I do meditate and it does help me solve problem on a large scale, with some perspective. But it's not magic, i.e. if I'm not in a calm room for long hours, I ju

I do meditate and it does help me solve problem on a large scale, with some perspective. But it's not magic, i.e. if I'm not in a calm room for long hours, I just can't code properly or be more productive. I used to have trouble sleeping (that's not really the case now) and I'd remain in bed doing nothing, expecting (hoping) sleep would come. Then I started noticing my breathing, and it became some sort of exercise. That was 7 years ago or so... Now every night I go to bed and I do the same routine: notice and control (more or less) my breathing, nothing else. I'm quickly engulfed by thousands of thoughts and the trick is just maintaining the routine for as long as it takes for them to calm down, observing them in a non-judgemental way, waiting. It's a bit of a leap of faith, that part. I can hardly describe the sense of clarity that strikes me after that... I actually believe this simple routine helped me a lot in getting rid of a general anxiety I use to have when I was a teenager, and find a better sleep (with richly symbolic dreams during the night that proved to provide a lot of "subconscient" answers to day-to-day or creative problems), among other things.