So, I’m taking a one-unit class this quarter called Zen Master. This is a class that is held every week, and in every class, we meditate. Most of the students in this class have either had some experience with meditation and Buddhism, but for me, I never cared for meditation. Back in high school, I used to take a class that made us do some mindful meditation, but no one in the class really cared for it and I thought it was ridiculous that we are meditating instead of learning. Well fast forward to today, and I still feel the same way. So I decided to take it as a challenge and see how I feel about meditation one week from now.
In order to motivate myself to do this challenge, I’ve looked up some facts about the benefits of meditation. There was a lot, but here are some that seem very convincing that I found from Live & Dare.
-
Meditation reduces stress and anxiety in general.
-
Meditation increases grey matter concentration in the brain.
-
Meditation improves focus, attention, and ability to work under stress.
-
Meditation improves learning, memory, and self-awareness.
Obviously, there is gonna be a lot of flaws to this challenge. One being the time constraint that I put in order for me to be able to publish this article in time. Another flaw is that I probably won’t reap the benefits of meditation in one week, if there are really any benefits to it. However, I will promise to try to take this seriously for my well-being and of course, for my Zen Master class.
During the week, I plan to meditate at least 5 minutes a day, morning, or night. I will use videos to guide me through this process, and after I meditate I will write about what I feel and what I thought.
During meditation, my mind was always filled with random thoughts or whatever I was doing or thinking about the entire day. I could not focus on my breathing (which is what all of my videos had told me to do). I felt like much of my time was given up to do this instead of doing something that I would much rather enjoy, like watching Netflix.
Days 4-5
Similar to the first few days, my thoughts would always overcrowd my mind, but at times I do find myself at peace. Meditation is a time to focus on yourself, but at times, I worry too much about other stuff that is beyond my control. At times when I do feel at peace, I didn’t think it did much to my overall conscience when I did open my eyes.
Days 6-7
These are the days when midterms are coming up, so whenever I meditated it was whenever I felt stressed. My classes aren’t too difficult, but I felt so much anxiety thinking about how these midterms are worth over half our grade. After these last two meditation sessions, I genuinely felt calm. My mind wasn’t covered with thoughts, and I was able to relax.
Concluding Thoughts
Meditation is not something that I see myself doing every day. Maybe so often when I get really stressed and have lots of anxiety about school or whatever it is, I will sit down and meditate. I believe meditation does work. Maybe not those facts that I highlighted at the beginning, but it has helped me calm down and get rid of the stresses in my life. No matter how ‘dumb’ or ‘weird’ people may think about meditation, it’s mental health and at times, we need to prioritize that before anything else. I mean do whatever works for you, but from here on out I promise (and I hope everyone does too) to not ridicule how someone deals with their own mental health.