Friday, September 21, 2007

8 Minute Meditation

I've been wanting to learn meditation for a few years now. I'd heard it was really good for you and a few speakers and authors that I read suggested it. The problem was that I didn't "get" it. I bought a few self guided tapes that really turned me off. They all had zen music in the background and two of them even had the "Ommmm" taped into them. Ick. Then somehow I saw this book "8 Minute Meditation" by Victor Davich. Eight minutes sounded good to me, something I could do. I looked it up on Amazon and all the real people reviews raved about it, so I ordered it.

I love it.

Not only do I love it, but I've finally found the answer to my swimming dilemma.

The swimming practive for my relay in Elba has been going well, but I still had to solve my boredom/wandering mind problem. I get bored swimming. Whatever workout I have I can talk myself into doing less or if I'm swimming with someone, I can become one of those people that talk for half an hour while waiting to push off again. This summer I thought I'd be able to find a solution while I was at the beach but it was actually worse . There were more distractions in the sea, and not having the certainty of the black line and the 50mt push off, I'd still stop every few minutes to look up.

8 minute meditation is an 8 week program and has you sample eight different meditation techniques. The first week was centered around breathing. You set a timer for eight minutes and the book gives you detailed instructions on how to go about the meditation, how to deal with the wandering mind, etc.

The wandering mind...my biggest problem. I sometimes have a really difficult time in concentrating on one thing at a time. I multi task like there's no tomorrow and will often get up in the middle of a project that I'm working on to go "fix" something else that's flashed before my brain agenda.

That's when I hit upon that my problem with swimming was my wandering mind and that I could maybe try the meditation while I was swimming.

Bingo!

It worked like a charm. Not that I get all zen while I swim, but I put my concentration on my stroke and where my body is. More importantly when all those thoughts about where I should be and what else I could be doing come up, I just take them and let them go. Then I latch back onto the stroke that I'm performing and the breathing. Yesterday I took ten minutes off my 3000mt workout so I know it's working.

6 comments:

anji said...

Hey, that's a great difference in timing :D

It's easy to get distracted while swimming, though I used to use that time to get away from my problems or at least, use it to figure out solutions to my problems without distractions :)

Tea said...

I'm so glad you found a meditation practice that works for you. I do it regularly and found that it is especially helpful right before races.

I'm glad you are "enjoying the moment." You'll continue to see excellent results. :)

Nancy Toby said...

Interesting thought!! I might try that.... when I forget my SwimP3 player, that is. :-) I'm addicted to music now for swim workouts, even though I never use music while running or cycling.

Nancy Toby said...

YOU ROCKED THAT SWIM!!!! Well done!!

Fe-lady said...

TEN min??? Wow...I tend to use my swims as "let go of the day" time and usually end up thinking about other things too (other than what I am doing at the time...) Will have to try paying attention! (I tend to be a little ADD- or to put it more positively- a great multi-tasker!)

Anonymous said...

I'm glad my meditation book helped you. My Dad was a swimming teacher and instructor--so maybe there's some serendipity.
best regards
Victor Davich