10 Day Meditation Challenge: Attempted for Better or for Worse

I have heard it to many times before — you need to meditate. Especially with chronic illness, relaxing the mind is a great way to give yourself a much needed break. SO I have decided to try a 10 day mediation challenge. The goal is to (hopefully) prove to the chronic illness community that meditation is a must have in your life.

The caveat — I want you to try it with me!

Comment below, and have fun with me as I relax my mind and become a meditation guru in 10 days. Or at least I will see how it works.

Day 1: Release Technique Brandon Burchard

After reading and listening about all of the benefits of meditation I can’t wait to get started. I find the Podcast “Release Meditation Technique” by Brandon Burchard and I am ready to take the challenge.

I sit on my bed, assuming this was the best place to relax. As Brandon starts to describe how much better I will feel after going through 20 minutes of meditation, I subconsciously begin to feel the ease of the world go away. I spend 5 minutes moving around, itching my face, moving pillows, moving covers—preparing for a great 20 minutes of peace and quiet. I begin…

Minutes 1-5: 

I start by verbally following him in his mantra, “release, release, release…” 2 minutes in and thoughts keep flying through my head. I realize that I have to readjust because I am sinking into my bed! I have a sudden urge, open my eyes briefy, re adjust, and continue.

Minutes 5-10:

Wow I’m doing it, I’m really doing it! I start to think about how fun it would be to meditate out on the dock by the lake in the morning. Shit, I’m losing concentration on this whole release thing…time to try harder.

Minutes 10-15:

I think I fell asleep… To be honest, I don’t know. You know those moments when you start to have dreams about random things that don’t make sense right before you go into a deep sleep. I start to have them… I had just saw the hunger games the day before and all of a sudden I am dreaming I am in the movie fighting for my life…WAKE UP!…I snap out of it and I start to verbalize “release, release, release…” again.  Well that was embarrassing…

Minutes 15-20:

I start to feel pretty good about this whole meditation thing. I continue to say the mantra, and relax my body. Feeling great, all of a sudden at minute 20 there is a huge promotion for the podcast. Startling me out of sunshines and rainbows, I jolt my head up in shock.

Minute 21:

I get up…realize I need an ice pack for my neck, and ibprofine for my headache. How did this happen?!

Lesson learned, maybe 20 minutes was to much, and find a better place to sit.

Day 2: Headspace App

Here comes day number two. What do I have to lose right?

I wake up extra early at 5am to meditate before I go to work. Supposedly the morning is the best time to meditate, however I still feel like it is some evil scheme to make me get up earlier than usual…

I sit in my living room and start a meditation app called Headspace. Time to conquer this whole meditation thing.

Minute 1-3 

The Headspace app starts. After 10 seconds, I quickly realize the narrator has a British accent. WOW for the next 10 minutes I am going to be soothed into meditation by the soft voice of a British man. This is going to be awesome. (way better than the last meditation with an American accent)

I can feel the tension in my head and eyes from just waking up. Keeping my eyes closed will be harder than I thought, and then the chaos starts. From the distant upstairs bedroom I can hear my cat meowing. It is getting closer, I think if I just ignore my absurdly fat cat than I might be able to push through this meditation. The closer he gets, the more he meows ‘feed me!”. My fiancé runs down the stairs, scoops him up, and crisis averted.

Minutes 4-8

It takes some time, but I begin to loosen up and relax. There is still an occasional twitch, but I can feel some sense of calmness. Learning to count my breaths is a great way to keep my mind off of other thoughts. Thoughts do race in, but I keep trying to bat them away like flys in the summer air.

Minutes 8-10

Let me start by saying I am so glad this meditation app doesn’t end as abruptly as the last guided meditation I followed. This British guy really is a class act. I find that the last 2 minutes, I am finally falling into “the no thought zone”. There might really be something here. I only wonder what another few minutes would have done since I was only just beginning to feel completely free from my thoughts.

Overall, it looks like there might be some validity to this meditation stuff.

Day 3: Youtube Mindfulness Meditation

Maybe this is a mistake, but I decide on day 3 to try out yet another guided meditation. I am starting to feel like I am dating around. Lets see how this goes.

Minute 1-3

This time I am prepared. I feed my cat, I drink some caffeine so I don’t fall asleep, and I sit in a room where I can minimize distractions.

This meditation starts similar to the last two. Sit straight, concentrate on your breathing, and let thoughts pass through. Another bonus, yet another guy with a British accent. There must be something about British accents that help with meditation.

Minutes 4-8

This meditation asks you to do a lot more with being mindful. I walk through all of the sensations in my body, what muscles are tight, and where am I sore. Day 3 is a lot easier than the first two days. I am really starting to get into the grove of this meditation thing.

Minutes 8-10

I am relaxed. I still have thoughts run through my head, but per the direction of this meditation I send them away like balloons into the air. (I bet you are laughing like I did when I heard this) With the exception of still feeling like some of these meditations get two earthy crunchy, I understand why people like them. I feel very relaxed when I end, and I think tomorrow I will try out a longer meditation again.

Day 4: Lets Do My Own Thing

After 3 meditations, I am am starting to jump on the meditation band wagon.

No, I do not plan on becoming a monk and living off of the land, but I now understand how it can relax your mind. For Day 4, I decided to try something new.

Below is the format I followed:

1 Minute: Close my eyes and concentrate on breathing.

3 Minutes: Visualize everything I have that I am grateful for in life.

3 Minutes: Visualize all the dreams I have and imagine myself succeeding.

3 Minutes: Complete silence while still concentrating on breathing.

I really enjoyed this format. I felt such a relief when I started to think about everything I have to be grateful for and I felt motivation for the dreams I still want to accomplish. I felt ending with silence was a great way to let me bring my mind back into the present and relax.

Day 5: The Shower Meditation

OK, lets be honest, I knew today was going to be hectic.

My fiancé and I had big plans, and I knew I would struggle to find time to meditate. I than remembered the advice of a podcast I listened to last week. In the podcast, they mentioned that even spending time to be mindful of your breathing is better than no meditation at all.

The revelation: why can’t I do some breathing and meditation in the shower. At least I can not fall asleep in the shower!

I finished my normal shower routine and than I concentrated on my breathing (4 seconds in and 6 seconds out) I also concentrated on the pause at the end of my breath. I closed my eyes for a minute or two and just relaxed. It was time for myself to get ready for the day.

The result: This was not my favorite way to meditate, but it was better than nothing!

Day 6: Spotify Meditation

Did you know that if you type in “meditation” in spotify, you can get great playlists?

Yesterday I decided to start meditating with guided meditations on spotify. I loved it! There are so many to choose from. They are all different length meditations so it allows me to chose based on the time I have.

I started with a 20 minute meditation and it was great! I find that with the longer meditation, I am able to get into a good meditative state for the second 10 minutes.

More spotify meditations to try out, but I highly recommend it! Especially since it is free 🙂

Day 7: A breakthrough

Today I followed the same spotify meditation, and really got into a good meditative trance for the last 10 minutes.

The breakthrough I had today, was that I have gained more clarity of thought from meditating. I was in a meeting for work, and I found that my thoughts and speech seemed clearer than ever before.

Later that day, I had an MS appointment. When I took a cognitive test, I scored higher than I ever have scored. This high score was even higher than before I was diagnosed!

Meditation really seems to have the right benefits.

Day 8: Short and Sweet

You would think I would learn.

Today, the cat decided that it wanted to eat again…in the middle of my meditation.

Did I ever tell you that I am a dog person?

Ohh well, this was a shorter meditation, and I did not do the best a keeping my mind clear. The lesson learned here is that I think everyone has days where the meditation is not as good as it could have been. The goal is not to be to hard on yourself. This is not a competition. Give yourself a break.

Day 9: Calming Meditation

Another meditation teacher with an accent, and I loved it.

This meditation was very interesting since it included a countdown from 5 to get you more relaxed.

I really liked this one. It had a profound impact on how relaxed I became after I was done meditating. My favorite part of meditation is when you open your eyes and you have a sense of peacefulness.

Day 10: The Final Chapter

Overall, this was a great experience. My last day was very similar to the rest: very relaxing.

Below are some take- aways from my 10 day challenge:

1. No meditation is perfect, just spending the few minutes in silence is worth it.
2. Meditation has more benefits than I ever imagined. For example, I feel more clarity of thought, and awareness throughout the day.
3. There are many free resources to meditate. There is no excuse not to give it a try.
4. Do not meditate with a hungry cat. They will meow and you will be upset.
5. Make it fun. Meditation is exercise for your mind. Reward yourself for a job well done.

How was your experience?

Dave