7 ms·

I began meditating every day after I wake up four years ago and it has been the most beneficial change I ever introduced into my life, quitting cannabis securin

I began meditating every day after I wake up four years ago and it has been the most beneficial change I ever introduced into my life, quitting cannabis securing a stable second place. I began with five min and worked my way up to 15. Now I have an iOS shortcut “hey Siri, start meditation” which sets a timer randomly between 15 and 20 min to counteract the body clock expectation of a fixed duration.

cols 7y ago
You mentioned quitting cannabis. If you don't mind elaborating, I'm curious what benefits you have experienced and why you ended up quitting. Thanks!
- thomk 7y ago
  Ex cannabis user here, so I thought I'd give you my empirical perspective & and opinion. I will tell you what I would tell my own child: Cannabis, like any recreational drug, steals the most precious resource we have: our time. I've been on benders in my life that I simply can not remember what I did during that period, sure, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is the time any person needs to become a well adjusted, functioning adult. When you are taking a recreational drug, you are not dealing with life, you are on a 'get away'. Life is the best teacher and recreational drugs are how you forfeit that precious, amazing, education. You don't have to go far to see this in action. Think of someone who is a habitual drug user and ask yourself 'are they emotionally mature?'. They aren't. They are taking an escape. Recreational drugs are antithetical to emotional growth. This type of behavior is ESPECIALLY harmful if you are taking recreational drugs early in life. It simply puts you behind. I wasted 20 years of my life 'partying' even on a casual basis. Time slips away and being high puts time on a damn bullet train. I heard recently that the fastest way for an addict to relapse is a windfall of money. Money doesn't help them get out of their situation because money is hard to manage, particularly if you are emotionally immature. tl/dr: Recreational drugs make you immature which will prevent you from going very far in life.
  - duprees_diamon 7y ago
    So which drugs are recreational? Alchohol? MDMA? Caffeine? Just the ones you choose not to use? >Recreational drugs are antithetical to emotional growth. https://maps.org/research/mdma https://maps.org/research/mdma > tl/dr: Recreational drugs make you immature which will prevent you from going very far in life. When I was just a little young boy, Papa said "Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'Cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go"
  - hx2a 7y ago
    I really like this. I never thought about it this way before and am glad you wrote this. I can't think of a single habitual drug user who is an emotionally mature adult. I'm going to save this and say something similar in the future when I have kids.
  - athenot 7y ago
    This is well written. Reading this, I can think of other pleasure-based escapes in life that follow the same pattern. Thanks for sharing this!
    - c0vfefe 7y ago
      It's basically a warning against escapist entertainment of any form.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    On mobile and don't have time for a substantive reply, but in my experience this comment is misleading. Rec drugs can be a waste of time, depending on how used and particularly when abused, but when used to supplement meditation, I find the experience much more informative than plain meditation.
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    This is not my experience at all. I am more motivated to eat healthier, exercise, and so on when I smoke regularly. I spent most of my 20's sober and the opposite in my 30's and overall, my experience in my 30's was much better. I remember about as much either way - at least in the long term. I also learned a second language while mostly stoned. Overall, I'm much more motivated. And I'll state that overall, my life is full of wasted time. I don't have children nor much responsibility, really, and I'm over 40. I'm happy, though, and that isn't just the beer talking. Edit: I can go either with or without and have taken semi-regular breaks from time to time. I'm mostly at weekends now, but that's mostly to save money rather than life stuff.
- ThrustVectoring 7y ago
  It's not a causal study, but there's a correlational link between low trait Conscientiousness and chronic cannabis use. It might just be that slackers are more OK with being high all the time, but the worrying risk is that cannabis use damages your ability to organize and self-motivate yourself.
- bob457 7y ago
  I used to smoke a bowl almost every night. I quit because it had a number of affects on me I didn’t like: (1) it made me sleep poorly. (2) it made me paranoid/anxious, as in I would become hyper focused on all the ways my life could hypothetically fall apart (3) I couldn’t manage to do much besides sit on the couch and watch tv or game (4) I would basically become paralyzed by overanlysis, to the extent that I couldn’t really talk to people. Friends of mine smoke regularly have basically the opposite experience. It really appears to me that weed affects people in really different ways, so it’s hard to make a general statement.
ghobs91 7y ago
What's your meditation routine? As in, how do you actually meditate, do you use something like Headspace?
cryptozeus 7y ago
I bat you don’t need the timer now. I have been doing this for more than a year now and these days I open my eyes right around 20 mins mark. It’s freaky, try it.
cpeterso 7y ago
Have you tried meditating at other times of the day? I would be afraid that I would fall back asleep if I tried meditate after waking up. :)
- spectaclepiece 7y ago
  I find the morning to work best for me but my girlfriend does it before she goes to bed. If I would add another session each day that would be it to help me sleep better. I sit on a chair and try to keep good posture so falling asleep has never been anything I’ve worries about.
  - cpeterso 7y ago
    Thanks for sharing your experience. I'll probably stick to (trying to) meditate after work. It gives me a nice break to switch brain modes. Plus I'm not a morning person so I don't have time in the morning. :)
    - tkxxx7 7y ago
      I find that any after-work meditation is necessarily prepended with 5-10 minutes of reflection/decompression - just fyi
newone21451 7y ago
Did meditation help you quit cannabis? How so? Any tips? I've been trying for a while but it hasn't been the easiest thing to kick.
- spectaclepiece 7y ago
  For me those two changes weren’t directly related but I believe meditation can be very helpful in strengthening willpower and regaining focus on long term goals which is very helpful in the pursuit modifying patterns of behavior. For me it certainly works that way. I was “lucky” in the sense that cannabis began having very negative effects on my mind so quitting was fairly easy. I know from other friends it’s not always like that so I wish you all the luck in your attempts to quit or cut down on your consumption.

cols 7y ago

You mentioned quitting cannabis. If you don't mind elaborating, I'm curious what benefits you have experienced and why you ended up quitting. Thanks!

thomk 7y ago
Ex cannabis user here, so I thought I'd give you my empirical perspective & and opinion. I will tell you what I would tell my own child: Cannabis, like any recreational drug, steals the most precious resource we have: our time. I've been on benders in my life that I simply can not remember what I did during that period, sure, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is the time any person needs to become a well adjusted, functioning adult. When you are taking a recreational drug, you are not dealing with life, you are on a 'get away'. Life is the best teacher and recreational drugs are how you forfeit that precious, amazing, education. You don't have to go far to see this in action. Think of someone who is a habitual drug user and ask yourself 'are they emotionally mature?'. They aren't. They are taking an escape. Recreational drugs are antithetical to emotional growth. This type of behavior is ESPECIALLY harmful if you are taking recreational drugs early in life. It simply puts you behind. I wasted 20 years of my life 'partying' even on a casual basis. Time slips away and being high puts time on a damn bullet train. I heard recently that the fastest way for an addict to relapse is a windfall of money. Money doesn't help them get out of their situation because money is hard to manage, particularly if you are emotionally immature. tl/dr: Recreational drugs make you immature which will prevent you from going very far in life.
- duprees_diamon 7y ago
  So which drugs are recreational? Alchohol? MDMA? Caffeine? Just the ones you choose not to use? >Recreational drugs are antithetical to emotional growth. https://maps.org/research/mdma https://maps.org/research/mdma > tl/dr: Recreational drugs make you immature which will prevent you from going very far in life. When I was just a little young boy, Papa said "Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'Cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go"
- hx2a 7y ago
  I really like this. I never thought about it this way before and am glad you wrote this. I can't think of a single habitual drug user who is an emotionally mature adult. I'm going to save this and say something similar in the future when I have kids.
- athenot 7y ago
  This is well written. Reading this, I can think of other pleasure-based escapes in life that follow the same pattern. Thanks for sharing this!
  - c0vfefe 7y ago
    It's basically a warning against escapist entertainment of any form.
- mistermann 7y ago
  On mobile and don't have time for a substantive reply, but in my experience this comment is misleading. Rec drugs can be a waste of time, depending on how used and particularly when abused, but when used to supplement meditation, I find the experience much more informative than plain meditation.
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  This is not my experience at all. I am more motivated to eat healthier, exercise, and so on when I smoke regularly. I spent most of my 20's sober and the opposite in my 30's and overall, my experience in my 30's was much better. I remember about as much either way - at least in the long term. I also learned a second language while mostly stoned. Overall, I'm much more motivated. And I'll state that overall, my life is full of wasted time. I don't have children nor much responsibility, really, and I'm over 40. I'm happy, though, and that isn't just the beer talking. Edit: I can go either with or without and have taken semi-regular breaks from time to time. I'm mostly at weekends now, but that's mostly to save money rather than life stuff.
ThrustVectoring 7y ago
It's not a causal study, but there's a correlational link between low trait Conscientiousness and chronic cannabis use. It might just be that slackers are more OK with being high all the time, but the worrying risk is that cannabis use damages your ability to organize and self-motivate yourself.
bob457 7y ago
I used to smoke a bowl almost every night. I quit because it had a number of affects on me I didn’t like: (1) it made me sleep poorly. (2) it made me paranoid/anxious, as in I would become hyper focused on all the ways my life could hypothetically fall apart (3) I couldn’t manage to do much besides sit on the couch and watch tv or game (4) I would basically become paralyzed by overanlysis, to the extent that I couldn’t really talk to people. Friends of mine smoke regularly have basically the opposite experience. It really appears to me that weed affects people in really different ways, so it’s hard to make a general statement.

ghobs91 7y ago

What's your meditation routine? As in, how do you actually meditate, do you use something like Headspace?

cryptozeus 7y ago

I bat you don’t need the timer now. I have been doing this for more than a year now and these days I open my eyes right around 20 mins mark. It’s freaky, try it.

cpeterso 7y ago

Have you tried meditating at other times of the day? I would be afraid that I would fall back asleep if I tried meditate after waking up. :)

spectaclepiece 7y ago
I find the morning to work best for me but my girlfriend does it before she goes to bed. If I would add another session each day that would be it to help me sleep better. I sit on a chair and try to keep good posture so falling asleep has never been anything I’ve worries about.
- cpeterso 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience. I'll probably stick to (trying to) meditate after work. It gives me a nice break to switch brain modes. Plus I'm not a morning person so I don't have time in the morning. :)
  - tkxxx7 7y ago
    I find that any after-work meditation is necessarily prepended with 5-10 minutes of reflection/decompression - just fyi

newone21451 7y ago

Did meditation help you quit cannabis? How so? Any tips? I've been trying for a while but it hasn't been the easiest thing to kick.

spectaclepiece 7y ago
For me those two changes weren’t directly related but I believe meditation can be very helpful in strengthening willpower and regaining focus on long term goals which is very helpful in the pursuit modifying patterns of behavior. For me it certainly works that way. I was “lucky” in the sense that cannabis began having very negative effects on my mind so quitting was fairly easy. I know from other friends it’s not always like that so I wish you all the luck in your attempts to quit or cut down on your consumption.