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Would love to hear more about the type of meditation you practice. How long, how often. How hard was it to get started and be consistent. That sort of thing.

prophesi 9y ago
Not the OP, but I also got into meditation a while ago, and it helped a lot with my seasonal depression. I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book, which I actually found from someone on Hacker News raving about it. It's really straightforward with describing the goals and techniques for each stage.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Maybe I'll try meditation for my Seasonal Affective Disorder this winter. It would probably be a lot healthier than substance abuse. Cheaper, too.
- justinpombrio 9y ago
  > I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book Can confirm: this is a very clearly written book. It reads like a reference manual for meditation.
- strangegecko 9y ago
  I'm wondering if I've been depressed for too long for things to reach me. I've bought that same book, probably after reading the same post about it, but I have at most read a few pages, and managed to meditate maybe a few times since then. The world is complete information overload for me. I currently urgently need to: 1) learn a new language 2) practice meditation 3) learn react / unit testing / ML / distributed systems stuff 4) learn basic social skills 5) actually live life a little 6) ... I say "currently", but this has been true for years.
  - polalavik 9y ago
    whoa absolutely in the same boat. So fickle and can't pin down an interest - but now I've lost most motivation to even take up interest in anything altogether.
    - strangegecko 9y ago
      Well, tbh I don't experience it as lack of interest, I just struggle to keep up with everything. I prioritize work because not earning money isn't an option yet. That combined with my general depression and lack of support pretty much takes all my energy. I have a little bit left here and there, but it's simply not enough to get far with anything. It's very discouraging to start anything because it instantly feels overwhelming and I know I have more must do queued up that I'm deprioritizing to get this technically optional thing done. How can I read for hours in a day if I need to do house keeping stuff, send bills to insurance for reimbursement that are a year old, get that health checkup done, ... and so on. So much stuff to do. I don't know why I experience life like this. Everyone seems to have so much discretionary time to spend, especially if they do as little as I do.
  - olingern 9y ago
    I've suffered and still suffer from a lot same in the past. I hope sharing what's helped me can help someone else who feels like theirs so much to do / learn, but starting never happens. For me, it's often been a result of procrastination but, just in the past couple of years, have I began to understand the source of the procrastination. My issue was fear. Fear that I would fail learning [_whatever new thing_], or not reach a deep enough state of meditation. So, my fear was compounded with some judgement of my ability. At the moment, I'm practicing what I call "lowering the barrier to entry" and shelving perfectionism. I used to dream of progress as the grandiose "a-ha" moments; however, the reality is that progress is made up of many small moments over time. As much as it pains me to suggest "agile for your life," I have found some success in having a personal backlog and trying to determine what matters to me most. It's the kind of thing life coaches charge you a lot of money to tackle, but most engineers / tech workers are accustomed to: - Decide the project's top 10 priorities - Place a value on each - Determine their effort - Break each down into subtasks - Plan a chunk of work - Start I would also ask yourself where your motivation lies. Is it extrinsic or intrinsic. What inspires you to learn ML or React? I struggled with learning music for a long time because it always felt like something I was "supposed" to do. I still want to, but I have to come to terms with the source of that motivation. Living is as easy as being "here," yet that's paradoxically hard for our stimulus driven brains. I've found slowing down, tasting things, feeling textures, and listening more have made me more aware and present. If you ever feel dead inside, deploy on Friday at 5. Finally, I'll add all of this is easier to type and intellectualize than it is to live. To me, it often feels like a constant fight of putting time into the things I value to grow as I envision myself X months / years into the future.
petervm 9y ago
Here's some advice from a fellow beginner. After many failed attempts to make it stick, what worked for me was a combination of two things: - Reading about meditation in general just to learn more about it out of curiosity, not necessarily looking for instructions. This helped create a mental model of what it entailed, what to expect, what to look for. I read different books over the years, but I really like how Sam Harris describes his experience with it in his podcast. - This app: https://insighttimer.com/ https://insighttimer.com/ I've tried multiple apps but this one really made the difference for me. There are thousands of meditations to choose from, you can filter by duration, and there's a bit of gamification too. Another important thing, there's no "meditation course" to follow - you just search a meditation session that looks right for your mood and the time you have and that's it. These features combined removed all the friction I always found as a beginner. At first I started with only 5 to 10 minutes every morning, guided meditation with breathing exercises. As time went by, I felt I was improving in gaining control of the experience and started doing longer sessions with just soft music as background. Make it a daily routine, start small, do your best but don't be too hard on yourself.

prophesi 9y ago

Not the OP, but I also got into meditation a while ago, and it helped a lot with my seasonal depression. I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book, which I actually found from someone on Hacker News raving about it. It's really straightforward with describing the goals and techniques for each stage.

toomanybeersies 9y ago
Maybe I'll try meditation for my Seasonal Affective Disorder this winter. It would probably be a lot healthier than substance abuse. Cheaper, too.
justinpombrio 9y ago
> I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book Can confirm: this is a very clearly written book. It reads like a reference manual for meditation.
strangegecko 9y ago
I'm wondering if I've been depressed for too long for things to reach me. I've bought that same book, probably after reading the same post about it, but I have at most read a few pages, and managed to meditate maybe a few times since then. The world is complete information overload for me. I currently urgently need to: 1) learn a new language 2) practice meditation 3) learn react / unit testing / ML / distributed systems stuff 4) learn basic social skills 5) actually live life a little 6) ... I say "currently", but this has been true for years.
- polalavik 9y ago
  whoa absolutely in the same boat. So fickle and can't pin down an interest - but now I've lost most motivation to even take up interest in anything altogether.
  - strangegecko 9y ago
    Well, tbh I don't experience it as lack of interest, I just struggle to keep up with everything. I prioritize work because not earning money isn't an option yet. That combined with my general depression and lack of support pretty much takes all my energy. I have a little bit left here and there, but it's simply not enough to get far with anything. It's very discouraging to start anything because it instantly feels overwhelming and I know I have more must do queued up that I'm deprioritizing to get this technically optional thing done. How can I read for hours in a day if I need to do house keeping stuff, send bills to insurance for reimbursement that are a year old, get that health checkup done, ... and so on. So much stuff to do. I don't know why I experience life like this. Everyone seems to have so much discretionary time to spend, especially if they do as little as I do.
- olingern 9y ago
  I've suffered and still suffer from a lot same in the past. I hope sharing what's helped me can help someone else who feels like theirs so much to do / learn, but starting never happens. For me, it's often been a result of procrastination but, just in the past couple of years, have I began to understand the source of the procrastination. My issue was fear. Fear that I would fail learning [_whatever new thing_], or not reach a deep enough state of meditation. So, my fear was compounded with some judgement of my ability. At the moment, I'm practicing what I call "lowering the barrier to entry" and shelving perfectionism. I used to dream of progress as the grandiose "a-ha" moments; however, the reality is that progress is made up of many small moments over time. As much as it pains me to suggest "agile for your life," I have found some success in having a personal backlog and trying to determine what matters to me most. It's the kind of thing life coaches charge you a lot of money to tackle, but most engineers / tech workers are accustomed to: - Decide the project's top 10 priorities - Place a value on each - Determine their effort - Break each down into subtasks - Plan a chunk of work - Start I would also ask yourself where your motivation lies. Is it extrinsic or intrinsic. What inspires you to learn ML or React? I struggled with learning music for a long time because it always felt like something I was "supposed" to do. I still want to, but I have to come to terms with the source of that motivation. Living is as easy as being "here," yet that's paradoxically hard for our stimulus driven brains. I've found slowing down, tasting things, feeling textures, and listening more have made me more aware and present. If you ever feel dead inside, deploy on Friday at 5. Finally, I'll add all of this is easier to type and intellectualize than it is to live. To me, it often feels like a constant fight of putting time into the things I value to grow as I envision myself X months / years into the future.

petervm 9y ago

Here's some advice from a fellow beginner. After many failed attempts to make it stick, what worked for me was a combination of two things: - Reading about meditation in general just to learn more about it out of curiosity, not necessarily looking for instructions. This helped create a mental model of what it entailed, what to expect, what to look for. I read different books over the years, but I really like how Sam Harris describes his experience with it in his podcast. - This app: https://insighttimer.com/ https://insighttimer.com/ I've tried multiple apps but this one really made the difference for me. There are thousands of meditations to choose from, you can filter by duration, and there's a bit of gamification too. Another important thing, there's no "meditation course" to follow - you just search a meditation session that looks right for your mood and the time you have and that's it. These features combined removed all the friction I always found as a beginner. At first I started with only 5 to 10 minutes every morning, guided meditation with breathing exercises. As time went by, I felt I was improving in gaining control of the experience and started doing longer sessions with just soft music as background. Make it a daily routine, start small, do your best but don't be too hard on yourself.