Executive Diary – is meditation good for you
Since I started working full-time in my own company, I was warned about burnouts, depressions and anxiety that comes with managing a business. Meditation is one of the methods that I adopted to combat these challenging issues. I find it useful and definitely helped me go through the isolation during COVID-19 time.
Too long; didn’t read;
I would recommend trying out meditation if you can. It is useful even if you are not stressed out every day because some clients throw a tantrum at you. There are a multitude of benefits that can come from meditation, including: more peaceful sleeps, better responds to events around you instead of reacting to them, and improve your calmness.
Meditation is easy to start
Contrary to some beliefs, starting in meditation is easy. At first, you only need 5 minutes of your time alone. Put on some meditation music, which is available on Youtube, and there are quite a lot of them. Sometimes I put in guided meditation videos to experience a different routine. I put here one of my favourite meditation video, it’s short and easy to follow:
Some people I know think that they are too active to sit down for a meditation session. I have seen other cases where athletes use meditation to calm themselves down, take this Youtube Short for example.
What does it help me?
After a short session, I often feel sleepy at night, and it helps me go into my sleep almost immediately. If I practice during the day, I feel refreshed and ready to get back to work. One thing that I feel during my meditation is body sensation, I can feel if I sit incorrectly, and because of that, pains start creeping up my body. I then understand what is the correct posture, and adjust my normal sitting position accordingly. I believe that because of that, I don’t have back pains that others have from sitting for too long.
I often practice meditation before going to sleep, or when I feel depressions are building up. It’s ok to leave the desk for 10-15 minutes and just meditate to free your mind. It’s like turning your brain off and on again, those with computer knowledge know what I mean ;).
Then I explored a concept called focused meditation, where instead of focusing on not thinking about anything, I focus on a matter that I need to resolve. I often find several possible solutions using this method. It is different from day dreaming because there is only 1 image in front of my mind, and the longer I can keep that matter there, I can see things in different angles and see multiple ways to get to a solution.
Summary
I have only practiced meditation for a little bit over a year, but it has been a tremendous help. I feel calmer and a lot harder to feel angry. When I slow down myself and think about the situation, I can provide a better response, and therefore enjoying life better.
“We can’t control the sea, but we can learn how to surf the waves.” – @headspace
By Tuan Nguyen
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