I’ve been struggling with my concentration lately. Life has thrown a few boulders right at me and I have had to write everything down to make sure it gets done. I always have made to do lists, but this writing things down has gone far beyond that. It’s become rather debilitating and it’s really impacting on my daily life. Being unable to remember anything for very long is more problematic that you might think. It’s not that I entirely forget about things – they are still there when something reminds me of them. I just seem to lose them from the forefront of my mind. So I’ve been having a go at meditating as a way of trying to help my mind find a way through and I think it’s done the trick.
A psychotherapist friend first suggest meditating as a way of dealing with this problem and I’m so glad she did. It was great to have something suggested as a quick and easy fix by someone with the right expertise. She recommended I try the free version of the Headspace app on my phone as a starting point. You can access a few meditations on there for free without paying for the full version. As money is tight, trying before I bought or even not having to pay at all was one less stressful factor to deal with.
I’ve been using the Headspace app on my mobile phone which is free for the first 10 days (in fact it seems to be free beyond that although you only have access to a limited range of meditations both before and after your free trial). I’ve been trying to meditate. Sometimes I’ve done it during the day, but it’s often the evening before I remember and have the time to devote to it. That said I’m not doing long meditations and most are only 3 minutes long. It would be easy to meditate yourself after this by just setting a timer.
The amazing thing is how effective it has been and how quickly it worked. To be honest I didn’t have great hopes and mostly tried it because it was recommended by a friend who is a professional in the therapy field and I trust her judgement. It has been really good for me. I don’t think I’ve fully regained my focus and my concentration, but I am in a considerably better place with it, maybe a 50% or even 75% improvement, as it’s made a big difference to my life.
Only downside is that J walked in on me when I was doing it the other night and put me off my focus. He was also puzzled about what I was doing, so I had to explain. I’d chosen a time when he was in bed, but he couldn’t sleep so he came in to tell me that. If there is a next time I think it will be easier because he knows what I’m doing. I might even try to get him to join me.
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