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0) Pick something you want to focus on. It could be your breath, a picture, an article you want to read, the sounds in your environment... 1) Set a timer for t

by bmer 10y ago

0) Pick something you want to focus on. It could be your breath, a picture, an article you want to read, the sounds in your environment... 1) Set a timer for the period you want to focus on it for. In the beginning, I'd pick short times, like 2 minutes, or 5 minutes. 2) Try to remain focused on whatever you picked. You will inevitably fail. 3) Do not get angry at yourself! Your mind is like a puppy. It will want to wander, and you're simply going to notice it has wandered, and then pull your attention back. Be gentle with yourself, because just like a puppy, your mind will internalize abuse and snap back at you in the future in unexpected ways. 4) Repeat 3) until the timer rings. 5) Hurray! Repeat this exercise as many times as you want, for the rest of your life. Experiment with how long you like setting the timer. ------------------------- This is "mindfulness" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness), in my own words.

colmvp 10y ago
The idea of using a timer and setting small goals is absolutely worth a try. Thank you
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Another thing I found it useful for: actually thinking things through. It's common for people to face a problem or a question, spend half a second considering it, and then decide that it's undoable / unsolvable / cannot be improved, etc. You'll ask them about it and they'll tell you, "yeah, I thought about it". The trick is to ask yourself - have you spent, like five minutes, honest-to-God, to the clock, thinking about it? If the issue really matters to you, it's pretty much the least you can do - pull out the timer, set it to 5 minutes, and start thinking, not stopping until the timer hits zero. I was surprised just how much one could figure out in 5 minutes of focused thinking / self-brainstorming. I try to apply this method more and more often, especially when I get stuck on some choice, or don't know how to proceed from the point I'm in. But also sometimes for totally random ideas - 5 minutes is enough to think about how to start tackling them, and whether it's worth your time.
bpchaps 10y ago
Curious, do you have any research links on this sort of thing? #3 is something I've been working on for handling "failure" in general. I think that acknowledging a lack of success as a system whose outputs only include much more than fail/succeed is how something can lead towards, well, failure.
- bmer 10y ago
  I got introduced to mindfulness through "dialectical behaviour therapy"[0], in a hospital setting. The researcher who developed DBT initially was Marsha Linehan[1], who has many publications you can dig into. Similarly, mindfulness was introduced into popular medical use for stress reduction, trauma, depression, pain relief, etc. by Jon Kabat-Zinn[2], who also has published articles. I am sure the mindfulness article on Wikipedia also has useful links, and you could use sci-hub/google scholar/etc. to look up more research articles with the keyword "mindfulness". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#Mindfulness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#M... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn
  - axson 10y ago
    I've been practicing zazen, which mindfulness meditation largy are based on, for a couple of years. Since I became a parent I don't really have the time to practice. But in my experience these kind of excercises really help to focus, stabilize and still the mind. Another thing is to turn of all notifications in your smart phone and remove all social media apps. If I want to check Facebook I have to log in via the browser and this have decreased the number of times I check my feeds in a day.
- JonnieCache 10y ago
  This is the best resource on mindfulness I've come across: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html (scroll down for the chapter links.)

by bmer 10y ago

colmvp 10y ago

The idea of using a timer and setting small goals is absolutely worth a try. Thank you

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Another thing I found it useful for: actually thinking things through. It's common for people to face a problem or a question, spend half a second considering it, and then decide that it's undoable / unsolvable / cannot be improved, etc. You'll ask them about it and they'll tell you, "yeah, I thought about it". The trick is to ask yourself - have you spent, like five minutes, honest-to-God, to the clock, thinking about it? If the issue really matters to you, it's pretty much the least you can do - pull out the timer, set it to 5 minutes, and start thinking, not stopping until the timer hits zero. I was surprised just how much one could figure out in 5 minutes of focused thinking / self-brainstorming. I try to apply this method more and more often, especially when I get stuck on some choice, or don't know how to proceed from the point I'm in. But also sometimes for totally random ideas - 5 minutes is enough to think about how to start tackling them, and whether it's worth your time.

bpchaps 10y ago

Curious, do you have any research links on this sort of thing? #3 is something I've been working on for handling "failure" in general. I think that acknowledging a lack of success as a system whose outputs only include much more than fail/succeed is how something can lead towards, well, failure.

bmer 10y ago
I got introduced to mindfulness through "dialectical behaviour therapy"[0], in a hospital setting. The researcher who developed DBT initially was Marsha Linehan[1], who has many publications you can dig into. Similarly, mindfulness was introduced into popular medical use for stress reduction, trauma, depression, pain relief, etc. by Jon Kabat-Zinn[2], who also has published articles. I am sure the mindfulness article on Wikipedia also has useful links, and you could use sci-hub/google scholar/etc. to look up more research articles with the keyword "mindfulness". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#Mindfulness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#M... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn
- axson 10y ago
  I've been practicing zazen, which mindfulness meditation largy are based on, for a couple of years. Since I became a parent I don't really have the time to practice. But in my experience these kind of excercises really help to focus, stabilize and still the mind. Another thing is to turn of all notifications in your smart phone and remove all social media apps. If I want to check Facebook I have to log in via the browser and this have decreased the number of times I check my feeds in a day.
JonnieCache 10y ago
This is the best resource on mindfulness I've come across: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html (scroll down for the chapter links.)