Things to try episode 1: Meditation.

Hi.

Well, once again, it's been a few weeks.  Hope you are well.  Decided to now take a different angle with how I approach this blog.  I still hope to use it as a tool to increase awareness of mental health issues and also a way of putting my own experiences with it into perspective.  But I know feel at the stage where I can try to push boundaries a little bit more and try new methods of thinking and working towards putting this monster in a big box and sending it to a dark cave just on the outskirts of Uruguay.

So, this is episode one of 'things to try'.  Woo.

The first thing I have been trying for around two weeks is meditation.  I have always thought of meditation as something posh people do during a mid life crisis.  A sort of inner self discovery now that Tarquin and Ruby have both gone to Cambridge.  But when you read into the basics (and that at the moment is all I have done)  it isn't that way. 

Admittedly the first time I tried meditation using information from a phone app, I was maybe a little bit over tired, and the only thing the process did was make me fall asleep in a strange position, and wake up with a dead leg.  For the following attempts, i didn't sit in a funny position, mainly due to the fact that the dead leg had left a nagging fear of ever sitting cross legged again, but sat up on the edge of the bed.

And when you focus, on the breathing first, gently calming and slowing it down, then focus on relaxing your body from your toes upwards it does work.  My problem though, is concentration.  Normally by the knees, I tend to be thinking, relax, relax, relax, bugger did i put the washer on?, relax, relax, have to go and fuel the car later, you get the picture.

But so far it has been more hit than miss, and if only for the relaxation gained from the breathing exercises, then this can only be a positive.

Next time I will update you with things to try episode 2: Exercise.

I know, a fat lad doing exercise, that's got to be worth a read.