By Kourtney Meldrum
The theme of September is the “New Year,” restart, or the chance to go after everything you put on the back burner over the summer. For me, it seemed like a great chance to finally find some balance.
What even is balance? Honestly, I’m not sure, but I was hoping that if I meditated every day for a week, I’d have a better idea.
The benefits of meditation are seemingly endless. Mindworks—a mindfulness meditation app— states that for students, meditation can have major benefits such as decreased stress, improved concentration, emotional well-being, creativity, and better sleep. Sounds promising and potentially life-changing, doesn’t it?
In an article posted by the Harvard Gazette, Catherine Kerr of Osher Research Center at Harvard Medical School says that “mindfulness meditation has been reported to enhance numerous mental abilities, including rapid memory recall.”
This means that individuals who are meditating on a regular basis are able to remember better, concentrate better, and in many instances, process the flow of information in a much more expedient way than those who don’t.
With the promises of basically becoming smarter, stronger, a better sleeper, more creative and emotionally balanced superhuman— I set out to meditate every day for a week. Here’s what happened:
Monday
I have to admit it has been a while since I meditated. A long while. So at the crack of dawn, after breakfast, I come back to my yoga training and sit cross-legged on the middle of the floor in my small condo. I go through a few pranayama breaths to calm my mind, and then I sit. I sit in silence, in nothingness.
It’s not quite nothingness. More like pushing thoughts out of mind and returning to my breath constantly (why do I have so much on my brain so early in the morning??).
After I finish (it was only about five minutes, I’ll have to work up to more eventually) I feel calm. I thank myself for starting my day off like this and then feeling a little more centered, I start the week.
Tuesday
Monday went well, and I have high hopes for today. Similarly, I start early in the morning and stick to the routine of about five minutes. It seems easier to get into when I remember how calm I’d felt the day before. Maybe I could do this? Is this what balance feels like?
Wednesday
Wednesday is busy. I don’t meditate in the morning, and I feel it weighing on me all day. Wasn’t meditation supposed to keep me calm, not make me more stressed?
I finally find the time at the end of the day, and I’m thankful that I do. It’s a great, calming way to end a busy and hectic day.
Thursday
What if I snuck in my meditation in the middle of my day? On the train? In a coffee shop? Well, that’s what I tried today.
The verdict: unless you’re an extremely focused and not easily distracted person, I don’t recommend midday meditation.
When there are millions of things happening around you, how do you concentrate on nothing? After this failed experiment, I find myself back in the quietness of my condo at night, easily relaxing into my meditation.
Friday
Friday’s are busy— a night out, a night off— the end of the week. Basically, I’m saying I didn’t meditate today. I try not to be mad at myself; life happens and that’s okay. Part of being mindful is taking it beyond your meditation and into your life— this includes forgiving yourself and striving to do better next time.
Saturday
After Friday’s missed meditation I was ready to get back into the routine. I distinctly felt the absence of my meditation Friday, so on Saturday I certainly felt more calm, more centered, and more ready to take on the day when I began by taking a moment for myself.
Today, I was back on track.
Sunday
It had been a long week, but I feel like I could conquer the world. Some days it was hard to find a few extra minutes when I was in a rush, but those few minutes of quiet usually ended up saying a lot.
It said that I was willing to put away time for myself and find some balance— a very important element of self-care.
Am I going to meditate every day for the rest of my life? Probably not. But I’m definitely excited about adding it regularly into my routine without feeling forced to do it.
In a lot of ways, my week of meditation changed my life. It might not have made me a superhuman, but it showed me the importance of putting myself first, and enabling myself to control how I feel about the day moving forward.