Mental Muscle

Categorising thoughts will make it simple to get into meditation.

The best way to start meditating is to categorise whatever thoughts go through my brain. After that, my mind is at ease and ready to listen to my body.

To improve my mental health I do a few things. Exercise, go to bed on time, spend time in nature.

Meditation is also part of it. It proves to be the most difficult. I started using an app, which was useful to get started. Guided the mediations kept me going. Trying a few different programs (depression, anxiety, etc.) was helpful.

But I never felt like I was getting ‘into the zone’. A gazillion thoughts kept rushing through my head. It felt so so hard to get to a ‘relaxed’ state. Never mind getting there again. I can count the number of times that happened on one hand.

It wasn’t until much later, that I finally figured out what helped me the most to begin to feel at ease. After focusing on, inhaling and exhaling, trying to feel what is going on with my body and ‘breathing into it’, it was the categorisation of thoughts that let my brain simmer down.

All I do is label a thought ‘family’, ‘health’, ‘work’, and ‘hobby’. Then I let it go. After a few times it feels like clockwork and my thoughts get slower and less frequent. Each time that happens the meditation gets easier.

Not sure if it will work the same for you but I wish someone had given me that tip earlier to make meditation easier. It proved to be so effective that it is the most reliable rule I can always go back to if I need to remember anything at all about how to stop my brain from racing.

The night after I meditate I sleep more soundly and tend to remember that I dreamt. That’s the most immediately measurable effect. I like to think it makes me calmer as well. It is just hard to gauge with my lack of patience. But I started adding a breath before impulsive outbursts.