How to use a simple meditation to calm your restless mind
By: Bibhudatta Dash
Tags: Emotional Intelligence, Meditation, Self Improvement, Wellness, Mindfulness

That was a quick overview. Now let’s dig deeper. In my experience, there are three scenarios where we fall helplessly into system 1 thinking: spontaneous, irrational and uncontrollable. Let us examine these scenarios one by one.

1. Meandering Mind

This scenario occurs when my mind goes off on a roll of loosely connected thoughts. There is no rhyme and reason for these thoughts. Like the YouTube or Spotify playlist, one after the other these thoughts pop-up. Here is an example:

I love noodles. Noodles are so easy to make. I really like the flavor of the noodles I am cooking. It is much better than what Mom makes. Mom has been behaving strange of late. Old age does weird things to people. That’s why I want to create an old age home with friends. Everyone in that old age home should be taught meditation. But it is so hard to move my friends. Everyone has their own thoughts on how to do this work. Especially Sushant. My goodness! He is such a disrupter….. and on and on.

If I were to utter all these thoughts out aloud, anyone standing next to me would think I am a madman. The difference between a madman who walks around speaking crazily to himself and my meandering mind is that I am sane enough to hide them from the outside world. Despite our sophisticated outer appearances, the truth is that we are all a little crazy inside.

I have realized that my meandering mind kicks in when I am doing something that does not require a lot of mental concentration e.g. take a walk, cook, bike, etc. As I engage in these activities, my attention gets split between the task at hand and the meandering mind. While I may occasionally forget to add salt to curry due to the meandering mind, I don’t think it affects my ability or joy from any of these activities. However, it does leave you drained. Going through a series of biased and unexamined system 1 thoughts in a continuous playlist leaves me exhausted.

How to apply the technique: When you catch yourself in a meandering mind, it is best to step back from the activity you are doing. Take a deep breath in. Close your eyes. Once you have reached the top of your in-breath, hold the breath! You will find that the playlist of thoughts ceases. Release the breath as soon as you feel the urge to do it. Resume normal breathing.

If you like the respite from the playlist of thoughts, you can repeat this technique an additional 3–4 times. This technique gives you an immediate respite. However, it does not fully get rid of the meandering mind. You will keep falling into its trap. However, repeated use of this technique will make the meandering state of mind less frequent.

2. Anchored mind

This scenario occurs when my mind latches on to a triggering incident. Someone says or does something that upsets me and I spend the next few hours or days ruminating on the incident. Here is an example:

Triggering incident: A friend sends me an email subtly blaming me for the trouble she is currently going through.

My mental chatter: How could she write such nonsense to me? Am I really to blame? How is it my fault? Maybe, to be honest, I could have done better. So what? How could she forget everything else I have done for her? I am going to give her a piece of my mind too…Never mind. I will ignore it. It is not worth getting worked up. Let me not respond to this email.

What happened next: Having convinced myself not to respond, I shift my focus to other work. But no matter what I do, I could not shake away the incident. The more I try to avoid thinking about it, the more I end up thinking about it. In my mind, I keep talking with her… as if I am rehearsing for a confrontation with her. Finally, I could not take it anymore. I wrote off an angry email. Before hitting send, I stopped and reminded myself — I am a peaceful soul. Then…after a moment or two…I hit send. Needless to say, the email made a bad situation precarious!

Why do we get anchored to a triggering incident? No has trained us in managing our emotions, especially the unpleasant ones like anger, hurt, jealousy, etc. We have been told how to behave: be polite, respectful and understand where the other is coming from. However, these behaviors can only be displayed if we can do system 2 thinking. Before we can reach the castle of system 2, you have to cross the moat of system 1 thinking.

As soon as we encounter the triggering incident, we feel the anger, the hurt and pangs of jealousy at a visceral level. Our minds get flooded with a torrent of thoughts. Not knowing what to do we tend to repress it i.e. distract ourselves so that we don’t have to feel them. The irony is that the more we repress these emotions, the more we get stuck in them. We need to learn a safe way of letting out these emotions. I am going to cover how to deal with the repressed emotions systematically in a later article. Here is the first-aid approach to regaining our balance.

How to apply the technique: As you catch yourself in the midst of a triggering event, stop doing whatever you are doing. Meditation teachers believe that emotion-laden thoughts rely on two fuels: movement and breath. So you have to cut both the supplies.

Hold a steady posture and freeze any bodily movement. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in. As you reach the top of your in-breath, hold the breath! Holding the breath will give you a breather from the emotional roller coaster of thoughts. Release the breath as soon as you feel the urge to do it. Resume normal breathing and movement. If you like the respite, you can repeat this technique an additional 3–4 times.

For highly emotional scenarios, I would recommend one additional step. Find a private place for yourself. Become aware of your hands, legs and feet. Express the pent-up emotion in a physical way. You can do air kicks or air punches. You can punch a pillow. You can kick a ball. Do this activity with the intent to release the pent-up emotions. You can also use a sound to help in the process of expressing yourself. Avoid curse words because that will get you into your head. Use any organic sound that helps you express the emotion you are feeling. You should keep at this exercise until you feel that the emotions have subsided.

3. Compulsive mind

In this scenario, there is a compulsive need to do something different from what you are focused on e.g. check WhatsApp / eat snack / check news while focused on completing a task at work. This need to distract oneself from the task-at-hand is amplified when I do task that I don’t enjoy. Here is an example:

I blocked three hours on my calendar to complete my taxes. Within 5 minutes of starting the work, I start feeling restless. I so hate having to do it! What’s going on with my friends on WhatsApp? There were no new messages. Unwilling to resume tax work, I start going through the king of all distractions — forwarded videos. By the time I get done, 15 minutes have gone by. I start feeling guilty. I work for a bit and then I feel sleepy. So it is coffee-break now. After the break, I realize that there is another task that is more urgent than doing taxes. I give up on taxes. A big wave of guilt sweeps through me. I schedule 3 hours on the calendar for another day.

Even if I don’t like a task, if I can persist with it concentration inevitably sets in. Concentration is a joyous experience no matter what the object of focus is. However, to reach the castle of concentration you have to avoid the alligators of distractions that lie waiting for you in the moat. The key here is to resist the urge to give in to the distractions and try the meditation.

How to apply the technique: When you catch yourself in the midst of a compulsive urge, the first step is to not give in to the urge. For example, if the urge is to grab a snack or check WhatsApp, resist your instincts and start the meditation exercise.

Take a deep breath in. Close your eyes. Once you have reached the top of your in breath, hold the breath. You will find that the urge to distract yourself has lost its grip. Release the breath as soon as you feel the urge to do it. Resume normal breathing after the meditation. If you like the respite, you can repeat this technique an additional 3–4 times.