New Year started and I decided to get my 10 projects in writing. Guess what, one of these ones was about mindfulness. Therefore, I meditated 15 minutes every day during January. This is what happened.

First of all, I need to give you some context. I’ve tried to meditate in different stages at least for 3 years. Nothing really worked out. Just because of me. I often found convenient excuses not to do it. Few times I tried for couple of days and thought it was interesting but it required a calm area, a spire stone, a bench or fancy accessories. I used to say I had no time and was unsure how to do it anyway. Well, excuses and more excuses. You know, the worst is when saying “I was OK without it all my life, why would I need this trendy thing now?”. This is close to ignorance. Yep, I also said that. Folks, I found every possible excuse not to do it. But 2020 is a different year. So many things happening in my personal and working life that I set up some rules to myself. Resolution is gold. So, I’ll share week by week what happened.

Week 1

I downloaded an app called Calm. In the past I also explored Headspace and perhaps 1 or 2 more but never really consistently as mentioned before. I promised myself I’d use this app every day in January. I started with some Breathing Exercises. 15 minutes. That was the deal. Every day. It sounded very challenging as I never managed to even do 5 minutes. Hearing my breathing for such a long time was absolutely challenging. My first couple of days were very hard, as everything when starting. I was easily distracted by any noise, so I seriously needed to be isolated to make it work. I tried mainly in the evening, when coming back from work. There was too much going on in my head during the day so I thought the evening was a good moment. Perhaps I was unconsciously a bit optimistic. Just because it turned out to be the opposite. The noise was not only from outside but inside. My head was processing a lot and that didn’t allow me to focus. I was purely trying to focus on my breathing. So, my first week concluded and I felt like there were some positive and negative areas. The positive was having 15 minutes for a date with my breathing as I never really managed to hear my breathing for so long. The negative was struggling to find my place and a comfortable position to do it.

Week 2

After 7 days, I felt I was building some consistency and this was critical to make a habit stick. At some point I read that if you wanted to create a habit, committing daily for 30 days it was a good starting point to make it stick. My first week consistency gave me some confidence and I decided to make some adjustments to improve my results. Instead of doing it every evening after work, I decided to do it every morning before work. At the beginning, I was a bit sleepy but I found that it was easier to focus as my brain was fresh, not too much going on when waking up and this allowed me to stay clearer. Almost no distractions. I was actually looking forward to meditate.

Week 3

Just because my previous week went relatively well, I decided to experiment a bit more. I kept the morning meditation but this time not in bed. This time it was during my commute. Yep, you’re right, during my train to work! It sounded crazy. Having stops every 5-7 minutes or so was going to be a nightmare. People walking around, announcements being made, some railway noise, doors opening and other external limitations. I must confess it was not easy at all but I was trying to train my mind for tricky situations. This was one.

Week 4

Another week, another challenge. I made more adjustments. This week I decided to move from morning to evening, like in Week 1. But this time not after work but just before going to sleep. Like preparing myself to rest. This was probably my best week of the month. My mind went through different challenges and this week was very pleasant as all conditions were great (hot shower, laying down in bed, no noise, cool room and slightly tired). However, there was a grey line. I needed to be super careful not to fall asleep. It needed to be just the right time to do the 15 minutes and after that have another 5 minutes before sleeping. This needed to be a transition from one world to another. Well, not all attempts are successful. One day I fell asleep in the middle of my meditation. It was fine to be imperfect. The key was to keep trying.

After the 30 days, meditating truly helped me in these areas:

I fall asleep faster. All my life I struggled with sleep but being able to have these minutes just to hear myself and clear my mind helped me significantly to slow down all processes going on in my brain. Exactly what I needed to rest.

I feel calmer. Breathing properly was a game changer. In moments of stress, I tried to implement some of these techniques and worked out quite well.

I concentrate more. Because of all these different challenges I previously mentioned week after week, I trained myself to focus and to try to ignore the noise. It was not perfect but it was certainly a decent improvement.

I can be in silence, completely. At the beginning, my brain was wild. I couldn’t stop it. Now I understood that at some point my brain was running out of battery and I found myself naturally in silence. So it was important not to quiet my thoughts as I was desperately trying to do in the Week 1 but let it go and in due course silence would be the next natural step.

It’s important to know that there is no overnight transformation. There’s some bad days and meditation just doesn’t work. However, the fact of trying one more time automatically creates some sort of unconscious patience which ultimately will help slow down your brain activity or redirect it somewhere else. You’d be surprised to know that taking a few deep breaths will reduce your stress and calm you. This is really obvious but for whatever reason we just don’t do it very often. Meditating 15 minutes every day, made me aware of my breathing and encouraged me to implement this technique in other areas or moments where I might feel anxious or nervous. I’m sure there’s plenty of benefits but I tried to highlight some that worked for me. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not an expert or a scientist but just a normal guy sharing this experiment. In fact, I finished in January a stunning book called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Combining meditation and the lessons from the book truly took me to the next level.