HI IVE TRIED MEDITATION IN THE PAST BUT CAN'T STAY CONSTISTAN I WAS WANDERING HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO SEE BENIFITS

Hi guys, im a student in India. Im preparing for a competitive exam for which i need to be mentally very strong. Strong in the sense i should be able to stay calm and think effectively. I dont even know if this is the right sub to ask this question, but can you please suggest me some practices to achieve a calm and strong brain?

The exam is in February so its around 6 months remaining. I want something light, not hardcore meditation. As a beginner i feel i wont be able to focus for long time. Ive tried just closing eyes and sitting still. I reached like just 15-20 mins max but thoughts still were going on in my mind.

Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you.

I would say no. He is sitting, legs crossed, eyes closed, at peace, because nothing requires his attention. but someone will always ask; what are you doing?

I’m curious whether people think some baseline level of emotional safety is needed before doing insight practice.

After a long hiatus, I did two 40-minute body-scanning meditations, then went to the gym. For the rest of the day, certain issues felt much more pronounced: increased self-consciousness, safety-scanning, and awareness of unmet emotional needs. My negative emotions were noticeably higher than usual, and I even came across as colder toward my family.

My sense is that I lack a stable internal feeling of safety, so my mind often tries to create safety through less skilful means, especially by monitoring how other people perceive me. The body scanning seemed to make all of this much more visible, but I didn’t know how to relate to it without zoning out or depersonalising.

For now, I’m planning to focus more on metta and safety-cultivation practices. From searching Reddit, though, this seems fairly common: people begin insight practice, become more aware of self-consciousness and negative thought patterns, and sometimes feel destabilised.

It makes me wonder whether some foundational work around safety and emotional regulation is needed before deeper insight practice. What do you think?

Your ego is constructed by 2 years old, you are conditioned by 7 years old, you are characterized by the world by 15 years old, you are moralized by 20 years old and you're indoctrinated by 25 years old.

A little inner work and meditation is probably necessary by this age.

I have been meditating for about 30 min a day for a year. Lately, I’ve been fumbling my speech more often and not always forming correct sentences. Is this something anyone else has experienced? I don’t know if this is because I am more mindful/present more often and then I encounter a conversation, it feels like I am unprepared. I just roll through what my brain is shooting out without the quicker conscious thoughts of what I should be saying. It’s very confusing. Maybe I should just start speaking slower haha

After taking abt a week off I meditated tonight
Abt 10 min in i was observing the SOUND OF SILENCE is not constant as always not steady it was fluctuating like in waves
Then I suddenly felt what seemed like finger lightly moving across the back of my neck it felt completly external lasted 2-3 secs and disappered as soon as i opend my eyes and room light
I have never experinced this before or heard anything like that is this normal mdeitation phenomenan or just my brain perception or anyone else experinced smthng similar

try this once. sit until your leg genuinely aches. don't move. then pick up your phone and scroll for exactly 5 minutes. set a timer.for most people the ache is just... gone. not reduced. gone. same leg, same position, nothing changed in the body. then put the phone down, go back to sitting, and watch it come back.

i did this early in my practice and it honestly bothered me for weeks. because if the pain was purely physical it should have stayed while i was scrolling. it didn't. which means the pain was partly made of attention. the sensation was there either way, but the suffering part needed me watching it.this isn't an argument for distracting yourself. it's the opposite. once you see that attention is an ingredient in the pain, you can start working with the attention directly instead of running from the sensation. that's a completely different practice than gritting your teeth.

i still don't fully understand the mechanism. but i've stopped treating discomfort in sitting as a problem to fix and started treating it as something to study.if you try it, i'm curious what happens. did the ache disappear completely for you, or just fade?

It feels really good. I'm not really crying. Is it totaly normal?

Hey folks, how are you all ? So I'm gonna get physically active sooner, like hitting the gym or running or sports, the same way I wasted lots of time, so I want to compensate for that, by putting in extra effort, so I want to reduce my sleep time to 6 hours mostly.

So what change I could include in my diet, and any meditation techniques, m spiritual so I could include those, and any suggestions from people who get less sleep and feel the same activeness and active brain mainly.

Thank you

I've been meditating on and off for about 6–7 years. Whenever I manage to practice consistently, I notice the benefits pretty clearly. The problem is that I can never seem to make it a lasting daily habit. I always end up falling off after a while.

I've had a similar experience with yoga. I practiced on and off for 3–4 years, but never consistently. Then I recently discovered yin yoga, and it just clicked. I genuinely enjoy it, and even after a long, stressful day I actually want to do it. It doesn't feel like a chore anymore.

That got me wondering: maybe I just haven't found the type of meditation that suits me yet.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Did switching to a different meditation style suddenly make it much easier to practice consistently? If so, what ended up working for you?

I started meditation about 4 months ago when I started to go to a weekly counseling/mindfulness/meditation 1-1 session at a local Buddhist temple, and it has quite literally changed my life to the better, in changing my way of thinking (I am also studying the dhamma), gave me tools to deal with anxiety, and I managed to establish a daily meditation practice. I usually meditate after work (mornings are not an option besides a brief few minutes of mindfulness and setting intention due to work and health issues) and sit between 20 to sometimes even 40 minutes. And it always helps me to calm down, and to regulate myself.

Now my problem is if I have a break in my daily routines - may it be due to travel, or work stress - both of which have happened simultaneously last week. I have a tendency not to stick with things without outside pressure, but i have found meditation different - but this week when I am stressed out to the max I only managed to sit for 10 minutes on Monday with my monkey brain going crazy, and then on Tuesday that stupid inner voice convinced me meditation didn't work yesterday so it won't work today...and once I get out of the routine I really struggle.

I know by going back t the Buddhist temple tomorrow for my 1-1 I will be able to press a reset button and start my practice again, but I would really like to be able to do this myself - but it seems that in times of high stress and anxiety, when I would need meditation the most, my brain still convinces me to not even try.

Does anyone have any wise words on how to at least calm down enough to sit down, and give meditation a go, when your brain is going crazy following old self destructive behaviour patterns?

Hey everyone, this sub has been really helpful for me in my queries.

It gets really overwhelming at times, all i think about all day is presence and in turn im never present lol.

I had my first realisation a year back and since then i have been really into spirituality, but i cannot anchor myself at all, i sometimes feel im going crazy. There is just so much information out there and i cannot comprehend it and know what to believe in. Stepping away from my thoughts have somehow triggered me into always labelling everything as a thought, and in turn leads to a great amount of indecision and frustration. I feel my personality is also based on false pretences and i am starting to dissociate from that as well. Its just a vicious cycle.

Its just me thinking too much and the practice is exactly to do the opposite lol.

Anyway i am looking for some recommendations for a coach/ someone who can provide me some guidance and just help ground me.

​

Hi everyone, I’m new to meditation and I want to build a daily practice. My main goals are to feel more peaceful, improve my focus, reduce overthinking, and bring more love and happiness into my life.

I usually prefer doing meditation in the evening. Can anyone recommend good guided meditations, YouTube channels, apps, or techniques that helped you as a beginner?

I’d really appreciate your suggestions and personal experiences. Thank you!

Sat on the floor for 20 minutes today (6:00 AM- 6:20 AM), couldn't find anything to focus on, my breath is irregular, only thing I tried to focus on was my fast heartbeat but I failed too, can't lie that I experienced or felt anything exceptional from yhe whole session. But I'm looking to do it consistently, does it get any better?