Anyone else practicing yoga, meditation, mindfulness and/or deep breathing

I have friends I respect who swear by meditation, but when I join them for classes, my joints get stiff and painful, and the time passes so slowly I want to scream. So maybe meditation is not my thing.

Yoga is a challenge for my creaky body, but I definitely feel better after a yoga session. Unfortunately the last time I signed up for a class it was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Mindful breathing can be done anytime, anywhere, and helps me with singing, swimming and martial arts.

 

Been meditating for about 10+ years. Tried the lotus position - crossed legs. Rheumatism intervened, sit or lay now. To continue your
journey: Analytical Meditation. The idea is that the human mind
(the brain) is a massively parallel super organic computer. Once you mastered cleaning out all random thoughts. The mind & body are quiescent. Put your own thought in place. Which the mind can run riot upon. Can be anything an image, text anything. You will be surprised
where it can take you. A 'light bulb' moment as I call it might happen.

Yoga, Tai Chi and others which need concentration. All are connected
by meditation. Good luck my friend.

 

Off & on for years. Prefer some of the isolated stretch classes. My last yoga class left me with a shoulder injury that lingered way too long when my instructor adjusted me a touch.

I feel much better during/after 3-6 hr bike rides. The endorphin/chemical change is second to none. Calm for days. Light weights after.

Been utilizing box breathing a lot lately with all the stormers of castles mentality going around.

 

I roll the mat out several times a week.
Works for me.

 

Breathing based meditation for over thirty years.

As a couple of side notes: meditation can be done sitting in a chair, perfectly fine.

Meditation is Not about "stop thinking". Real teachers will tell you this is not possible.
When your mind wanders, just return to your breath focus.

I was taught not to have any preconceived plans for specific results as a result from this practice. Just do it.

Many good books to explain and get you started.

Meditation is kindness we extend to ourselves.
We are able then to extend that kindness to others.

 

I practice LOUD, RAUCOUS, HEAD BANGIN' rock n roll!
.

 

I’ve been practicing yoga for eight years and some change. For me it was the culmination and weaving together of several threads of self-work: body weight training and calisthenics, meditation, psychotherapy, etc. I can’t overstate the changes for the better it’s made in my life. Balance, strength, and flexibility, both mental and physical.

 

We do a daily mindfulness video with our five year old son. It has a cartoon attached to it so he’s able to focus pretty well with it.

My wife is really into yoga. I’m not, but I do love studying eastern religion and philosophy. Before the pandemic I would meditate at a Buddhist center once a month and did enjoy it.

I do have anger issues and some depression and mindfulness exercises do seem to help.

 

The way I’ve practiced meditation (Soto Zen tradition, mostly) involves giving the mind something to focus on so you don’t get all swept away by the endless traffic of your thoughts. You can try counting your breaths: 1 on the inhale, 2 on the exhale, up to ten, then start over. Anytime your thoughts start running away, gently pull your focus back to your breath. It seems simple, but it’s really not!

More recently I’ve ditched the counting and just think “now I’m inhaling, now I’m exhaling.” That’s a little more present-momentish.

 

I do Qigong and meditation.

So does Iggy Pop.

What’s qigong (chi kung) you ask?

Imagine tai chi and yoga had a baby.

It’s not martial like tai chi is (though tai chi is one way to do qigong) and it’s not static or a lot of stretching like yoga. And it’s not Indian, it’s 100% Chinese, though there are forms in Chinese Buddhist traditions.

The practice is hyper mindful and the meditation and the movement involve long, deep breaths.

I recovered from disabling depression with this and have done it daily ever since. The list of other ailments it has relieved is long - neck and shoulder pain, migraine, IBS, allergies, common cold (even before you-know-what kept me from being exposed to anyone else’s).

And my gradeschool-age son is expressing an interest in the meditation.

 

I don’t follow any formal procedures, but it has become a habit for me to close my eyes, turn off the mind noise, and sit quietly whenever I’m not engaged in something.

It takes a while to learn to still your mind, and then it takes a while to learn to not fall asleep when you do it.

But I don’t recite any mantras, don’t assume any special posture, or do anything else. I just turn off the mind chatter and internal noise. I find it helpful.

 

I used to do a lot of yoga. For the physical benefits more than the meditative aspects. About five years ago I started meditating. Been doing it ever since, usually only once a day, not twice. I find it helps reset my level of stress / anxiety to a reasonable baseline. It doesn’t build on itself and get worse and worse. It just sort of resets to a pretty low level once a day and doesn’t have time to get out of hand before I do it again. I can’t imagine I won’t keep doing it for the duration.

I still do a few stretchy yoga poses when my back is bothering me, but not regularly...

-Ray

 

A few years ago, I accepted the fact that I am an anxious person. Even that acknowledgement helped.

So for about two years I've been doing short daily meditations. Right now, I use the Calm app and find it very good. I'm not trying to reach enlightenment, I just want to live a little.

 

First got into yoga about 9 years ago as part of the P90x program. I’ve been doing it at least once a week ever since. I also make it a habit to do yoga in the mornings when traveling for work and I have an important meeting as it got me “in the zone”. It’s a crucial element of mental and physical health unfortunately often overlooked by men. I expect to get even more into it as I get older, especially the meditative/spiritual side.

 

Been practicing yoga for about twenty years now. First thing I do every morning for 5 days a week before I start my day. The physical benefits are pretty obvious: improved strength, flexibility and balance (All the things we loose as we age).

Mentally, I enjoy the calm focus that it brings, which is very useful for my guitar practice. Part of my yoga practice involves meditation, which, I think, puts you more in touch with your creative side and lets you hear that internal voice that we often fail to heed. I even use a Zen Buddhist breathing technique to help me sleep or put myself back to sleep if I wake in the night.

All in all, wonderful stuff that more people would benefit from.

 

I've done meditation off and on for about thirty years; currently I've been back "on" since December. I'm back up to 16 minutes a session, 5-6 nights a week. As my legs and back acclimate, I'm aiming for 20 minutes. I've heard that 20 in the morning and 20 in the evening will do wonders for ya, but that morning one is pretty tough to make room for.

I've also done yoga for extended periods of my life. For a lot of things, I'm fine going off on my own, but somehow with yoga, even though I've done more than enough to see the benefits, if I don't have a class to go to I haven't been able to sustain momentum--and boy do ya "lose it" fast...

 

yes a yogic form of meditation about 20-30 mins most days whenever possible. I use noise blocking earphones and nature recordings to help zone out and calm my mind.

 

My wife does all that and centerering prayers before prayer bowl thingy I think.

 

I first got into mindfulness with Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, then soon after study of Buddhist and Taoist philosophy. The idea of the awareness observing the mind really resonated with me.

I dabbled in yoga some years later, but never really made a serious practice out of it. I do still do a sun salutation or two nearly every day though. I’ve been really considering making yoga a bigger part of my routine. Since I turned 40 and added the quarantine 15 my body complains when I do anything vigorous!

Cool little book that seems appropriate for this group:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Zen_Guitar.html?id=81bmOOB7bXgC