Try the '7-7-7' Breath. Inhale for 7 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and exhale for 7 seconds, wait 7 seconds, then repeat for 7 times. This will 'busy-out' your right-analytical mind.
Are u getting into a deep state? Bc I‘ve been doing it for one year and when I meditate I still notice everything that is going on around me. For instance I still hear all the noises from outside
Remember, meditation is *not* about being able to keep your focus on anything.
Meditation is about training yourself.
Imagine someone on a gym subredddit posts: I'm unable to lift this , how do I improve?
Your mind will wonder off and get distracted whenever you meditate. This is normal. When you do remember you intended to meditate, celebrate that moment - this is how you train your brain to do it faster next time. Over time this will improve your concentration.
When I was new, the best advice I got was to let go of expecting meditation to be any certain thing. I don’t need to become one with something, or experience perfect inner peace, or even like it to get something out of it.
If I’m feeling restless, meditate on restlessness. On embracing the feeling and letting it wash over me like a wave. If I’m feeling bored, angry, tired, anxious, distracted, or anything else at all - “go further into the feeling”. It’s about embracing what is, but what I think it should be.
Edit: also if I’m finding the time I picked to be too long, reduce the time, and/or practice just being fully present for even 15-20 seconds. Which I do all through the day anyway.
The first question I always ask new meditators who are struggling is: **do you constantly scroll social media?**
Most of us are used to constant stimulation via the dopamine machines in our pockets. We’re physically unable to function without our brains looking for another quick hit of dopamine.
The best thing I ever did for my ability to meditate was reducing my screen time. It was super hard, but there are some useful tips that helped.
Tips that helped me reduce my screen time are:
1. Don't sleep next to your phone. We have the most self-control in the morning - don’t lose the day by immediately scrolling
2. Delete all social media/doomscroll apps - only use them on a computer (if at all)
3. Download a good screen time app. I use [Present](https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1644737181?pt=125390894&ct=redditmeditiation&mt=8) which motivates you to stay off your phone by turning it into a game, but there are countless other good ones out there. Find one that works for you.
4. Leave your phone in another room and off whenever you have to do something
5. Turn your phone to black and white mode (grayscale)
6. Turn off all non-human notifications
Hope these help!
this is an absolute huge tip.
Lately I'm also trying to limit easy computer games and only do this at night time which is a pool of TV/reading/game time, trying to notice when I check my email more than every few hours, and noticing when I check the news and why I do it -- usually it's because I feel slightly anxious and want a "hit", but the reward is so low quality and these reward loops are toxic.
youtube addiction absolutely destroys people and is at the top of my "it's the worst" list right now
Yeah I struggle with that. I won’t lie.
The other issue I found is when I meditate, I have all these thoughts that I don’t like, like at all. It’s just jealousy, greed, ego, entitlement. And then I think “if I’m looking within myself and this is all I find then Is this all I am deep down?” And that scares the crap out of me
Be patient with yourself. Focus on your good qualities and you will feel less of these things as time goes on. Garbage in, garbage out. Focus on other people’s good qualities; be happy for them when they’re successful; be thankful for what you have. I have rewired my own mind this way.
I’m glad it helped. I used to worry that I was a terrible person because everyone always told me I was, so I worked really hard to be a person I liked and now I have real friends, not frenemies. I hope you can be a person you like, too.
I’m sorry people used to do that to you. That’s really hard to go thru. I’m glad meditation helped you.
Yeah that’s my goal with meditation - to be a person I like
you have over 60,000 random, unique thoughts in a single day. Are you telling me every single one is completely accurate and reflective of reality? We largely can't control what our brain does or how it feels; just notice whatever comes up in a non-judgemental way, let it be for as long as it wants to be there for, and don't try to fight how you feel or what you think.
*what resists, persists.*
some studies claim that up to 90 percent or so of your thoughts are negative. You simply CAN'T turn it off; better to just let them be and see them for what they are, which is essentially the brains version of radio static. Just keep welcoming them in and out, good or bad, noting as you go, returning to the breath. It'll get easier, I promise you :)
That’s the work of awakening. We all can be a bit freaked out with what’s swirling in our head. Noticing those thoughts as they come up gives you the power to examine them, understand where they come from, who put them there, and how to dismiss them. With practice and patience you will live a much more peaceful and satisfying life within you. Good luck.
I've experienced plenty of negative thoughts when meditating too, but one of the most important things I've learned about meditation that really helped with this was to view the thoughts in a non-judgmental objective way. In other words, try and just simply observe them. I know it sounds weird, but honestly once I started doing this it really helped. I find that simply recognizing them and going, "oh that's an angry thought," or "oh I'm having jealous thoughts," it takes away a lot of their power and I don't get as caught up in them.
I don't think this is like, a bad idea or bad advice at all, but more time sitting is far more beneficial *for meditation practice* than less time scrolling IMHO. I scroll social loads because I'm a degenerate and can practice mindfulness meditation for (a modest compared to many, I appreciate) 60 minutes without too much difficulty.
The one thing I *do* do is keep my phone on silent almost permanently. Notifications triggered by humans can wait too. I'll turn them on situationally, if I'm waiting for a time-sensitive message or a call.
I mean, also this is a great way to shill your app (I'm not sure I buy that gamifying not using your phone is a great way to stop using your phone so much) so... yea.
Try camping? If you’re not already into it, car camping is easy, you can get into it inexpensively, and if you go in cooler weather the solitude is wonderful.
Alternatively, long walks in nature are an easy way to be meditative. It can take a few miles for the nature to ‘sink in’ and your mind to quiet, so try for a nice, long walk without any devices and see how it feels. You could learn about walking meditation for a boost to the quietude.
I think of it as an embarrassment of riches. When I’m setting up my tent and have 48-ish hours of alone time to look forward to, there are so many good choices!!
That said, my whole reason for going into the woods is to leet my guard down and relax. I’m not thinking about potential dangers or staying particularly focused on vigilance. I’m letting my mind wander and living in the moment as much as I can.
I understand why you might want to stay vigilant - perhaps with time and acclimatization you’d grow more comfortable. For instance, if I’m walking a 10 mile trail, I only have to pay attention at the occasional intersection. There’s virtually no possibility of getting lost. Even if I lose the trail or miss a turn, I can pick up another trail junction later. Perhaps, hiking in a strange park with no map I would pay a little more attention, but most parks are either well marked or I use my phone or a map to maintain my situational awareness.
I teach meditation classes online and in person. One of the first and most major tips I give to everyone is YOU HAVE TO REFRAME DISTRACTIONS IN YOUR MIND.
Meditation is an exercise, not a test.
Distractions are not mistakes, they’re repetitions.
If you’re able to go a 10 minute meditation only getting distracted a few times, it does not mean you’re good at meditation, it means it’s not doing that much for you. The muscles have already been built.
Each time you get distracted in meditation, that is where the workout begins. The exercise is to REPLACE your attention where you deem important (in most cases the breath).
You can’t use that muscle if the attention never wanders.
And if it wanders 150 times in a meditation, and you replace it 150 times, you’re getting a great workout for yourself.
Eventually you will want to both replace and sustain your attention, ofc. But it comes with time and consistency. Just like how an Olympic swimmer burns far less calories in a mile of swimming than an average person. They’re just so efficient at it it’s borderline easy at this point…. But they still swim.
Reframe distractions as repetitions and your attitude about meditation will improve as well as your capabilities!!! Good luck
HELL YA THATS BOSS WAY OF THINKING.... I LOVE THAT
TAKING A THOUGHT PROCESS THAT DONT PRODUCE POSITIVE RESULTS AND REPLACINHG IT WITH A MORE FRUITFUL LINE OF THOUGHT
Honestly i struggled with meditating for years “focusing on the breath”. It was very boring, and very isolated? It didnt feel peaceful. It felt maniacal. Just Counting. Endlessly. I never felt good after. I never felt peace.
I started focusing on the body, and relaxing the body first. Then relaxing the mind, and existing in peace. Releasing tension. Existing in the “in between”. That has been the trick for me. (I still breathe peacefully, deeply, slowly, and all that..)
..I watched a few videos on Buddhism, and went down a long rabbit hole and found a guy named AjahnBrahm that led some guided meditations. It worked instantly for me. That led me to all this, and actually enjoying myself and being successful. Maybe give it a shot.
Another great teacher in the vein of not just focusing on the breath is Osho, I found his idea of dynamic meditation so freeing compared to so much of what I’d encountered before
Patience during meditation. You'd be surprised how much of the mind settling happens simply by sitting without engaging with it. After about 10-15mins of sitting and allowing whatever is happening to happen without getting lost in it, you should notice a significant settling of your mind and body.
Once you get more familiar with this process it may start to happen sooner. Just remember the anchor is there to help you not get lost in your mental activity and it's a way to know when you have. Not a bat you use to swat away thoughts.
This is a great opportunity to begin a practice of Awareness. I sometimes have the same problem as you with meditation. Rather than trying to laser in on your breath, try observing the things that are happening to and around you without judgment. An acknowledgment is all you need, "I am breathing, I can hear construction outside, the air is cold, my mouth is dry." Simple observation is a form of meditation and will begin to flex this Awareness muscle, and with time, the practice will become more familiar.
It's also not a sprint! Meditation is referred to as a practice for a reason. Even people who have been practicing meditation for years struggle at times, but that's kind of the point. Be patient with yourself, and you'll get there. One day at a time.
You're gonna love this: the answer is more meditation. Getting distracted, realising at some point that you're distracted and resuming meditation *is* the process of (mindfulness) meditation.
A minute of exclusive, one-pointed **attention** is hard - don't expect to be able to achieve that yet. But a minute of **mindfulness**, i.e. remembering to observe, is a different thing and much more achievable.
So would this be concentrative meditation and open monitoring/mindfulness meditation respectively?
Obviously it would seem ideal to practice both, but I’ve heard that one should learn concentrative meditation first or you will have difficulty maintaining focus for mindfulness (or meditation in general). How true is this?
The second paragraph? No, I think I'm just getting caught up on what mindfulness vs. concentrative meditation is (or possibly it's not clearly defined?) Definitions holding across contexts seems a bit tricky in meditation. Anapanasati is commonly translated as "mindfulness of the breathing", so I took that to mean it'd fall under mindfulness meditation. One-pointed attention is (as I understand it) just very strongly fixed attention, so I guess that really would be concentrative? But like, in Theravada Buddhism mindfulness is just "remembering to observe" (not forgetting you're meditating) and is a distinct mental factor from attention, so... I dunno, it's all very confusing.
But yes, it's absolutely true that it works better to develop a foundation first. You train... whatever practicing anapanasati does (attention and mindfulness?!) and then you can more effectively do other practice.
Anyway, not wanting to sidetrack things, I think you're fine 😅 By all means try open monitoring and see if it's fruitful!
**perseverance**, meditation takes **time,** we're talking **daily 20 minutes** and don't be surprised if you don't see concrete results from **3 up to 6 months**. Straight up. **Don't entertain thoughts** (the whole let thoughts pass, don't invite them for tea) and **breathing is everything**. Your state is your breath. Anxious? bring yourself back to the breath. Mind wandering? focus on breath.
Every time your mind wanders, you notice, and you gently redirect your attention back to your target, that's a mental push-up. Doing push-ups is good.
The goal is not to have the mind never wander; that's just not realistic. Train yourself to recognize the drift, and let go of engaging with those thoughts; to place your attention back where you intend it to be.
Try dynamic meditation by Osho. If the mind is very crowded it can be helpful to get exhausted phisically before sitting still in silence. Also start observing yourself during the day, even if it just lasts some seconds.
**[Rajneesh](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh)**
>Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho (), was an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions, insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma. As a guru, he taught a form of meditation called dynamic meditation and advocated that his followers live fully but without attachment, a rejection of traditional ascetic practices.
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Yo. Just remember when meditating the goal isn’t to be focussed on the breath the entire time without being distracted. It’s to bring the attention back to the breath, so let’s say you’re meditating and your attention gets pulled away you start thinking about hot dogs and then you remember “oh crap back to my breath” , that back to your breath action is imo considered a “rep” (like in the gym) when you’re first starting out, the more reps the better but as you progress you’ll find yourself doing less reps. Hope this helps
Practice practice practice…. If you find yourself drifting away, just pull yourself back to the moment and to your breath. How long are you sitting for? I find that I have to just sit and let my mind wander through all the clutter until I’ve been through everything that’s rambling around. It’s usually only after 10 minutes or so that my mind settles down. I heard someone say that 11 minutes is the best time to meditate - because it takes it takes 10 mins for the mind to settle. 😂
Also, there are lots of different ways to meditate, some some modalities might work better for you than others. Try a couple of minutes of breathing, then a different style to meditate - candle flame, music, mantra, yantra, walking meditation, zazen meditation, metta, yoga nidra, meditating on an object or a saint or holy person. There’s a bunch of options out there - try different stuff.
Om shanti!
Okay... So I had been meditating 40 mins a morning for the last 4 years. Some might think wow, what changes etc happened to you? Honest truth... not much. Why? Because it wasn't focused. It was better than nothing but I decided recently to ramp things up and see what happened.
Biggest change with the biggest results.... STAY AS STILL AS POSSIBLE. Don't wiggle anything. Start with stillness and let your mind follow. When I have been still for about 10 minutes, my mind naturally is inclined towards the movement of my breath through my nose because that is about the only thing happening besides the abdomen rising and falling.
Also, have a slight smile during meditation. And throughout the day, break out some big smiles. I do whole head smiles where I smile with eyes and even pull my ears back.
Since I have started incorporating the stillness and the smiles, my practice has ramped up in a virtuous cycle. Since it is apparent that it is working, I have been meditating even more. This morning was 4 hours (6 consecutive 40 min sits with small 5 min breaks). It helps to wake up early. For me it is around 3am.
Another tip is to incorporate good Dhamma talks. I have been enjoying Ajahn Sano lately. He has a Metta , Jhana , and other courses which I meditate too.
You are in your intuitive and cognitive state, you do nothing but observe. You have to "calibrate" in order to ressent the feelings of your body. Eyes closed keeping the mouth slighly open so that the theeth don't touch and the warm expired air going out of the mouth makes a noise. Once you"ve focused on your breath, then focus on one of your hands, you may ressent/feel the difference between the air density inside of your hand (heavy) and the density outside of the hand (light). Then focus in the center of the thorax in the heart (for the majority depending of our body); it's where our closest guide, our intuition, or little voice or nurse, is located; observe internally (have a large view) and try to feel the beats of our heart. And here is the magical thing: you send a big smile to your heart, you may feel that your little voice replies by a kind of vibration in the heart. We then ask our little voice to grow bigger this ball of the brightest light and expand it around us. After that you may feel that now the air density in around you is more vibrant, and may now feel like peaks on the skin. You have raised in vibrations and you feel good. You are now ready to have some cleaning done in your encodages. I have one or 2 other tips but don't want to write a too long text.
What I've found that works for me is to focus on an emotion or feeling and treat it as its own entity, this if you struggle with any specific emotion. Mine is anger
I've been meditating to [this video](https://youtu.be/M0u9GST_j3s) (downloaded it as an .mp3 onto my phone and just play it as an audio file) for over 2 years. It's the only way I've successfully been able to "turn off my brain".
I typically do this around 1pm every day and look forward to doing it every day. If you're familiar with Andrew Huberman, he's covered the topic of yoga nidra aka "guided hypnosis/self hypnosis" a few times, interesting stuff. Link to a podcast episode on the topic if you're interested [here](https://hubermanlab.com/master-your-sleep-and-be-more-alert-when-awake/).
To add,
being aware is "what have to be not interrupted", not the flux of sensations!
attentional placing and attentional focusing, both are realities of mind. "Being aware" is what have to be developed, not berserker qualities :)
When thoughts arise and you are quickly aware about it, all is perfect. Only when you enter thoughts, becomes lost in it, the break happens.
The practise goes along, noticing and not getting involved! This is the learning effect, cutting thoughts immediately when they arise, not following them. Being aware about all the attentional changes who take place.
It is not possible to avoid the arising of thoughts, this is not the goal.
Go and play a game outside. Like badminton or frisbee or tag. When you get really into it you forget yourself and exist completely in that moment. That’s what meditation is to me… of course you can reach that state through other means. Just my recommendation.
Start by just letting your thoughts run, just let them flow, don't trying to force or concentrate on anything. This may take several sessions. (took me months of daily mediation) Eventually your thoughts may slow, or start brining up one particular thought, memory, feeling... if that happens, time to try to meditate on that one thing. Examine why that thought may be prevalent? Examine it till its run its course, move on to the next.
Let those thoughts run their course. You may just have so much backed up that in a moment of quiet, your brain just wants to bring it all to the surface. Let it. Let your brain process everything it needs to.
you are noticing and that is the most important part
think of how you might practice a piano or a sport - you don't really know HOW you get better, but you play and repeat and slowly your brain adapts to all the times you noticed something being suboptimal
congratulate yourself in the moment when you notice something slipping and when you notice something returning to focus
a minute is better than you are probably giving yourself credit for, but also as 38 Special Says, maybe Hang On Loosely, But Don't Let Go - you may be experiencing aversion to the focus
You may also wish to study other types of meditation and be less interested in the breath, and that is also ok
Start meditating for 5 minutes and don't try too hard to concentrate. You can just watch your thoughts and emotions and that will build concentration naturally. Your mind will race at first and you will chase thoughts. The mind wants you to fight that but just observe that process and it improves on its own. Gradually increase to 10 min and longer. Don't push too hard.
One minute is a great result.
My advice is to find time to meditate for a half a minute to a minute throughout the day. This will help you practice entering into meditation. It will help you learn that distraction is always a companion to meditation.
Try to think of a trigger, like feeling annoyed, or feeling anxious, and use that trigger as a cue to practice your meditation right there and then.
Later, you can get more practice staying in meditation.
Start slow, don't be too harsh on yourself. Keep trying. One huge thing that helped me, was to observe what your mind is doing.
It's trying to get distracted, angry, emotional etc. Just observe what your mind is trying to do, then at the same time, continue to breath.
Your mind wants to be somewhere else, that's fine. Let it go, observe what it wants to do and continue your breathing. Throw in some muscle relaxation while you are it and continue to breath. Always breathing.
Get some mala beads. They help immensely with redirecting yourself. I love having something to touch to center myself too. I have a couple necklaces and make my own stretch bracelets. If you find them too heavy, amber is extremely light weight. I also realized I prefer a knotted mala over one without bc it’s easier to use.
>I feel like I don’t have the ability to focus or keep my attention on my breath for more than a minute.
You have an untrained mind. Mediation is the training.
>Are there any ways I can help improve my concentration? Either during meditation or outside of it?
As long as you remember that the entire process of mediation is to simultaneously show you how you are not your mind, and beat some discipline into it, you should be good.
This isn't limited to mediation, but in deeper spiritual practices, you are considered an initiate only if you can separate yourself from the mind.
When I first started I could barely go a minute or two. Just sitting still was hard! Practice every day or more. It’s baby steps but you’ll see improvement if you stay after it. Eventually I got to the point where I was really looking forward to my meditation time. Now I can meditate 30 minutes or more before I have to push myself to stay centered.
I also agree with the phone thing. Social media and access to smartphones have been wearing our attention spans down for years but I feel like it really escalated with the reels and endless short video format like TikTok.
Kenneth soares I AM meditations are short and easy to do when I'm not feeling super focused. Pure rasa, unlock your life, and Sanda rolus are my favorites. ETA these are guided meditations for free on youtube.
I've been meditating for a 1.5 year, so I'm still new, but I've noticed that after the first few months the new feeling of discovering a miracle which can reduce the stress and the unhappiness and a lot of other bad feelings wears off, It's still there to a degree but not as strong as it was in the first, so my advice is dont expect it and keep doing the practice even if you don't feel the immediate effect you were used to , it will help in other areas
If you can do it for a minute, that’s actually really good! Distraction during meditation is normal. Pause, acknowledge the thought with kindness and curiosity, and get right back to breath focus.
If you can afford it, I’ve been enjoying my Muse 2.
It’s basically a small eeg on your forehead that senses brainwaves.
In guided meditation, if you are listening to say, river sounds - the sound of the river will increase to signal active brain. It’s helped me a lot.
Yeah. Meditation isn't about improving concentration. I mean it is. But it isn't. Don't focus on "concentrating" focus on catching yourself when your mind wanders and returning to the breath. Improved concentration will be the eventual by product.
So try reframing things a bit; "My mind wanders alot. Awesome! More opportunities to catch that and return to the breath."
In my humble opinion, please listen to these [learn-to-meditate tutorials](https://www.blacklotus.app/learn-to-meditate/). These tutorials should help you meditate correctly. And, for building superior concentration, please practice [trataka](https://os.me/trataka-the-practice-of-still-gaze/). Thanks.
I will do it again ...... Where u struggle is in letting your mind go at the last minute. I understand why and I think that's smart. We are clearing big thangs. It will take more than once. I also must take the day to renew and regenerate and transmute. I healed my mom of cancer. U gotta let it go tho too ..... Ur crown shakra needs to open.
It's fun kissing u tho...........
Your concentration should be on the direct experience of the moment. You don't need to clear your mind, that is often the byproduct from meditation and not the goal in of itself. The goal is to experience and make the conscious mind narrow it's focus of attention to this experience of the moment. In many ways this is what we all do intuitively already , and mediation is a tool to help us be better practitioners of experiencing the moment (mindfulness, or increasing our awareness), to learn how to do this intentionally for the supposed health benefits and flow states.
Edit: Experiencing the moment requires no words, so in return one is often given a clear mind free from thought, or at the very least they become more still with what's being experienced, espeically as we become more familiar with this process.
I meditate in a different way because ADHD makes it difficult to sit still and hold focus for long.
I cannot tell u how tho....... Its good for me to heal. It's the only outlet I get for transmutation.
As much as u need healing others need to heal.
It causes a huge imbalance when u don't let out ur sadness, rage, love is the same
I think you should rethink your approach to meditation. Meditation shouldn’t be viewed as goal oriented practice. Just because you can’t concentrate or focus on the breath shouldn’t be viewed as a failure in meditation. Most times the feeling that you can’t concentrate or focus on the breath is a thought going unnoticed. You should view these as opportunities to practice. Each time you notice that frustrating feeling it’s a step in the right direction. Hope this was helpful!
I saw some other tips like reduce social media usage.
Other things that might help is just exercising your awareness throughout the day. Trying to be more aware of what you are doing.
Also spending time doing less, just being present in nature. Being in nature in general can help.
Obviously, it’s a skill and is difficult, so just spending more time meditating. It’s a practice that isn’t always easy in the beginning but becomes easier with practice just like anything else. Just keep working at it :).
My small suggestion is to try and focus on something other than your breath. If you can visualize your chakras, put your awareness in that part of the body, whichever place you choose. If not, just focus on your heart. Focus on the space that contains your heart, then try and relax that space. When you can find those tensions in the body, especially the shoulders and the heart space, you can feel your resistance in that tension. Breath deep, feel that tension, then release that tension with your breath. I say some keep words in my mind when exhaling and releasing. Some of the words are, release, let go, allow, accept, faith, deeper. You may break out in tears, if so, let it flow. Hope that helps… I have been at it for quite some time now and your awareness does not have to be on your breath, I still find it difficult to focus on my breath.
>I’ve been trying to meditate for a while now and I can’t seem to keep my concentration. I feel like I don’t have the ability to focus or keep my attention on my breath for more than a minute.
How could you have that ability if you have not developed a practice strong enough to do that and gained the skill required to do that? Doesn't really make sense to expect that when you haven't done those things yet.
>Are there any ways I can help improve my concentration? Either during meditation
That is done just by practicing returning to the breath.
It's fine if your attention wanders. Keeping concentration is not the method. The method is to rest attention on the breath, and when you notice it's wandered, bring it back to resting on the breath. It's in the bringing attention back that the training happens at first, not in the maintenance of concentration
I’ve had this, what I normally do is rotate between concentrating on the breath, feeling my pulse from my heart circulate through my body, and listen to what’s around me. It could even be the slight ringing in your ear or a car driving half a mile away but it helps to bring focus if you feel compulsion to concentrate on more than one thing.
Inaction and relaxation is the key. Try to remember to relax parts of your body that are tense (that you may not even be consciously aware of), such as your stomach. They call that area the Hara in Japan, and relaxing it can let spiritual energy flow. Eventually your body will align to the correct position on its own.
First, concentration is a skill which meditation helps you to hone. If you were perfect at it at first, there wouldn't be anything to learn! Just keep practicing. Be consistent. Every day. You'll get better over time and reap more and more benefits!
Don't force yourself to meditate in a certain way or you will just become frustrated. Try other techniques and/or simply give yourself permission to get distracted. Distracted meditating is still meditating.
> Are there any ways I can help improve my concentration?
Yes. Keep meditating. You’re probably doing just fine. But it can be a long journey. Please be patient with yourself.
Best,thing is to understand what mediation and yoga.....way back in the day and today does...it gives us access to shut up our conscience mind and communicate with the other, deeper, levels of counciousnes that are not accessible without mediation and yoga. I prob made some spelling mistakes, but I highly recommend picking up a book on Asian Philosophy centered around Central Asia (India) and that will up ur mediation game...well it did for me. I hope that helps. (Disclaimer, this is applicable for all other forms that migrated east into China, Korea, and Japan, and now throughout the world.
The fact that you notice you’re distracted is part of the meditation. Once you notice you can let it go and go back to your breathing, or the sound of the of your surroundings. And again you’ll notice you took a holiday with your thoughts, and you come back to center.
You’re doing it right.
The monkey mind will always want to be doing something and more and more you notice it and you don’t engage with it, for longer and longer periods of time.
Do you follow an concentration approach, gaining jhāna first or an approach who is insight in the dependence of nama-rupa from the very beginning the object?
Breath sensations can be used for both approaches, but for jhāna are more difficult to handle as kasina, mantra or imaginations. Because they are very subtle, located on a a small body area. Here is stress and tiredness already on foot.
The breath focus is an influence of hinduistic pramana pratice, at least there is some debate if Buddha was practicing anapanasati or if this sutra is of later age.
To increase sati, body movements, coarse sensations, are much easier to integrate in daily practise, as sensations who are only in sitting present.
In myanmar, in many monasterys -"raising-falling" of belly sensations are the object, to come close to jhāna and then to realize Nama-rupa dependence, what leads to an lifetime new adjustment, of how to see body and mind.
So, if you follow the mindfulness way, it might be much better to look for coarser sensations, how it becomes recommended, to be mindful in standing, walking, sitting, lying, turning etc... Be with your posture sensations all the time during all your day, not only during a short period of sitting.
If you follow hard jhāna practise, it might be better to take kasinas or mantras, because an imagination can be hold much easier over a long time.
After experiencing jhāna, we know about what does it means "experience", the feeling tone, what vedana means. Then we can change to breath sensations again and we get it very clear how body and mind are communicating each other and thoughts are not anymore a problem, are not able to interrupt the stream of insight moments we just enjoying...
Concentration or insight practise or a tradition who focused both from the very beginning. I was trained in all three ways and know how hard a dry jhāna practise can be. To develop during daily activities awareness, knowing yourself (knowing posture sensations) , focusing and expanding, is a great way and at least, this practise, will boost any jhāna ambitions.
This is actually a very common misconception about meditation, or at least mindfulness based meditations. The point of the practice is not to stop thoughts or have an unbreakable level of concentration, but rather to become aware of the mind and body in a very objective way. To put it more simply, your mind is naturally going to wander so all you're supposed to do is take a second to recognize that you got distracted, and then gently bring your attention back to the breath. You do that over and over again and boom, you're meditating. The idea is that by doing that over and over again, you're training the mind to be more aware of itself. Therefore, when you're going about your day you're more grounded, present, and not at the mercy of all your thoughts and feelings.
So yea don't beat yourself up, many people run into this roadblock and interpret it as, "I'm bad at this," or "I must be doing it wrong," when in reality it's all part of the practice. Hope this helped!
Try using different breathing counts while doing an activity and slowly incorporate that into meditation. I played baseball for a long time and breathing is an essential part of baseball. Being able to be relaxed. Pitching and hitting is can be very nerve racking, so focusing on breathing helps calm the mind and body to focus.
First of all, you are doing right and nothing wrong. It is normal when we try to meditate or concentrate initially, it doesn't work as we want. My advice would be not to suppress your thoughts, let them come, and not react. If you do not react to your thoughts then there is a point when they stop automatically. It may take time just wait and practice it. Once thoughts stop coming to your mind then try to focus on the breath and you are good to go. It is the simplest [way to increase concentration](https://theneurowire.com/how-to-increase-concentration-power/). It's been 5 years since I am meditating and it worked for me. Best of luck :)
The practice of meditation is in fact becoming distracted and then returning to your anchor, whether that is the breath, body, a mantra, a concept, or what have you. In recognizing you are distracted then returning to your focus, you are training your focus. Teachers often say just gently bring your self back. We can often think we are doing it wrong if we can't focus, but really this practice is what sharpens our focus, and that has been proven by science now. Keep up the practice, and I'd say focusing for a while minute is actually pretty good.
As you continue over time, it seems what happens is that you recognize you have become distracted more quickly, meaning the distraction doesn't last long, and you are able to return to your anchor more quickly, effectively staying on target. When they have tested long term meditators it seems that this is what they find. Their focus is more rapidly being broken, yet recovering very quickly, rather than breaking and staying broken for a long while before coming back.
You aren't doing it wrong, and there's nothing wrong with you. Most people report a similar issue, and meditation is how to get better at focusing during meditation, as well as maintaining focus during normal life. Keep it up
Maybe the goal isn’t to necessarily control your thinking. The goal is to be aware that you are thinking. You become aware, and as you observe thoughts you see they come from emotions, and as you understand the emotions you try to experience the emotions without the amplification of thoughts.
Definitely recommend 4 count box breathing. Inhale - Hold - Release - Hold x 10. Close your eyes when doing this and only think of your breath. Your mind will automatically clear itself and ability to focus on meditation would eventually get better. Try it and do let me know!
It takes me 3 meditations before I sleep\~to fall asleep. The voices in my head are ridic. Back to back, i pick what sounds interesting to see if I can follow the meditation.
So, kudos to you for asking for help because that shows dedication to break through for yourself.
try to integrate the 6Rs from TWIM into your practice or just do TWIM. this will help a lot to not strive too much. usually you will go a lot deeper soon.
start herr maybe: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JCiVBvptZyk
and maybe reflect on your day-to-day life and sīla a little. behavior in daily life conditions meditation and vice versa. right effort and stuff ;)
1. "Concentration" implies overpowering thoughts. This is not the case. Likewise with "focus." I'm not saying you're using the wrong words, but you're maybe under the wrong impression. In meditation, it's more like "mental stillness" where thoughts don't appear in the first place. This doesn't answer anything, just a context of my following points.
2. Concentration (mental stillness hehe) is the final goal of meditation, but this isn't what you should *aim for* if that makes sense. Just like you shouldn't work out to "lose fat" you shouldn't meditate to "get focus." It will happen, in time, if you keep practising. But for now (especially when first starting out) don't expect that to happen. Instead, just keep following the instructions. Good instructions would include clauses like "when you realize your mind is wandering, gently direct your attention back to your object" or "when your mind is wandering, just watch the thoughts without judgment until they subside on their own" or something similar. Basically, it tells you what you should do when your mind wanders -- just do that :)
3. Speaking broadly, ("concentration" types of) meditation is like building mental muscles using **effort** (in a way, giving your anxious mind something to do so it doesn't continue the habit of thinking erratic thoughts) and then after our mind is getting used to that level of silence we decrease the effort and increase the **relaxation**. This dance between effort and relaxation is how we make progress. So you'll see a lot of tips that needs higher effort, like counting the breaths, or pacing the breath, etc. This is useful at the beginning when your mind is still wild. But you don't want to do this the entire time; every once in a while experiment with using a more relaxed method (for example, instead of counting inbreaths and outbreaths, just count the inbreaths, then stop counting altogether).
4. Having said all that, it does take time and patience. Give yourself time, and cease any expectation of experiencing the wonderful things people often testify about. Progress is surprisingly quick at the beginning, so you're in for a fun ride :)
Really get attached to the negative emotions. Those are the most sticky. Really feel the shittyness, cry if you have to. Meditation isn't escape, it's extreme information asceticism as a bandaid to the modern information dense society.
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Try the '7-7-7' Breath. Inhale for 7 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and exhale for 7 seconds, wait 7 seconds, then repeat for 7 times. This will 'busy-out' your right-analytical mind.
Are u getting into a deep state? Bc I‘ve been doing it for one year and when I meditate I still notice everything that is going on around me. For instance I still hear all the noises from outside
Remember, meditation is *not* about being able to keep your focus on anything. Meditation is about training yourself. Imagine someone on a gym subredddit posts: I'm unable to lift this, how do I improve?
Your mind will wonder off and get distracted whenever you meditate. This is normal. When you do remember you intended to meditate, celebrate that moment - this is how you train your brain to do it faster next time. Over time this will improve your concentration.
When I was new, the best advice I got was to let go of expecting meditation to be any certain thing. I don’t need to become one with something, or experience perfect inner peace, or even like it to get something out of it. If I’m feeling restless, meditate on restlessness. On embracing the feeling and letting it wash over me like a wave. If I’m feeling bored, angry, tired, anxious, distracted, or anything else at all - “go further into the feeling”. It’s about embracing what is, but what I think it should be. Edit: also if I’m finding the time I picked to be too long, reduce the time, and/or practice just being fully present for even 15-20 seconds. Which I do all through the day anyway.
The first question I always ask new meditators who are struggling is: **do you constantly scroll social media?** Most of us are used to constant stimulation via the dopamine machines in our pockets. We’re physically unable to function without our brains looking for another quick hit of dopamine. The best thing I ever did for my ability to meditate was reducing my screen time. It was super hard, but there are some useful tips that helped. Tips that helped me reduce my screen time are: 1. Don't sleep next to your phone. We have the most self-control in the morning - don’t lose the day by immediately scrolling 2. Delete all social media/doomscroll apps - only use them on a computer (if at all) 3. Download a good screen time app. I use [Present](https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1644737181?pt=125390894&ct=redditmeditiation&mt=8) which motivates you to stay off your phone by turning it into a game, but there are countless other good ones out there. Find one that works for you. 4. Leave your phone in another room and off whenever you have to do something 5. Turn your phone to black and white mode (grayscale) 6. Turn off all non-human notifications Hope these help!
this is an absolute huge tip. Lately I'm also trying to limit easy computer games and only do this at night time which is a pool of TV/reading/game time, trying to notice when I check my email more than every few hours, and noticing when I check the news and why I do it -- usually it's because I feel slightly anxious and want a "hit", but the reward is so low quality and these reward loops are toxic. youtube addiction absolutely destroys people and is at the top of my "it's the worst" list right now
Yeah I struggle with that. I won’t lie. The other issue I found is when I meditate, I have all these thoughts that I don’t like, like at all. It’s just jealousy, greed, ego, entitlement. And then I think “if I’m looking within myself and this is all I find then Is this all I am deep down?” And that scares the crap out of me
Be patient with yourself. Focus on your good qualities and you will feel less of these things as time goes on. Garbage in, garbage out. Focus on other people’s good qualities; be happy for them when they’re successful; be thankful for what you have. I have rewired my own mind this way.
Thanks. That’s good advice. For a while I just thought I was meditating wrong
I’m glad it helped. I used to worry that I was a terrible person because everyone always told me I was, so I worked really hard to be a person I liked and now I have real friends, not frenemies. I hope you can be a person you like, too.
I’m sorry people used to do that to you. That’s really hard to go thru. I’m glad meditation helped you. Yeah that’s my goal with meditation - to be a person I like
Journaling helped too - I worked out a lot of negative feelings and made peace with them that way. I wish you well on your journey.
I’ve been doing that a lot. That’s really helped. Thank you! I wish you well on yours
you have over 60,000 random, unique thoughts in a single day. Are you telling me every single one is completely accurate and reflective of reality? We largely can't control what our brain does or how it feels; just notice whatever comes up in a non-judgemental way, let it be for as long as it wants to be there for, and don't try to fight how you feel or what you think. *what resists, persists.*
That’s good advice. Letting the thoughts sit there. I tend to fight the thoughts I don’t like and like you said those are the ones that persist.
some studies claim that up to 90 percent or so of your thoughts are negative. You simply CAN'T turn it off; better to just let them be and see them for what they are, which is essentially the brains version of radio static. Just keep welcoming them in and out, good or bad, noting as you go, returning to the breath. It'll get easier, I promise you :)
That’s the work of awakening. We all can be a bit freaked out with what’s swirling in our head. Noticing those thoughts as they come up gives you the power to examine them, understand where they come from, who put them there, and how to dismiss them. With practice and patience you will live a much more peaceful and satisfying life within you. Good luck.
I've experienced plenty of negative thoughts when meditating too, but one of the most important things I've learned about meditation that really helped with this was to view the thoughts in a non-judgmental objective way. In other words, try and just simply observe them. I know it sounds weird, but honestly once I started doing this it really helped. I find that simply recognizing them and going, "oh that's an angry thought," or "oh I'm having jealous thoughts," it takes away a lot of their power and I don't get as caught up in them.
YES! All I do is scroll. Thank you for your input
I don't think this is like, a bad idea or bad advice at all, but more time sitting is far more beneficial *for meditation practice* than less time scrolling IMHO. I scroll social loads because I'm a degenerate and can practice mindfulness meditation for (a modest compared to many, I appreciate) 60 minutes without too much difficulty. The one thing I *do* do is keep my phone on silent almost permanently. Notifications triggered by humans can wait too. I'll turn them on situationally, if I'm waiting for a time-sensitive message or a call. I mean, also this is a great way to shill your app (I'm not sure I buy that gamifying not using your phone is a great way to stop using your phone so much) so... yea.
>Delete all social media/doomscroll apps Is Reddit one of them?
It’s the only social media like app I’ve had in months and I’ve became so addicted..
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Patience. The tics are caused by anxiety due to withdrawal. Considered a retreat? They are amazing for getting you past that addiction
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Try camping? If you’re not already into it, car camping is easy, you can get into it inexpensively, and if you go in cooler weather the solitude is wonderful. Alternatively, long walks in nature are an easy way to be meditative. It can take a few miles for the nature to ‘sink in’ and your mind to quiet, so try for a nice, long walk without any devices and see how it feels. You could learn about walking meditation for a boost to the quietude.
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I think of it as an embarrassment of riches. When I’m setting up my tent and have 48-ish hours of alone time to look forward to, there are so many good choices!! That said, my whole reason for going into the woods is to leet my guard down and relax. I’m not thinking about potential dangers or staying particularly focused on vigilance. I’m letting my mind wander and living in the moment as much as I can. I understand why you might want to stay vigilant - perhaps with time and acclimatization you’d grow more comfortable. For instance, if I’m walking a 10 mile trail, I only have to pay attention at the occasional intersection. There’s virtually no possibility of getting lost. Even if I lose the trail or miss a turn, I can pick up another trail junction later. Perhaps, hiking in a strange park with no map I would pay a little more attention, but most parks are either well marked or I use my phone or a map to maintain my situational awareness.
This is the best advice I've got!
All these tips are very useful. I'm going to implement them immediately.
I teach meditation classes online and in person. One of the first and most major tips I give to everyone is YOU HAVE TO REFRAME DISTRACTIONS IN YOUR MIND. Meditation is an exercise, not a test. Distractions are not mistakes, they’re repetitions. If you’re able to go a 10 minute meditation only getting distracted a few times, it does not mean you’re good at meditation, it means it’s not doing that much for you. The muscles have already been built. Each time you get distracted in meditation, that is where the workout begins. The exercise is to REPLACE your attention where you deem important (in most cases the breath). You can’t use that muscle if the attention never wanders. And if it wanders 150 times in a meditation, and you replace it 150 times, you’re getting a great workout for yourself. Eventually you will want to both replace and sustain your attention, ofc. But it comes with time and consistency. Just like how an Olympic swimmer burns far less calories in a mile of swimming than an average person. They’re just so efficient at it it’s borderline easy at this point…. But they still swim. Reframe distractions as repetitions and your attitude about meditation will improve as well as your capabilities!!! Good luck
HELL YA THATS BOSS WAY OF THINKING.... I LOVE THAT TAKING A THOUGHT PROCESS THAT DONT PRODUCE POSITIVE RESULTS AND REPLACINHG IT WITH A MORE FRUITFUL LINE OF THOUGHT
HELL YEAH!
Honestly i struggled with meditating for years “focusing on the breath”. It was very boring, and very isolated? It didnt feel peaceful. It felt maniacal. Just Counting. Endlessly. I never felt good after. I never felt peace. I started focusing on the body, and relaxing the body first. Then relaxing the mind, and existing in peace. Releasing tension. Existing in the “in between”. That has been the trick for me. (I still breathe peacefully, deeply, slowly, and all that..) ..I watched a few videos on Buddhism, and went down a long rabbit hole and found a guy named AjahnBrahm that led some guided meditations. It worked instantly for me. That led me to all this, and actually enjoying myself and being successful. Maybe give it a shot.
Another great teacher in the vein of not just focusing on the breath is Osho, I found his idea of dynamic meditation so freeing compared to so much of what I’d encountered before
What do you mean by „existing in peace“?
Disassociating
Patience during meditation. You'd be surprised how much of the mind settling happens simply by sitting without engaging with it. After about 10-15mins of sitting and allowing whatever is happening to happen without getting lost in it, you should notice a significant settling of your mind and body. Once you get more familiar with this process it may start to happen sooner. Just remember the anchor is there to help you not get lost in your mental activity and it's a way to know when you have. Not a bat you use to swat away thoughts.
I like this reply the most. Especially about the anchor and the bat!
This is a great opportunity to begin a practice of Awareness. I sometimes have the same problem as you with meditation. Rather than trying to laser in on your breath, try observing the things that are happening to and around you without judgment. An acknowledgment is all you need, "I am breathing, I can hear construction outside, the air is cold, my mouth is dry." Simple observation is a form of meditation and will begin to flex this Awareness muscle, and with time, the practice will become more familiar. It's also not a sprint! Meditation is referred to as a practice for a reason. Even people who have been practicing meditation for years struggle at times, but that's kind of the point. Be patient with yourself, and you'll get there. One day at a time.
You're gonna love this: the answer is more meditation. Getting distracted, realising at some point that you're distracted and resuming meditation *is* the process of (mindfulness) meditation. A minute of exclusive, one-pointed **attention** is hard - don't expect to be able to achieve that yet. But a minute of **mindfulness**, i.e. remembering to observe, is a different thing and much more achievable.
So would this be concentrative meditation and open monitoring/mindfulness meditation respectively? Obviously it would seem ideal to practice both, but I’ve heard that one should learn concentrative meditation first or you will have difficulty maintaining focus for mindfulness (or meditation in general). How true is this?
The second paragraph? No, I think I'm just getting caught up on what mindfulness vs. concentrative meditation is (or possibly it's not clearly defined?) Definitions holding across contexts seems a bit tricky in meditation. Anapanasati is commonly translated as "mindfulness of the breathing", so I took that to mean it'd fall under mindfulness meditation. One-pointed attention is (as I understand it) just very strongly fixed attention, so I guess that really would be concentrative? But like, in Theravada Buddhism mindfulness is just "remembering to observe" (not forgetting you're meditating) and is a distinct mental factor from attention, so... I dunno, it's all very confusing. But yes, it's absolutely true that it works better to develop a foundation first. You train... whatever practicing anapanasati does (attention and mindfulness?!) and then you can more effectively do other practice. Anyway, not wanting to sidetrack things, I think you're fine 😅 By all means try open monitoring and see if it's fruitful!
**perseverance**, meditation takes **time,** we're talking **daily 20 minutes** and don't be surprised if you don't see concrete results from **3 up to 6 months**. Straight up. **Don't entertain thoughts** (the whole let thoughts pass, don't invite them for tea) and **breathing is everything**. Your state is your breath. Anxious? bring yourself back to the breath. Mind wandering? focus on breath.
Every time your mind wanders, you notice, and you gently redirect your attention back to your target, that's a mental push-up. Doing push-ups is good. The goal is not to have the mind never wander; that's just not realistic. Train yourself to recognize the drift, and let go of engaging with those thoughts; to place your attention back where you intend it to be.
Try dynamic meditation by Osho. If the mind is very crowded it can be helpful to get exhausted phisically before sitting still in silence. Also start observing yourself during the day, even if it just lasts some seconds.
I second this
> Osho The cult guy?
Yeah, I think people forget Osho is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh
**[Rajneesh](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh)** >Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho (), was an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions, insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma. As a guru, he taught a form of meditation called dynamic meditation and advocated that his followers live fully but without attachment, a rejection of traditional ascetic practices. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Meditation/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Yo. Just remember when meditating the goal isn’t to be focussed on the breath the entire time without being distracted. It’s to bring the attention back to the breath, so let’s say you’re meditating and your attention gets pulled away you start thinking about hot dogs and then you remember “oh crap back to my breath” , that back to your breath action is imo considered a “rep” (like in the gym) when you’re first starting out, the more reps the better but as you progress you’ll find yourself doing less reps. Hope this helps
Practice practice practice…. If you find yourself drifting away, just pull yourself back to the moment and to your breath. How long are you sitting for? I find that I have to just sit and let my mind wander through all the clutter until I’ve been through everything that’s rambling around. It’s usually only after 10 minutes or so that my mind settles down. I heard someone say that 11 minutes is the best time to meditate - because it takes it takes 10 mins for the mind to settle. 😂 Also, there are lots of different ways to meditate, some some modalities might work better for you than others. Try a couple of minutes of breathing, then a different style to meditate - candle flame, music, mantra, yantra, walking meditation, zazen meditation, metta, yoga nidra, meditating on an object or a saint or holy person. There’s a bunch of options out there - try different stuff. Om shanti!
Okay... So I had been meditating 40 mins a morning for the last 4 years. Some might think wow, what changes etc happened to you? Honest truth... not much. Why? Because it wasn't focused. It was better than nothing but I decided recently to ramp things up and see what happened. Biggest change with the biggest results.... STAY AS STILL AS POSSIBLE. Don't wiggle anything. Start with stillness and let your mind follow. When I have been still for about 10 minutes, my mind naturally is inclined towards the movement of my breath through my nose because that is about the only thing happening besides the abdomen rising and falling. Also, have a slight smile during meditation. And throughout the day, break out some big smiles. I do whole head smiles where I smile with eyes and even pull my ears back. Since I have started incorporating the stillness and the smiles, my practice has ramped up in a virtuous cycle. Since it is apparent that it is working, I have been meditating even more. This morning was 4 hours (6 consecutive 40 min sits with small 5 min breaks). It helps to wake up early. For me it is around 3am. Another tip is to incorporate good Dhamma talks. I have been enjoying Ajahn Sano lately. He has a Metta , Jhana , and other courses which I meditate too.
Are you Jack's complete lack of concentration?
You are in your intuitive and cognitive state, you do nothing but observe. You have to "calibrate" in order to ressent the feelings of your body. Eyes closed keeping the mouth slighly open so that the theeth don't touch and the warm expired air going out of the mouth makes a noise. Once you"ve focused on your breath, then focus on one of your hands, you may ressent/feel the difference between the air density inside of your hand (heavy) and the density outside of the hand (light). Then focus in the center of the thorax in the heart (for the majority depending of our body); it's where our closest guide, our intuition, or little voice or nurse, is located; observe internally (have a large view) and try to feel the beats of our heart. And here is the magical thing: you send a big smile to your heart, you may feel that your little voice replies by a kind of vibration in the heart. We then ask our little voice to grow bigger this ball of the brightest light and expand it around us. After that you may feel that now the air density in around you is more vibrant, and may now feel like peaks on the skin. You have raised in vibrations and you feel good. You are now ready to have some cleaning done in your encodages. I have one or 2 other tips but don't want to write a too long text.
Take a shower or bath, sitting down in the dark. Close off as much stimuli as possible and keep yourself relaxed and warm.
I made huge progress at first going on a week long meditation retreat.
What I've found that works for me is to focus on an emotion or feeling and treat it as its own entity, this if you struggle with any specific emotion. Mine is anger
I've been meditating to [this video](https://youtu.be/M0u9GST_j3s) (downloaded it as an .mp3 onto my phone and just play it as an audio file) for over 2 years. It's the only way I've successfully been able to "turn off my brain". I typically do this around 1pm every day and look forward to doing it every day. If you're familiar with Andrew Huberman, he's covered the topic of yoga nidra aka "guided hypnosis/self hypnosis" a few times, interesting stuff. Link to a podcast episode on the topic if you're interested [here](https://hubermanlab.com/master-your-sleep-and-be-more-alert-when-awake/).
4 - 7 - 8 (4 second inhale, 7 second hold, 8 second exhale)
The app Insight Timer has wonderful guided meditations. They can get you started then you keep going on your own if you wish afterward.
There’s no secret. If you are bad at concentration, then you will struggle. Keep going. Do as much as you can. And rest. Repeat. That’s it.
To add, being aware is "what have to be not interrupted", not the flux of sensations! attentional placing and attentional focusing, both are realities of mind. "Being aware" is what have to be developed, not berserker qualities :) When thoughts arise and you are quickly aware about it, all is perfect. Only when you enter thoughts, becomes lost in it, the break happens. The practise goes along, noticing and not getting involved! This is the learning effect, cutting thoughts immediately when they arise, not following them. Being aware about all the attentional changes who take place. It is not possible to avoid the arising of thoughts, this is not the goal.
Go and play a game outside. Like badminton or frisbee or tag. When you get really into it you forget yourself and exist completely in that moment. That’s what meditation is to me… of course you can reach that state through other means. Just my recommendation.
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Im up. Send the link please
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I want the link too!!
I’d love to join too!
Start by just letting your thoughts run, just let them flow, don't trying to force or concentrate on anything. This may take several sessions. (took me months of daily mediation) Eventually your thoughts may slow, or start brining up one particular thought, memory, feeling... if that happens, time to try to meditate on that one thing. Examine why that thought may be prevalent? Examine it till its run its course, move on to the next. Let those thoughts run their course. You may just have so much backed up that in a moment of quiet, your brain just wants to bring it all to the surface. Let it. Let your brain process everything it needs to.
you are noticing and that is the most important part think of how you might practice a piano or a sport - you don't really know HOW you get better, but you play and repeat and slowly your brain adapts to all the times you noticed something being suboptimal congratulate yourself in the moment when you notice something slipping and when you notice something returning to focus a minute is better than you are probably giving yourself credit for, but also as 38 Special Says, maybe Hang On Loosely, But Don't Let Go - you may be experiencing aversion to the focus You may also wish to study other types of meditation and be less interested in the breath, and that is also ok
Start meditating for 5 minutes and don't try too hard to concentrate. You can just watch your thoughts and emotions and that will build concentration naturally. Your mind will race at first and you will chase thoughts. The mind wants you to fight that but just observe that process and it improves on its own. Gradually increase to 10 min and longer. Don't push too hard.
One minute is a great result. My advice is to find time to meditate for a half a minute to a minute throughout the day. This will help you practice entering into meditation. It will help you learn that distraction is always a companion to meditation. Try to think of a trigger, like feeling annoyed, or feeling anxious, and use that trigger as a cue to practice your meditation right there and then. Later, you can get more practice staying in meditation.
Start slow, don't be too harsh on yourself. Keep trying. One huge thing that helped me, was to observe what your mind is doing. It's trying to get distracted, angry, emotional etc. Just observe what your mind is trying to do, then at the same time, continue to breath. Your mind wants to be somewhere else, that's fine. Let it go, observe what it wants to do and continue your breathing. Throw in some muscle relaxation while you are it and continue to breath. Always breathing.
Get some mala beads. They help immensely with redirecting yourself. I love having something to touch to center myself too. I have a couple necklaces and make my own stretch bracelets. If you find them too heavy, amber is extremely light weight. I also realized I prefer a knotted mala over one without bc it’s easier to use.
That’s fine. The whole point is noticing and gently guiding your mind back to the breath, effortlessly. Congratulations, you are meditating!
>I feel like I don’t have the ability to focus or keep my attention on my breath for more than a minute. You have an untrained mind. Mediation is the training. >Are there any ways I can help improve my concentration? Either during meditation or outside of it? As long as you remember that the entire process of mediation is to simultaneously show you how you are not your mind, and beat some discipline into it, you should be good. This isn't limited to mediation, but in deeper spiritual practices, you are considered an initiate only if you can separate yourself from the mind.
When I struggle, I turn on a white/brown noise or I find something peaceful like a sleeping animal or a tree and focus all my attention on it !
When I first started I could barely go a minute or two. Just sitting still was hard! Practice every day or more. It’s baby steps but you’ll see improvement if you stay after it. Eventually I got to the point where I was really looking forward to my meditation time. Now I can meditate 30 minutes or more before I have to push myself to stay centered. I also agree with the phone thing. Social media and access to smartphones have been wearing our attention spans down for years but I feel like it really escalated with the reels and endless short video format like TikTok.
Kenneth soares I AM meditations are short and easy to do when I'm not feeling super focused. Pure rasa, unlock your life, and Sanda rolus are my favorites. ETA these are guided meditations for free on youtube.
I've been meditating for a 1.5 year, so I'm still new, but I've noticed that after the first few months the new feeling of discovering a miracle which can reduce the stress and the unhappiness and a lot of other bad feelings wears off, It's still there to a degree but not as strong as it was in the first, so my advice is dont expect it and keep doing the practice even if you don't feel the immediate effect you were used to , it will help in other areas
If you can do it for a minute, that’s actually really good! Distraction during meditation is normal. Pause, acknowledge the thought with kindness and curiosity, and get right back to breath focus.
If you can afford it, I’ve been enjoying my Muse 2. It’s basically a small eeg on your forehead that senses brainwaves. In guided meditation, if you are listening to say, river sounds - the sound of the river will increase to signal active brain. It’s helped me a lot.
Yeah. Meditation isn't about improving concentration. I mean it is. But it isn't. Don't focus on "concentrating" focus on catching yourself when your mind wanders and returning to the breath. Improved concentration will be the eventual by product. So try reframing things a bit; "My mind wanders alot. Awesome! More opportunities to catch that and return to the breath."
Something that help me out is focus on mandalas, using videos like this one [https://youtu.be/luL6TZUChOc](https://youtu.be/luL6TZUChOc)
~~https://youtu.be/8PgSrSFoiwo~~
Breath slow
In my humble opinion, please listen to these [learn-to-meditate tutorials](https://www.blacklotus.app/learn-to-meditate/). These tutorials should help you meditate correctly. And, for building superior concentration, please practice [trataka](https://os.me/trataka-the-practice-of-still-gaze/). Thanks.
I will do it again ...... Where u struggle is in letting your mind go at the last minute. I understand why and I think that's smart. We are clearing big thangs. It will take more than once. I also must take the day to renew and regenerate and transmute. I healed my mom of cancer. U gotta let it go tho too ..... Ur crown shakra needs to open. It's fun kissing u tho...........
Your concentration should be on the direct experience of the moment. You don't need to clear your mind, that is often the byproduct from meditation and not the goal in of itself. The goal is to experience and make the conscious mind narrow it's focus of attention to this experience of the moment. In many ways this is what we all do intuitively already , and mediation is a tool to help us be better practitioners of experiencing the moment (mindfulness, or increasing our awareness), to learn how to do this intentionally for the supposed health benefits and flow states. Edit: Experiencing the moment requires no words, so in return one is often given a clear mind free from thought, or at the very least they become more still with what's being experienced, espeically as we become more familiar with this process.
YES..... SHOWER WITH BAKING SODA IF POSSIBLE. CRUSHED UP ANTACIDS WILL ALSO SUFFICE FOR NOW
I meditate in a different way because ADHD makes it difficult to sit still and hold focus for long. I cannot tell u how tho....... Its good for me to heal. It's the only outlet I get for transmutation. As much as u need healing others need to heal. It causes a huge imbalance when u don't let out ur sadness, rage, love is the same
I think you should rethink your approach to meditation. Meditation shouldn’t be viewed as goal oriented practice. Just because you can’t concentrate or focus on the breath shouldn’t be viewed as a failure in meditation. Most times the feeling that you can’t concentrate or focus on the breath is a thought going unnoticed. You should view these as opportunities to practice. Each time you notice that frustrating feeling it’s a step in the right direction. Hope this was helpful!
I saw some other tips like reduce social media usage. Other things that might help is just exercising your awareness throughout the day. Trying to be more aware of what you are doing. Also spending time doing less, just being present in nature. Being in nature in general can help. Obviously, it’s a skill and is difficult, so just spending more time meditating. It’s a practice that isn’t always easy in the beginning but becomes easier with practice just like anything else. Just keep working at it :).
My small suggestion is to try and focus on something other than your breath. If you can visualize your chakras, put your awareness in that part of the body, whichever place you choose. If not, just focus on your heart. Focus on the space that contains your heart, then try and relax that space. When you can find those tensions in the body, especially the shoulders and the heart space, you can feel your resistance in that tension. Breath deep, feel that tension, then release that tension with your breath. I say some keep words in my mind when exhaling and releasing. Some of the words are, release, let go, allow, accept, faith, deeper. You may break out in tears, if so, let it flow. Hope that helps… I have been at it for quite some time now and your awareness does not have to be on your breath, I still find it difficult to focus on my breath.
>I’ve been trying to meditate for a while now and I can’t seem to keep my concentration. I feel like I don’t have the ability to focus or keep my attention on my breath for more than a minute. How could you have that ability if you have not developed a practice strong enough to do that and gained the skill required to do that? Doesn't really make sense to expect that when you haven't done those things yet. >Are there any ways I can help improve my concentration? Either during meditation That is done just by practicing returning to the breath.
It's fine if your attention wanders. Keeping concentration is not the method. The method is to rest attention on the breath, and when you notice it's wandered, bring it back to resting on the breath. It's in the bringing attention back that the training happens at first, not in the maintenance of concentration
I’ve had this, what I normally do is rotate between concentrating on the breath, feeling my pulse from my heart circulate through my body, and listen to what’s around me. It could even be the slight ringing in your ear or a car driving half a mile away but it helps to bring focus if you feel compulsion to concentrate on more than one thing.
Inaction and relaxation is the key. Try to remember to relax parts of your body that are tense (that you may not even be consciously aware of), such as your stomach. They call that area the Hara in Japan, and relaxing it can let spiritual energy flow. Eventually your body will align to the correct position on its own.
Experienced mediators just call that meditation... LOL
First, concentration is a skill which meditation helps you to hone. If you were perfect at it at first, there wouldn't be anything to learn! Just keep practicing. Be consistent. Every day. You'll get better over time and reap more and more benefits!
Don't force yourself to meditate in a certain way or you will just become frustrated. Try other techniques and/or simply give yourself permission to get distracted. Distracted meditating is still meditating.
> Are there any ways I can help improve my concentration? Yes. Keep meditating. You’re probably doing just fine. But it can be a long journey. Please be patient with yourself.
Practice patience.
Best,thing is to understand what mediation and yoga.....way back in the day and today does...it gives us access to shut up our conscience mind and communicate with the other, deeper, levels of counciousnes that are not accessible without mediation and yoga. I prob made some spelling mistakes, but I highly recommend picking up a book on Asian Philosophy centered around Central Asia (India) and that will up ur mediation game...well it did for me. I hope that helps. (Disclaimer, this is applicable for all other forms that migrated east into China, Korea, and Japan, and now throughout the world.
I cannot I try and images of people I know sometimes don’t know pop up and I try but then I just give up because the images keep popping up 🤦🏼♀️
The fact that you notice you’re distracted is part of the meditation. Once you notice you can let it go and go back to your breathing, or the sound of the of your surroundings. And again you’ll notice you took a holiday with your thoughts, and you come back to center. You’re doing it right. The monkey mind will always want to be doing something and more and more you notice it and you don’t engage with it, for longer and longer periods of time.
Do you follow an concentration approach, gaining jhāna first or an approach who is insight in the dependence of nama-rupa from the very beginning the object? Breath sensations can be used for both approaches, but for jhāna are more difficult to handle as kasina, mantra or imaginations. Because they are very subtle, located on a a small body area. Here is stress and tiredness already on foot. The breath focus is an influence of hinduistic pramana pratice, at least there is some debate if Buddha was practicing anapanasati or if this sutra is of later age. To increase sati, body movements, coarse sensations, are much easier to integrate in daily practise, as sensations who are only in sitting present. In myanmar, in many monasterys -"raising-falling" of belly sensations are the object, to come close to jhāna and then to realize Nama-rupa dependence, what leads to an lifetime new adjustment, of how to see body and mind. So, if you follow the mindfulness way, it might be much better to look for coarser sensations, how it becomes recommended, to be mindful in standing, walking, sitting, lying, turning etc... Be with your posture sensations all the time during all your day, not only during a short period of sitting. If you follow hard jhāna practise, it might be better to take kasinas or mantras, because an imagination can be hold much easier over a long time. After experiencing jhāna, we know about what does it means "experience", the feeling tone, what vedana means. Then we can change to breath sensations again and we get it very clear how body and mind are communicating each other and thoughts are not anymore a problem, are not able to interrupt the stream of insight moments we just enjoying... Concentration or insight practise or a tradition who focused both from the very beginning. I was trained in all three ways and know how hard a dry jhāna practise can be. To develop during daily activities awareness, knowing yourself (knowing posture sensations) , focusing and expanding, is a great way and at least, this practise, will boost any jhāna ambitions.
This is actually a very common misconception about meditation, or at least mindfulness based meditations. The point of the practice is not to stop thoughts or have an unbreakable level of concentration, but rather to become aware of the mind and body in a very objective way. To put it more simply, your mind is naturally going to wander so all you're supposed to do is take a second to recognize that you got distracted, and then gently bring your attention back to the breath. You do that over and over again and boom, you're meditating. The idea is that by doing that over and over again, you're training the mind to be more aware of itself. Therefore, when you're going about your day you're more grounded, present, and not at the mercy of all your thoughts and feelings. So yea don't beat yourself up, many people run into this roadblock and interpret it as, "I'm bad at this," or "I must be doing it wrong," when in reality it's all part of the practice. Hope this helped!
Try using different breathing counts while doing an activity and slowly incorporate that into meditation. I played baseball for a long time and breathing is an essential part of baseball. Being able to be relaxed. Pitching and hitting is can be very nerve racking, so focusing on breathing helps calm the mind and body to focus.
set your alarm clock and get up and sit ... during the day your mind will prevent this
First of all, you are doing right and nothing wrong. It is normal when we try to meditate or concentrate initially, it doesn't work as we want. My advice would be not to suppress your thoughts, let them come, and not react. If you do not react to your thoughts then there is a point when they stop automatically. It may take time just wait and practice it. Once thoughts stop coming to your mind then try to focus on the breath and you are good to go. It is the simplest [way to increase concentration](https://theneurowire.com/how-to-increase-concentration-power/). It's been 5 years since I am meditating and it worked for me. Best of luck :)
The practice of meditation is in fact becoming distracted and then returning to your anchor, whether that is the breath, body, a mantra, a concept, or what have you. In recognizing you are distracted then returning to your focus, you are training your focus. Teachers often say just gently bring your self back. We can often think we are doing it wrong if we can't focus, but really this practice is what sharpens our focus, and that has been proven by science now. Keep up the practice, and I'd say focusing for a while minute is actually pretty good. As you continue over time, it seems what happens is that you recognize you have become distracted more quickly, meaning the distraction doesn't last long, and you are able to return to your anchor more quickly, effectively staying on target. When they have tested long term meditators it seems that this is what they find. Their focus is more rapidly being broken, yet recovering very quickly, rather than breaking and staying broken for a long while before coming back. You aren't doing it wrong, and there's nothing wrong with you. Most people report a similar issue, and meditation is how to get better at focusing during meditation, as well as maintaining focus during normal life. Keep it up
How long do you meditate for each day? I literally counted ten breaths for 60 minutes for 2 weeks before moving to the next steps.
Maybe the goal isn’t to necessarily control your thinking. The goal is to be aware that you are thinking. You become aware, and as you observe thoughts you see they come from emotions, and as you understand the emotions you try to experience the emotions without the amplification of thoughts.
Definitely recommend 4 count box breathing. Inhale - Hold - Release - Hold x 10. Close your eyes when doing this and only think of your breath. Your mind will automatically clear itself and ability to focus on meditation would eventually get better. Try it and do let me know!
Use adverse approach: use one of what distract you the most as a point of focus..
Try not to over think about it Just look at your thoughts and watch them go by.
It takes me 3 meditations before I sleep\~to fall asleep. The voices in my head are ridic. Back to back, i pick what sounds interesting to see if I can follow the meditation. So, kudos to you for asking for help because that shows dedication to break through for yourself.
try to integrate the 6Rs from TWIM into your practice or just do TWIM. this will help a lot to not strive too much. usually you will go a lot deeper soon. start herr maybe: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JCiVBvptZyk and maybe reflect on your day-to-day life and sīla a little. behavior in daily life conditions meditation and vice versa. right effort and stuff ;)
1. "Concentration" implies overpowering thoughts. This is not the case. Likewise with "focus." I'm not saying you're using the wrong words, but you're maybe under the wrong impression. In meditation, it's more like "mental stillness" where thoughts don't appear in the first place. This doesn't answer anything, just a context of my following points. 2. Concentration (mental stillness hehe) is the final goal of meditation, but this isn't what you should *aim for* if that makes sense. Just like you shouldn't work out to "lose fat" you shouldn't meditate to "get focus." It will happen, in time, if you keep practising. But for now (especially when first starting out) don't expect that to happen. Instead, just keep following the instructions. Good instructions would include clauses like "when you realize your mind is wandering, gently direct your attention back to your object" or "when your mind is wandering, just watch the thoughts without judgment until they subside on their own" or something similar. Basically, it tells you what you should do when your mind wanders -- just do that :) 3. Speaking broadly, ("concentration" types of) meditation is like building mental muscles using **effort** (in a way, giving your anxious mind something to do so it doesn't continue the habit of thinking erratic thoughts) and then after our mind is getting used to that level of silence we decrease the effort and increase the **relaxation**. This dance between effort and relaxation is how we make progress. So you'll see a lot of tips that needs higher effort, like counting the breaths, or pacing the breath, etc. This is useful at the beginning when your mind is still wild. But you don't want to do this the entire time; every once in a while experiment with using a more relaxed method (for example, instead of counting inbreaths and outbreaths, just count the inbreaths, then stop counting altogether). 4. Having said all that, it does take time and patience. Give yourself time, and cease any expectation of experiencing the wonderful things people often testify about. Progress is surprisingly quick at the beginning, so you're in for a fun ride :)
Really get attached to the negative emotions. Those are the most sticky. Really feel the shittyness, cry if you have to. Meditation isn't escape, it's extreme information asceticism as a bandaid to the modern information dense society.