Your experience with mindfulness

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Is useless for me. My attention is so poor combined with the amount of stress I am under, the lack of energy to do pretty much anything makes concentrating impossible for me.

I haven't had much luck with it either. I get too restless and bored. It's boring to try and only pay attention to the breathing. If I had tried really hard though maybe I could succeed. I do belive it can have positive effects if you master the tecnique.

Mindfulness meditation can definitely be boring. I started with meditation when I was having trouble sleeping. You don't actually have to focus for long periods to make it work. Even a few minutes a day over many, many days can help a tremendous amount. I certainly don't meditate for long periods.

Also, I find it much more than just breathing. It's about focusing on what I'm feeling, what's around me, and I can also use objects in my environment. There's also progressive muscle relaxation.

Its not so much about trying hard as it is about practicing. And start slow. You don't need to do hours of meditation a day. Start with 5 until you feel like you can do that without boredom. Experiement with different focusing techniques until you find one that feels good to you. Then expand the time. I've been doing this for 20 years and I still usually only do 20 minutes. The positive affects aren't so much about mastering it as it is about the practice. Just working on it a little should give you benefit if you do so consistantly.

Good luck!

I have had plenty of lapses in my meditation practice, but I have found that the effects are still cumulative over the years. Also, a little bit each day works way better for me than the occasional meditation session ever did.

It's like this... Some peoples minds do not work soo well. Like they are missing something. These people can have rather magical thinking, and can be relatively blank. They have no use for the acts of mindfulness. It doesn't work for them.

Others have a mind that is working well, or in the case of ASD too well. It is overstimulated. That is when you need to learn to back off. Turn off the static, and noise in your mind. Instead of magical, it is more mystical, and more real. Meditation is only one of many ways to practice this. The idea has been around forever. It is really all about turning off your internal dialog. It takes ALOT of practice to do it properly, and most people can only practice it. It doesn't work the way it should for them, but the practice itself is good enough.

Thanks for the tips DataB4 and somanyspoons!

I find mindfulness easy to do when I am on my own or in a quiet enviroment. The times when I do need it , like in a social situation I find I'm too easily distracted and find it as useful as a one legged man in a bum kicking competition.

This has been ttrue for me also. Over time though, the techniques start to transfer so that I can breathe deeply and remember and feel better, even when I'm under stress.

I totally agree , if I were to practice more it would become easier but I'm my own worst enemy

If I only had a brain......

Your lucky you wear glasses , at least you look like you have a brain

You definitely got a point there!

For anyone with depression, anxiety, stress, frustration, ______________ (any other thing that keeps you from being calm and centered) the practice of mindfulness can be of great benefit. To add to the different offerings thus far, I offer this.

Mindfulness is being engaged in the present moment. You do not have to meditate to practice mindfulness. (It will help though). To put it another way Intention with Attention or one that my therapist told me.....make sure your feet and your mind are in the same place. Often times we tend to live in the past or fantasize about the future. Neither of which are where the individual actually is.

The book that I first read was "Wherever You Go There You Are" by John Kabat-Zinn. You can also find videos of talks that he has done on Youtube.

Things that you can do "check in" with yourself.... set a random alarm on your phone and when it goes off see if you were engaged in the present moment. You can also set hourly reminders to reset as needed. The important thing is to not be harsh on yourself, or be judgmental. See it rather as an opportunity to understand that the mind wanders, obsesses, and does its' own thing. When you start to see these things, you will notice patterns and seeing these patterns will then provide you with other areas to understand.

When mindfulness was first introduced to me in 2010 it seemed so foreign to me. Then I read that book(mentioned above), and I have never been the same. For me, the concept of mindfulness introduced me to mindfulness meditation (Vipassana to be exact) and then that changed my life for the better even more.

One of the things that I did early on was tried to catch myself throughout the day making snap judgements, doing things that I was unaware of, and take notice of where my mind took me when I wasn't in the present moment. The results were astounding.

So to answer your question my experience with Mindfulness has been amazing, rewarding, challenging, and eye-opening.
Kind Regards Shark

Personally I think it's a hippy marketing scheme.
Some people are making stack loads of $$$$ off it.
They have rebranded meditation.

But if it works for you, then that's fine.

^^ I agree.

One of my shrinks tried to get me on "mindfulness".

Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to ASD...