A (another?) Meditation Experiment

(This is a little stream-of-consciousness because I’m not really finished thinking this through. Please bear with me.)

So, I’ve been carrying around some ambient stress again.

I’m not feeling stressed about anything in particular. There’s no overwhelmingly stressful thing going on.

In fact, my *brain* doesn’t feel stressed at all.

My body, however, is telling me otherwise.

My first response to recognizing that stressed out feeling was ‘I need to meditate.’

And meditation does help me release that feeling in the moment, which is great, but reactive meditation is not nearly as helpful as regular (preventative) meditation would be.

See, I know that when I meditate regularly, I get a little more space in my brain.

And that space helps me make better choices about how to spend my time and my energy.

Last fall, I had a month or so when I meditated daily and I really found it beneficial. But then something came up, I couldn’t meditate at my regular time and I got off track. I’ve had a few short streaks of practice since then but it hasn’t really stuck.

However, once again, I am determined to find my way back to that daily practice.

On Monday, I was trying to figure out a good time for my practice when I (once again?) made the connection that meditation is similar in one way to my ADHD medication – it gives me a little space between my thought and my action so I can choose to be more effective, to be kinder to myself.

So then I thought ‘What if I put meditation in the same category as my meds?’ – that is, something that needs to happen daily, at the same time, in order to have the best effect.

And then I considered whether I could meditate right after I medicate.

I went back and forth on that for a few minutes because mornings can be a tricky time to find quiet minutes to myself but maybe I can take my meditation and my medications at the same time and it will work out just fine.

I’m going to give it a week and see how it goes.

I’ll report back next Tuesday with the results of this utterly unscientific experiment.

I’ll even take notes.