The other day when I was out in the water with a friend of mine who is learning how to surf, he asked me what I’d been thinking about for the last 4 hours. I told him that I couldn’t remember a single thought, other than “wow, the girl surfing next to us is really hot.” Lately I’ve been noticing something when I surf and I probably even made reference to it in the post I wrote about the health and mental benefits of surfing. I’ve noticed that right after I take off on a wave, my mind goes completely blank. Thought ceases to exist. Since many of you might not be able to surf, I want to talk about something that can give you some of the benefits I gain from surfing. It’s the importance of a quiet mind.
Some of you may or may not know that there was a period in my life where I was fairly depressed, even taking anti-anxiety medication and just worried about everything possible that could go wrong. Somewhere along the way that changed and I realize it’s because I had found a way to quiet my mind.
The world we live in today is one of heavy information overload. It’s likely from an evolutionary standpoint we were never meant to spend this much time indoors or staring at computer screens. To add to that, we have our life to deal with. As a result you have a steady stream of mental chatter:
- Worrying about what you have to do for the day
- Worrying about tomorrow
- Worrying about what happened yesterday
- Opinions on the article you just read
- Opinions on somebody’s tweet
- Opinions on your friends facebook status update
- Thinking about recent conversations you had
- etc, etc
This list really does go on and on. It’s pretty much endless. Imagine if you had a car that you drove continually, and you never did any maintenance on it and every night somebody else took it and drove it all night. Eventually it would break down much faster. I think that our brains are kind of the same way. They weren’t possibly meant for incessant thought. Even when you sleep you are still thinking. My friend Karol Gajda wrote a really great article on active relaxation which I think you should read. I tried what he suggested and it was amazing.
Meditation
Meditation doesn’t have to be the challenge so many people have made it out to be. As you all know I have ADHD so the idea of spending an extended period of time doing damn near anything, especially nothing, drives me crazy. But, it doesn’t have to because you can just shut yourself off for about 5 mins.
Basically all you need to do is close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and take long deep breaths. If you keep the focus of your thought on breathing, you’ve more or less shut down the stream of information which is the whole point. Believe it or not this is more effective than an hour nap because you’ll come out even more refreshed.
A thoughtless mind can be incredibly powerful in so many areas of your life. Have you ever noticed when you stop thinking about a problem, a few hours later you have the solution? In my own experience I’ve found that a thoughtless mind enables some of the most creative things you’ll ever do. 85-90% of my ideas for this blog and everything I do in social media are usually developed while I’m in the water. Ironic huh? I’m not even thinking about anything, yet dozens of new ideas are coming to fruition. Embrace the power of a thoughtless mind for the next 10 days, and see what happens.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This is great. My head is always spinning at 100 m/h especially when I go to bed. I’ve tried many different things to quiet it down a bit, but I’m still not where I want to be. I’ll take on your 10-day challenge and will let you know. Thanks.
Michel J. Gagnon´s last blog ..Don’t Let Your Passion Subside for a Lack of Writing Skills
Michael,
Thanks for your comments. Ideally right before you go to bed you really want to calm things down. I’ve been where you’re at and I used to have really poor sleep because of it. I think it’s just a matter of a bit of practice to really put this together the right way.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m getting older or the fact that I have small (loud) children, but I have taken to calm meditation like you are discussing everyday when I first get home. It makes all the difference in how the next few hours of home life progress.
I’ve also found that sudoku at bedtime clears my head. LOL
David,
It really is amazing how much that can impact the quality of your life and your ability to deal with it. As far as Sudoku, that might give somebody like me a headache because I don’t have the patience to deal with something like that
I keep seeing articles recommending meditation – I think it’s a sign. Thank-you for sharing.
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Ami,
I think it’s really healthy to set aside at least a few minutes every single day for total solitude. For somebody like me who thrives on a constant stimulus it’s actually a challenge, but given that I have IBS I have to learn how to calm the mental chatter because it makes a big difference.
Hey Srinivas,
Your spot on with this post. I do this for myself everyday. I’m currently in a lifestyle transition at the moment. With the day job and then working 7hrs or so a night on publishing and building businesses, It’s a long stretch in front of a monitor for someone who is active.
So when I get home I head out and enter my ‘zen’ zone. Yours it would appear, is sitting out on the ocean floating with the current, enjoying the calmness of the sea. I’m a bodyboarder myself. During the week in the CBD, I strap on the skates and head out into the night, along the river. Bang! Thoughtless mind and my 30 mins of zen.
I found when I made this a habit, it’s amazing that it’s now like flicking a switch.
Just one of my techniques for keeping up momentum, motivation, clearing the mind and the germination of new ideas.