Stuart Heritage, a British Guardian magazine film, television and music writer, writes in this column about his own experience: Is transcendental meditation really effective?
He had done many things in his noisy everyday life for an oasis of peace, but eventually decided to try transcendental meditation. The following is a translation of that article
Under stress, seek meditation for salvation
I don’t know about you, but I’m so tired. Wake up in a stupid state, spending every morning whispering away the fog in your head. I eat lunch in the state of being stupid and curse everything in front of me. You try not to fall asleep on your desk, stroll on the sofa, lose your consciousness with your clothes on, crawl into your bed, and get annoyingly choppy sleep. That is my life.
Of course, I wouldn’t dare to complain about this kind of life. Because I don’t want to participate in a game where I am competing with other people for fatigue. When I say “I’ve only slept for four hours,” the other person just says, “I’ve only slept for three hours.”
So I’m fed up and blamed myself. Like most people around me , my life is addicted to the ant hell of modern culture, where TV, telephone, email, Twitter, noise, and electronic sounds are rushing.The sound effects of video games and the music of entertainment venues cross the surface of the brain like crazy. It takes a lot of effort to turn it off. Also, trying to turn it off doesn’t always work. Suddenly, my heart screams as my brain almost falls asleep. “Don’t you forget to set the alarm?” Or “You didn’t reply to that woman yesterday. What a silly thing.”
To keep such a world out, I sought transcendental meditation for salvation. This is not the first time to try the relaxation method for the comfort of mind and body.
Meditation experience # 1: “Sleep app” “Float tank”
At the very beginning, I tried a sleep app. It’s an app that receives sound effects from both ears until you fall asleep. It had no effect. Because I felt the sound unconsciously commanding me to eat my parents while I was asleep.
Next, I tried the flotation tank. It lays in a small tank of salt water for about an hour. This also had no effect. Because playing in a dark plastic tank filled with hot water was the exact opposite of relaxing. After that, I tried mindfulness training perth.
Meditation experience # 2: “Mindfulness”
You’ve probably heard about mindfulness. During meditation, Buddhists and monks once focused their attention on themselves as a way to focus on the thought process. Techniques that omit that spiritual aspect are everywhere. There are books and seminars. Therapists and counselors prescribe it. There are also apps like headspace that are surprisingly popular. It is an app that guides you to breathing exercises and self-diagnosis of various parts of the body for 10 minutes, leading to joyful and complete self-realization.
Mindfulness helps thousands of people with depression, eating disorders, and drug addicts every day. But that didn’t suit me. Mindfulness requires introspection, which is very tiring. You must pay attention to everything while sitting down. Pay attention to how you breathe, your posture, what you think, and why you think about it. No matter what you think about it, think about it … it will last forever. I’ve known a few people who started their mindfulness at the advice of their doctors, but screamed at mountainous homework and escaped.
What’s more, my mindfulness has made me nervous. During a 30-minute exercise in a course of writing down all the thoughts that came to my mind, I was told that I was worried about my work. I never thought I was worried about my work, but when I knew it, I fell into a panic-like death spiral. Later, I should have ignored all of these emotions until I couldn’t stop them until they became heart disease and died of tragedy at a young age. This is my style.
Meditation Experience # 3: “Transcendental Meditation (TM Meditation)”
That’s why I decided to try Transcendental Meditation-TM. At first I was very careful about TM. That’s because 20 years ago, I had seen a political broadcast by the political department of TM. They said that meditating with a large number could increase collective awareness, reduce crime rates, and unite the nation. For me, who was 12 at the time, it sounded very dubious.
But times have changed, and Transcendental Meditation seems to have undergone a major overhaul of public relations. Recently, rather than persistently explaining the collective consciousness, it is being offered as a treatment that brings healing to modern life. Studies by the American Heart Association have demonstrated that Transcendental Meditation reduces the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease. There are also case studies where transcendental meditation enhances creativity and efficiency. Furthermore, in the process of meditation, you will experience deep peace.
Many celebrities and businessmen practice transcendental meditation
A huge number of celebrities are engaged in transcendental meditation, either because TM is useful or because it somehow seems to be popular in the spiritual world. Jerry Seinfeld (comedian), Martin Scorsese (film director), Oprah Winfrey and all employees of her company do TM. No, I’m doing TM to Clint Eastwood . Isn’t Clint Eastwood the exact opposite of Hippie? He is a man who shoots hippies.
In the UK, The Charlatans singer Tim Burgess is an avid practitioner of TM. He has been doing TM since 2008 and told me that “meditation is one of the most important aspects of my life.”He meditates in the morning and evening, but says “especially in the morning, it’s a great time to come up with good ideas.” “It’s not necessarily a world-changing idea, but it’s a good time to think about and plan small things, such as what to do on that day, remember what you have forgotten, or what is happening. It is. ”
But is TM effective even if not a celebrity? As a reminder, I found two TM practitioners. They also did not challenge the effect of TM. Sales Director Justina Sobocowiz was happy to acknowledge that life has changed since she started TM in 2012. “When I heard that I needed to spend 20 minutes twice a day for meditation, I was skeptical of the effect, but when I actually started TM, I felt calm and less stressed. ” She said. She tried other meditations, but said they had no effect. “The meditation method was to try to assume that I was on the beach, and it was very hard work.”
Another reason Maverick Gutara started transcendental meditation was because he was a big fan of Lynch coach Twin Peaks. He had tried other meditations, but even after that he went out to the bar and drank many liters. However, after learning TM two years ago, he says that he has been living a healthy life in all aspects. “I don’t drink a bottle of tequila every night,” he said. Apparently, the people who started TM want all other people to do TM. But I still couldn’t decide whether to start TM.
The decisive factor is the explanation from the TM instructor
So I searched the TM site and found out the instructor, Ged Valente. He is a friendly Glasgow school teacher and has been teaching transcendental meditation for decades. Ged explained that learning TM is very easy.
He also said that TM cannot learn from books, apps and videos. Because the instruction of TM is done according to the individual needs, it is necessary to receive the instruction of the instructor every night for 4 consecutive days. But after that, you can meditate on your own and you don’t have to pay any more. You don’t have to be interested in religion or spirituality. That was convenient for me. I had no interest in religion or spirituality.
The difference between transcendental meditation and mindfulness
Ged explained the difference between TM and mindfulness. Mindfulness needs to be observed, while TM can be left alone. By sitting quietly for 20 minutes, the heart naturally begins to calm down. Then, while repeating the mantra (a sound that has no meaning that no one should talk to), he eventually arrives at a vast point of silence, and the body is warm and comfortable.
There are many names for this feeling, but I call it transcendental. Ged called it “pure consciousness,” because the word was a bit too mysterious to me.
TM instruction includes briefing session, personal interview, individual instruction, and three follow-up meetings. After that, you will be able to continue meditation on your own. After hearing his explanation, I decided to try TM.
Transcendental meditation is a meditation method that can be continued by anyone anytime, anywhere.
What I quickly realized after learning TM was that it was a perfect meditation method for a “human being” like me. You can sit anywhere you like, wear your everyday clothes, close your eyes, repeat the mantra, and that’s it. As time goes by, I lose my sense of being aware of myself and my breathing slows down. And as the power to capture the mantra relaxes, and the mantra becomes dim, the mind calms down and the thoughts become less confusing. That’s a great feeling.
However, after meditating for the first time, I felt consciousness rising. My brain, without mysterious noisy chatter and retro sound effects, didn’t know what to do.
But after meditating a couple of times, it started to improve. And finally, I could easily calm my stupid brain. When you do that, everything melts and disappears. It’s just like the moment before you fall asleep. I’m not sure if this is transcendental, but then I’m surely calm. To be honest, I might just be asleep, but that’s fine. You may fall asleep during meditation, which is another sign of good meditation.
The reason for continuing transcendental meditation is
Until TM is regularly practiced for weeks or months, it does not always have the full effect of TM. Maverick said it took a year. So it will be too early to conclude whether TM will produce concrete results. I don’t know how TM affects my blood pressure, and I still don’t know if I was 35 years less likely to have a heart attack and fall. I have not yet clearly experienced the faint glowing, infinite glow that wraps up everything that I experience when I am completely transcended.
But even if Transcendence did not come, I decided to continue my meditation. Why is that? Because meditation is an amazingly luxurious time . Best of all, you can isolate yourself from the world around you for 20 minutes twice a day. There’s no TV, no news programs, no phone ring, no email, no Twitter. I’m the only one there with my eyes closed and sitting quietly. The TM is most like running into a cave at any time. That was what I wanted, but never could. Because Domino Pizza doesn’t deliver the visa to the cave.
Transcendental meditation is effective for relaxation, improvement of concentration and sleep quality
TM worked better for me than other methods. It may not work for you, but for me it was a deep relaxation. Meditation gives me the opportunity to organize my thoughts and allows me to focus on my work all day long. I’m not sure if it’s because of meditation or the clever placebo effect, but I’m much less tired than it was a month ago. My sleep became deep and uninterrupted.
And above all, I’m still me. Suddenly, I never enrolled in a religion, and I don’t know what the collective consciousness is. I still curse the object in front of me. While enjoying deep relaxation, he is yelling at his printer, “Let’s do a fool.” It’s like a dream!
