Saturday 21 June 2014

Zen Time!

I've never cared if something is working because it's working or because of the placebo effect.  All that matters to me is that I feel better, end of discussion.

So there are a couple of things I've noticed lately that I think I sleep better when I do them.  Because I notice that I think the nights I don't do them I don't sleep as well.  Again, not sure I care to know *for sure* what's right, I'm just going with the fact that they work for me.

One is my mindfulness meditations.  I can't remember if I mentioned the app that I was told about, but it's called Headspace, and I thought at first that I wouldn't be able to get used to the fellow's (awesome) accent but it just worked for me and now I'm doing 20 minutes regularly, and like I say, I find that the nights that I forget or don't get around to it (because I do tend to do it before bed) I don't think I sleep as soundly.  (In fact, one night I was staying at Jason's and we had quite a heated discussion and when it was over, I sat in the hall and did my twenty minutes and felt a lot lot better; calmer and not so upset.)

Another, and this is going to sound hokey to many, because I kind of scoffed at it when my co-worker brought it up one day, is an accupressure mat.

Think of a bed of nails, but nice little plastic nails.  And I lie on this thing, skin right on it, not through fabric and I'll watch a show or do some writing or something and I swear it mellows me out.  Sure I read the science theories behind it before I bought it, but all I know is that it seems to relax me and it doesn't seem to do any harm and I swear I sleep better the nights I use it.

So most nights I'm spending a while lying on the bed o' plastic nails and then sitting up and doing twenty minutes of guided meditation (some nights are more brain spinny than others but I ALWAYS feel better after) and I think it's helping in a lot of ways, but certainly with better sleeps.

And I'm all for better sleeps!

2 comments:

Happydog said...

The Husband and I did a 8 week Mindfulness meditation using the book "Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World" by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Mind you The Husband has been meditating for over 30 years so he's an expert! But I found the book helpful and there was a website to download guided meditations. We don't use them now but I found them helpful to get started.
It sets my day off to a good start.

Victoria said...

Cool, I'll take a look, thanks HD!