Make Meditation Great Again: A 21 Day Journey
I first experienced the power of meditation when I was a junior in high school.
It was the first day of the school year and I had been lucky enough to be one of the students who were able to get into the brand new yoga class. It was first period with Mr. Patton, and we would be meeting in the dance studio instead of the regular gym. remember that once we all got settled in on our mats, he turned off the lights and instead of going straight into our flow, he wanted us to meditate.
Practicing yoga while studying abroad in Seville, Spain (2015).
Now, I had taken yoga classes before but this was the first time I ever was instructed to meditate. Even though it was only five minutes long, I remember struggling to stay present—I kept thinking about other things. My mind would wander in many different directions thinking about school, activities, and chores instead of just allowing myself just to be in peace. Over the next two years I had the opportunity to practice the art of meditation every single morning and it turned out that I really enjoyed it.
It has been about 5 years since my first day of yoga with Mr. Patton. Since then I have been extremely passionate about yoga but have slacked on meditating daily. It was not until I was presented with the opportunity in my Health Informatics class to monitor a health behavior for a few weeks that I decided to try the whole meditation thing again.
Goals & Expectations of the 21 Day Meditation Challenge
I decided that if I were going to try to change my daily routine I would want to make it a little challenge. My only rule was that I had to meditate every single day. It did not matter the time or the length, I just needed to take a few moments for myself. I expected it to be challenging to stay still for an extend period of time. On top of that I knew that as a college student, I would struggle with getting up in time to make sure I could meditate before class. I really wanted to try and make an effort and meditate the same time every single day so I could get into a routine.
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It did to my mind what going to the gym did to my body — it made it both stronger and more flexible.
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I knew that meditation could provide some health benefits but it when I started planning this challenge I realized there were more potential benefits than I thought. According to neuroscientist Dr. Hedy Kober, “[meditation] did to my mind what going to the gym did to my body—it made it both stronger and more flexible.” Meditation can rewire our brain since we are using it differently. Each time we have a thought the little impulses shoot across our neurons. Every time this happens a portion of our brain grows thicker and stronger based on what you think. So like a person working out in the weight room, meditating is a way flex your “happiness muscle.”
Selecting the iPhone Application
When selecting a meditation application, I knew that I wanted something that would help easy me in to the meditation process with guide breathing and tips. During our class time we had the opportunity to discuss the similarities and differences between our tracking applications. One thing that the other people noted in their applications were the opportunity to set daily reminders as well as the ability to have background music.
The table shows a few different features that I was looking for in my meditation application. Headspace, for example, was an extremely well designed program that guided users for their first 10 days of the application but lacked some features and required payment. On the other hand, Calm was extremely simple and did not provide all of the features that I was look for. Omvana provided a very different meditation application experience compared to the other ones. It was set up like an iTunes library but for meditation sessions. It allowed users variability but it provided no guidance and you also had to pay for most of the sessions. Ultimately I chose the application Stop, Breath, and Think. Not only had it been recommended to me by a friend, it had almost all of the features I was looking for.
The 21 Meditation Day Challenge
I decided that for this project I would complete 21 days of meditation. The ultimate goal would be to change my behavior--to meditate daily and hopefully become more mindful of my actions. Thus, by hopefully by tracking my activity with a iPhone application I could hold myself accountable to practice every day.
Each morning I would wake up, make myself a cup of tea, and while it was brewing I would select a meditation exercise. The application would allow you to factor in your current mental and physical mood. Then it would allow you to select a few different emotions you could be experiencing. The application would then sort through the meditation sessions and choose three that best fit your mood. I really liked it because every day would be a different meditation session. One day I was really not feeling well and was really stressed out so Stop, Breath, and Think recommended that I complete a 3-10 minute session called "mindful breathing". It was all focused on counting your inhales and exhales which allowed me to calm down a bit. On days when i was extremely excited or happy they app would provide different meditation options for me to use. I loved it because it was something new every single day.
I eventually created an excel spread sheet (the previous business major coming out in me) that would allow me to document all of the details of my twenty one day journey.
Results: What worked & what didn't Work
At the beginning of the challenge I was extremely optimistic about using an iPhone App to help keep me accountable for practicing meditation every day. While I really enjoyed having a different session every single day depending on your mood, I really struggled with completing a meditation exercise without moving or getting distracted. I tried to make mediate this issue by meditating right after I woke up and tried to consistently do it at the same time every day.
After a few days of that I soon realized that it would difficult to that--at least with my college schedule. Since my classes are at different times every day it would be difficult to get a time that would align with my sleep schedule. On top of that the sessions started getting longer over the course of the program, while this could easily be changed, it made it more difficult for me to stay in the moment.
Overall, I was really surprised with how difficult it was to monitor my meditation activity. I knew that it provided a bunch of health benefits and I assumed that since I had once practiced meditation every day in my high school yoga class, it would be rather easy to get back in the routine of daily meditation. To my surprise the past 21 days have been a challenge for me. It made me realize that while these modern applications are cool it does little to motivate you to actually complete the activity after the first initial uses. I think the biggest takeaway from this whole challenge was the fact that changing behavior is difficult and you have to be willing to be patient. It is not about being perfect on the first--I know for me I struggled the first few meditation sessions. The most important part is that you notice these things, acknowledge them, and prepare yourself for next time something like that happens.
