Meditate
Are there moments in life where time seems to move at a different speed than others? Summers as a child always went by faster than the months of the school year. The weekends as an adult always go by faster than weekdays. The age old, time flies when your having fun… Today I felt as though time stopped for me, if only for a moment.
Reading a recent study on pain management last week prompted me to try something new this morning. The study contrasted people dealing with pain on traditional pain medication (hydrocodon, oxycodon) and dealing with it after long periods of meditation. What they found was that the patients who meditated had not only equal, but better responses in dealing with pain after meditating for twenty minutes four days in a row.
I have meditated before. I try and do some form of it daily whenever I feel stress, but I have never gone for a full twenty minutes of nothingness before. Until today. I sat down, set my timer, closed my eyes, relaxed my tongue (that one is key for me) and consciously noticed every thought that made its way into my brain before swiping it out of my minds pure circle of white light. I spent the full twenty minutes guarding that peaceful void like a hockey net, blocking any thoughts whatsoever from sticking around too long. It was unreal to say the least.
I plan on doing this everyday if I have the time for it. It was something that was a massive learning experience for me and it has definitely helped me in dealing with pain throughout the day.