Quote from: Jester on February 24, 2010, 05:26:50 AM
Yeah, that's definitely happening. I mostly just want my brain to shut up for five minutes. What I usually end up doing is staying up and active until I reach the point of exhaustion. During which time I could be doing something productive, but I never do.
Okay, here's the thing.
Basic meditation teaches you to focus your thoughts. To discard all the "mind racing" things and put all your thoughts on one thing.
The thing I pull my mind back towards is my breath. That's my key.
Whenever my mind starts to wander, I pull all of my focus towards feeling the rush of air through my nose, the temperature shift as I inhale and exhale, the rhythm of my chest as I breathe, the feeling of the muscles of my chest and back relaxing and stretching out in reaction to the expansion of my chest, the sound of the air passing through my nose and throat area, the change in rhythm of my heartbeat between inhale and exhale, etc.
It's a lot of little things that are "my breath" and these things are what I keep pulling my mind towards... and they keep all the "did I forget to?" and the "what if?" and the "I really hate" and all that.. out of my head.
Now, I do this until I reach a meditative state, during the day, and then use that meditative state to do more "stuff".. but if I have a hard time falling asleep, I just use that to keep my head quiet.
Doesn't always work for me, but when it helps, it helps a lot.