Several years ago, I discovered a way to manage my emotional state as a byproduct of something else I was trying to do - relearn Russian for an overseas project

Several years ago, I discovered a way to manage my emotional state as a byproduct of something else I was trying to do - relearn Russian for an overseas project. I had read in several places that you can 'replasticize' your brain for learning by doing neurofeedback and sought out a local practitioner. He stuck tiny gold sensors on my head with a conductive paste and hooked me up to his PC and told me to 'make the beeps come'. I laid back and tried to clear my head and think of nothing. Every once in a while I'd hear a beep and then I'd _try_ to do the same thing and no beeps would come. After a few times, my mind would wander and one day I thought about when I was playing with a puppy earlier and I smiled to myself and suddenly there were lots of beeps. Between weekly sessions, I'd practice for 20 minutes daily. Did it help my Russian? Maybe, I really don't have a way of getting the data for it. I think it might have, but also being in daily email correspondence with a real live Russian and having my livelihood dependent on writing in Russian contributed as well. One of the things I noticed was that on days that I 'meditated', things magically got done with a lot less resistance and internal drama and that I was far more productive. How much more? Well, in true Hacker's diet tradition, I made a spreadsheet and tracked it. While I didn't have a numeric scale, and therefore couldn't apply a weighted moving average, I was able to look at the todo lists and see what kinds of things got crossed off and what didn't and make a qualitative evaluation that I got about twice as much done on days where I laid down and connected with my inner puppy in the morning. This is after tracking for three months. It was obvious that it was beneficial before I started tracking, but I was very curious as to how beneficial and the three months tracked over two different kinds of projects - one creative and one analytical. I think the meditation also helped the transition between the two - which usually takes some time if I'm changing disciplines. I explored several other forms of meditation and eventually had success with the thinking of nothing for twenty minutes. There was one with counting to ten over and over that felt like training wheels and I didn't like. I kept coming back to that puppy and found that it was the most effective. This is a fascinating question and one that I'll follow. I'm very glad you asked it.