Meditation. Why it's just as important as working out.

[Mai72]

If you think about it, meditation is just as valuable as going to the gym. It's the mind body connection that so many people miss. I'm still surprised that many people still dismiss meditating. IMO, it's just as valuable as exercise.

Our minds are constantly going all the time, and much of it is negative. I've read that we have over 70k thoughts per day, and much of it is negative and it's the same thought patten day after day after day. It's like ground hog day in your brain everyday. As Buddhist like to say, your mind is like a monkeys mind, and that we need to tame it constantly or else it will run wild. I can relate to that. I can't tell you how many times I've misinterpreted what someone said. I've dwelled on negative thought patterns over and over again.

I've been using an app called Calm. I do about 5 minutes a day in the morning. My goal is to increase my meditation practice to about 20 minutes a day, everyday. It's worked wonders for me. If you haven't tried meditating try 1 minute a day. Work up from there. It's going to be difficult in the beginning.

Good luck.

 

[shortylickens]

What about cuddling with a nice girl whilst viewing Star Trek?
Is that healthy too?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Meh. The list of things that people say are "just as important as exercise" is so long that if I did them all I'd have to cut out exercise. If I have any meditation time, it happens while I exercise anyway. I never feel more able to disconnect from my outside worries than when I'm focused on the simple rhythm of a workout and tuning out my body's complaints about it. I have other things that I'll have to do later, but right then all that matters is my burning muscles and my ability to push them to do what I need them to do. Not many things beat the satisfaction I feel from having completed a workout either. I never really want to exercise, so making myself do it and putting it behind me knowing I did it well comes with a sense of accomplishment that I always look forward to.

 

[mike8675309]

For many, exercise is a form of mediation. Really anytime you can focus on being present on whatever your task is and the ability to identity the moments when you aren't, and correct yourself.

 

[HitAnyKey]

OP: Do you plan any metrics? For example can it help you do more pull ups or increase your max on the bench? Might be more inclined to believe you if you can back up your claim with some hard numbers.

 

[pauldun170]

What about cuddling with a nice girl whilst viewing Star Trek?
Is that healthy too?

At the gym right now.
Literally laughed out loud. Wee bit of snot came out.

 

[pauldun170]

OP does not appear to talking "working out stuff".
He's talking general mental health stuff.

 

[skyking]

Yoga answers that question rather neatly. I do hot yoga a couple of times a week when able.
Within 5 minutes my heart rate is above 100 and then varies up to 120, and all the while it is meditative. The session ends with my back on the floor, and I can hang out an extra 10~15 minutes just meditating.
There is no question in my mind that stress, and removing stress are a large part of physical health.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

That explains why Buddhist monks have above average life span. Pretty sure their vegetarian diets helped too.

 

[Muse]

OP, you speak of the "mind body connection" but it's important to realize that this is an illusion. There is no mind separate from your body, they are one and the same. If you feel/think that your mind and body are separate entities you are deluded.

 

[mike8675309]

Typically what they talk about with mind / body connection it isn't about a physical connection. It is more about having more conscious awareness of your body than otherwise. For example, within the idea mindfulness (which includes meditation) there is the idea of being present and aware of your body. How your body feels at any moment. How your breathing feels, how your head feels. Then the idea is that when you remember or experience stressful or happy situations you make yourself aware of how those situations make your body feel. Do you feel an increased heart rate? Does your breathing change.
The idea is that the changes in your body are part of an automatic response system that eventually results in your mind reacting, but your body reacts first. So if you can be mindful, and present, you can note when your body starts the chain reaction recognize what that means and through mental focus you can accept the bodies response but "convince" your mind it doesn't need to react in an automatic way.

For example, you maybe sitting at your desk and you get an e-mail from a client asking for some action that is simply ridiculous for them to request and will require you to work late to answer the request. You recognize that your body is feeling "stress" from this e-mail interaction. Before you pick up that stapler and throw it across the room, you recognize the stress, and you focus your mind on something more productive. For example, rather than flying off the handle you quickly reply to the client letting them know that what they are requesting won't really help them, but here you attached something that should answer the question they really are asking.

 

[Muse]

I like your response, your explanation. I do take issue with the terminology, though. Instead of calling it a mind/body connection, I think it's productive to escape the trap of making a distinction between the mind and the body, which that terminology unfortunately fosters. Mindfulness is a better term or perhaps somatic awareness. So many people over the ages have fallen prey to the fallacy of body versus soul, it's snake oil.

 

[skyking]

I agree totally with the snake oil part. The mindfulness is so beneficial when you get it going. I really get a boost out of a great yoga instructor that can get me into that place. I don't have the skills to really get there at will yet, but I hope to some day.

 

[KlokWyze]

Mindfulness type meditation won't give the same benefit to everyone. Some people just don't need it. That being said there is certainly a difference between meditative like focus when doing some athletic activity and simply sitting in a quiet room focusing in certain ways. At least for myself, the chatter in my brain when I haven't meditated in even a couple days is insane. Pun intended I suppose. Just saying there is absolutely a difference between sitting doing "nothing", paying close attention to thoughts that fly in and out, etc. vs focused physical exercise.

 

[jaksonlee62]

Meditation allows you to reduce stress. brings a sense of peace and calm to your workout, whether or not you achieve your goals,” says Ian White, a Utah-based yoga teacher who has been teaching meditation practices since 1991. “It also allows you to be at peace with your body, body image, and performance.

 

[Muse]

I agree totally with the snake oil part. The mindfulness is so beneficial when you get it going. I really get a boost out of a great yoga instructor that can get me into that place. I don't have the skills to really get there at will yet, but I hope to some day.

I got into yoga in the presence of instructors by virtue of free classes at my gym, 1 hour classes at scheduled times during the week. They usually had around 3 different instructors, each with their own schedule. Classes would have anywhere from a dozen to (more often) 30 or so attendees. You could pick up a printed schedule of all their classes when you enter the gym, or get it online. My gym's been shut down for the pandemic, actually went bankrupt, but I think they're reopening now in limited capacity. Haven't been there in a year, though, 24HourFitness in El Cerrito, CA.

My favorite instructor was a wonderful, very talented woman, gorgeous, well trained, who had exquisite form and she had a lot of devoted people come to her classes. A few years after I began attending her classes (pretty religiously) she had a baby and AFAIK stopped teaching. I recorded most of her sessions to MP3 with a portable recorder. I should see what I can do with those! Dozens and dozens of them. She also taught pilates, and I have recordings of those sessions too. I attended her classes at the downtown Berkeley gym, which they shut down around 2 years ago.

@skyking, that favorite instructor recommended me a very fine book, which I'm looking at right now:

Living Your Yoga
(Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life)
by Judith Lasater, PH.D., P.T.

 

[MarkSabier89]

I used to think that all this is nonsense. But after I started doing this myself, I realized how wrong I was. Now yoga is one of the must-do activities every day. Try it.

 

[Muse]

I tried meditation several times but I just don't get it. I can't clear up my mind at all, I always have a lot of thoughts.

There are techniques you can use for that. I'll suggest a couple of pretty darn good books:

Inner Engineering

Living Your Yoga

Personally, I have a lot of latitude in the kinds of experiences I have. I'm not always the same. There's a lot of differentiation. Obviously, since I can be in a lot of different states, there are things I can do that facilitate change. I think this is really true of most people, but many aren't at all good at managing it. Others have a lot more power in determining their circumstances and how they adapt and respond. Kind of generalizations, anyway, those books are really good at explaining what you can do to improve your situations, yourself, your experience.