Comment by bitwize
11 hours ago
Beginner level: sit in a chair and breathe slowly. Focus on the sensation of your breathing, feeling the air go in and out. If any intrusive thoughts creep in, try to revert back to focusing on your breathing. Meditation looks passive from the outside, but it is a cognitively active process that takes practice to achieve, just like drawing or programming or anything else you want to do. It's the art of placing your attention somewhere and keeping it there, not letting your thoughts carry you away.
I do that for 5-10 minutes, it helps lowering the amount of thoughts at first, then I can reach a slightly calmer state. New thoughts can come and I manage to not drift too long but the calm state suddenly gets boring. I was expecting a feeling of lighter brain state, something that feels reviving but so far i'm stuck at empty but slightly boring.
Tangentially related: recently I've taken to doing a kind of "meditation-like" thing while trying to sleep where I imagine the number 300 visually, and attempt to count down towards zero, decrementing this counter visualization in my mind's eye. For an extra challenge, I try to do this while mentally saying the word "tock", but NOT mentally saying the current number. I find it extremely difficult, which is stimulating enough to keep my mind from wandering to places that tend to keep me awake, but not so stimulating that it prevents me from sleeping.