka 100% divided by 10 tasks. While you can obviously get better and more effective at multitasking you will always hit a limit.

Quite frankly to be better at anything, you need to be able to invest your thoughts specifically on the task that has priority. For me this was becoming problematic. I’m very good at prioritizing and my work is very effective (I run an engineering firm and manufacturing facility with close to 100 employees). That being said, even if you devote your attention to just one task, it won’t stop the mind from wandering necessarily.

What I’m poor at, therefore, is being mindful. Mindfulness is a popular tagline these days but at brass tacks all it really means is your ability to focus on the moment. In terms of work, home or anything else this means that the task I was working on would be displaced repeatedly and I would be distracted by thoughts of whatever, other tasks, things I was worried about, things I was excited for, etc.

De-mystifying the process

As it is described in one of the many educational animations and videos narrated by Andy in the app (I’m paraphrasing of course):

Our minds are kind of like busy highways, and consciously we stand in the median and the vehicles zip back and forth. While we try and rest our focus on just one thing, these other thoughts (the cars on the highway) zip by, and we have a tendency to latch on to them. And then we get pulled away from the thing we were intending to think about.

What we need to learn therefore is how to just let them drive by. You see meditation isn’t this task to completely blank the mind (some people have this preconception), rather it is an attempt to just let it be.  You are not your stream of thoughts, you cannot fight them, nor can you turn them off. So like swimming in the ocean, if the current takes you, you shouldn’t fight it, you should simply drift with it until you arrive back at shore. So when thoughts fly by in your head you simply learn to watch them go by. If you get pulled by one you remind yourself to drift back to the center and continue what you were thinking about intentionally. In this way we practice focusing, calming, and for me (regaining performance).

So many benefits

Controlling emotions, anxiety, generally being more relaxed and focused, and overall happier are just a few of the benefits I can name aside from just feeling more effective at my job. My interpersonal relationships are also benefiting from this and I’m finding that I’m taking on far less unintended pessimism.

Along with the sessions in the app come activities that help throughout the day so that the skills in meditating are transferable to tasks you are doing out in the world. Like anything else, practice makes perfect and I am getting better. While I don’t necessarily need the guided part, I’m going to continue to do the headspace programs as it is nice to have a preconceived curriculum. I’m also driven by the streak days that get recorded, in the same way that my inner completionist drives me to keep my visible streak going in DuoLingo (see 2 blog posts ago).

Everyone should do it, period.

Moral of the story is that I recommend everyone meditate. Not only that but I say if you’re new, want to jump back in in a structured manner, or even if you’re an expert who wants to try something new, I highly recommend Headspace app.

Next week I’ll be posting a new way to make a ninja vanish smoke bomb (I’ve been tweaking the formula) and I’ll be kicking off a new long term experiment (shhhh, it’s a secret). Also expect some sweet supergeeklife music soon!

And here you go for giggles. I did another watercolor painting. This one is inspired by this idea of those Buddhist monks centering their chi and practicing gung fu all day(or kung fu as it is popularly called).  The characters in the painting literally translate to gung fu and I tried to do like a pseudo Hong Kong pop art type of style with it.