Mental noise growing exponentially
yagr
Veteran
Hello all, I am back from the internet-less land and glad to return. In one of my last posts before my hiatus, someone joked(?) that with no internet, I'd have more time to meditate. They were right. Of course, I returned with a question...because that's what I do. 
Every couple of months or so, I pick a day and decide that I'm going to meditate for a specified amount of time each hour. Usually I choose twenty, thirty or forty-five minutes. A few days ago I chose twenty minutes for the day and began. What I noticed, not for the first time, is that the first session approaches with a general feeling of contentedness and joy followed by what I would describe as a distraction-free session. A few minutes before my second session, there is a bit of anxiousness to begin which is followed by minor distractions after I begin.
By the end of the day, the anxiousness to sit begins moments after I stop and once I begin, the mental noise is the worst it's been all day. I begin wrestling with a six-year old girl and end the day wrestling with a professional Sumo wrestler. Honestly, I haven't given this phenomena too much thought over the years because frankly, I don't know and haven't had anyone to ask. If I had to guess, I would say that the anxiousness to begin gets my mind working and it simply takes time to settle it each session. The more anxiousness to begin I have, the more difficult time I have. But I could be missing something...
Has anyone experienced something like this? What did you make of it?
Comments
I'm not sure I understood the timetable you choose for your meditation. You said "each hour"? If that is the case, my sincerest congratulations on your commitment to the task.
But then, what if your overzeal were precisely the cause for your anxiety? Perhaps the first meditation block goes well because it agrees with your natural rhythm and you should stop at that.
Then the other sessions spin downward because you are forcing it.
It's not natural anymore and craving and attachment begin to stick to your practice.
My personal idea is you're striving too hard to the point where it's not useful anymore. Too much of a good thing is still too much.
I'd cut back if I were you, and if you really feel like meditating so much, stop in the point where it begins to feel forced and negative feelings arise.
When the anxiety begins, shift your attention to those feelings, explore them and see where they take you.
That you can recognize the anxiety is already a good step. Lots of people will have all sorts of things happen mentally or physically during meditation that they don't notice because their awareness isn't very developed.
Can you determine what the anxiety was related to? Is it because you're expected the successive sits to be "just as good" as the earliest one, or is it something else?
Also, what kind of meditation practice are you doing? That would help with the direction of advice... Zennies would give a totally different perspective than Mahasi-based practitioners, for example.
I have, over time, found that setting a prescribed time to be stress-inducing for me. Sometimes the concept of time passes fast, and sometimes not, even within my meditation, and so when I have a timer counting down I find that I am peeking at it thinking "surely it's almost done" and I get discouraged when I have 13 minutes left yet. I started (when I am able due to schedule timing) doing open-ended meditation instead, and it goes much, much better. Before, I would set my timer for about a half hour. Now, sometimes my meditation is only 20 minutes, but other times it's closer to an hour. Some of that anxiety disappeared. I try to schedule my morning so that I can meditate without worrying about running into time constraints so I can keep it open ended.
It's normal, biologically, as the day goes on for our brain to go into overdrive. That's why it's so often said that people have the easiest time meditating either in the morning, before the brain is really stimulated, or in the evening, after the day has quieted. Even if you are at home not doing much, daytime is a time of stimulation for the brain, and that makes it much harder. Other things that contribute to stimulation: eating, exercise, what you eat, vitamins, caffeine, online activity, tv, etc. So you might want to look at what you are doing through the day that you can limit.
I suspected that anxiousness would throw some people off inadvertently, which was not my intention. In the event that I was misunderstood, I meant it in the sense of a child who knows that they'll be leaving for Disneyland in a few minutes. I'm simply anxious to begin. There are no conscious expectations of future sessions.
Simple mindfulness meditation - the sometimes elusive breath.
@dharmamom and @karasti
My goal is to have a day not unlike I might find on a retreat. Certainly I can get behind the idea that perhaps I am 'forcing it' but then, my first attempts at meditation (you know, like the first 500 times) were rather forced. It was an attempt to begin a practice and it felt uncomfortable, strange, etc. As time went on, it felt less forced and even welcome. Thinking back though, with imperfect memory and all, this does seem different than what I experienced back then.
I do agree that morning and evening are best for me - as well as my intake of all sorts of things... and so on such days I am especially watchful of what goes in.
Then you should probably do a formal meditation session at a moment of the day when your head feels clearer (morning seems to work best for most people) and what I call "breathing breaks" throughout the day to release tension.
I like to close my eyes and do several rounds of breathing, for instance, while I wait for the computer to start, or when I sit down to drink my teas ( I drink four mugs every day). Also, in bed before getting up in the morning or begore falling asleep in the evening.
It's very personal, but whatever you do, don't overdo it.
Don't forget that back home you can' t always recreate the ambiance of the retreat. It's easier to unwind in a retreat.
It takes time for those who go to retreat to settle in as well. It is a very difficult adjustment for them, especially the first time. And that is in an immersion setting with other people and teachers who are there to help direct you. So it makes sense that in trying to duplicate that setting, you are experiencing discomfort. Most people do
But within a retreat setting, after several days, most people find that their minds get used to the changes, and they adjust. But, it takes days.
I have to agree with @karasti about setting a time, I've stopped setting a time and now just follow the breath I seem to be able to meditate for much longer without the tyranny of the countdown timer on my phone, when I used to use I was constantly wondering how long I had left. I've stopped using it and sat for 25, 30 and 40 minutes today respectively.
Welcome back. It's wonderful that you have been meditating.
I just recently got back into it myself because my 'worldly' life got in the way. However, I managed to find the time to incorporate the two worlds. I do my meditations at night, towards the end of the day, because I have to get up really early. It's one of things that I look forward to come home to though.
Perhaps just finding the right time alone will help reduce that anxiousness. Maybe you have too much available time as of now? Maybe that is why you have been doing them around your day. I guess it's not the same for everyone.
If you are patient and have conviction in the practice, you don't have much to worry about. Everything will be fine as long as we can make changes and adjust when necessary.
Best wishes
My initial thought was that perhaps rather than your mind becoming busier you were simply becoming increasingly aware of the chatter that occurs in your mind. Or perhaps something like the dirt being washed out of a dirty cloth, the more you meditate in your retreat the deeper dirt you are getting out.
I think ask yourself how you felt the next day, was your mind still busy and anxious or did you feel better as a result of your intense practice?
@yagr I don't know much about how other people choose to meditate, but I just meditate for a minute or two here and there, throughout the day. Some days more than others. No set time, no set length. Haven't had any problems with it and it's certainly been beneficial.
For what it's worth, I've not seen any discussion along these lines here but I don't use a timer. This will probably sound strange, but I ask internally to know when the time is up and it works well. I'm not certain if that changes your response...an internal timer versus an external one but I would suppose that I would have some feelings (i.e. annoyance at the tyrannical clock etc.) that I haven't recognized with an internal alarm. Perhaps the difference is that I am asking a part of the self to alert me, so there is a sense of gratitude that it has.
I have nothing to add to the thread - its just that in my first post I forgot to add welcome back @yagr.
Certainly. Just recently. My trousers were too restrictive.
In other words containment.
Make sure your posture is right. Open, relaxed, stretched, attentive. No internal organ compression.
There is often a conflict between voluntary and forced confinement. It sounds as if you are fighting your mind, instead of 'fighting' with it. Personally I would alternate sitting with walking (maybe walking meditation) or another physical solution. Perhaps yoga if you want a formal calming.
If you push, you are pushed back. If pushing back is part of the meditation, in other words anxiety is the meditation experience, what would you do? If agitated I go for a walk.
Another useful technique is finding the part of the body the anxiety is experiencing in, then letting go there . . .
Hope that is useful.
Sounds like attachment to peace and aversion to noise. The more you want peace, the harder it is to achieve. Don't "retreat" too much from living.
@yagr
I can't speak for the medical possibilities, just some meditative ones.
Increasing anxiety in meditation is not uncommon when approaching something in your practice that you are not yet prepared to accept.. It is often a warning sign for teachers that a student has an imbalance within their meditation practice.
In some Buddhist monasteries it's referred to as keener's disease where an enthusiastic practitioner meditatively pushes for specific results as opposed to simply accepting what is.
I think every practitioner has to work with this at some time or another as they find
the middle path to their meditation practice.
Traditionally anxiety is one of the 5 hindrances, so it might be worth exploring this hindrance and it's antidote.
Many of us carry what is known as Free Floating Anxiety @yagr.
Which means habitual anxiety which is not connected to particular events in our lives..its just there in the background, bubbling away..
Now its on the surface a bit of a paradox that if we have free floating anxiety meditation makes us more aware of habitual tendency in this area...
So what is supposed to make us easier in our minds can feel like it is making us worse.
Meditation under those circumstances can be compared to cleaning out a well with lots of leaves and branches blocking it.
At first and for a while after it looks like the water is MORE murky.
But with patience and persistence it starts to flow clear again.
Support for our practice is very important.
What if you told yourself 'the evening meditations are the Joy of Mental Noise meditations'. Expect and 'celebrate' mental noise. Ask mental noise to show you all of itself, like it was Show and Tell time in grade school
.
See if you can examine the Mental Noise to the point it is, say, 60% pure thought/emotion versus 40% body/feeling noise (for example lol). See if it has a pattern, like a galaxy pattern (a center of gravity with stuff swirling around a center) or is it Big Bang patterned, or lists, or fractals, or flow charts
Working hard myself on whatEVER it takes to snatch myself back from the mouth of sinking into the thought or feeling and taking a ride on it. Not to mention, BELIEVING it as if it were a truth or taking a stance in judgement whether it is welcome or not, helpful or not.
Just make sure your not confusing acceptance and refining your desires with simply ignoring them. I inadvertently trained my mind to ignore them and the result was a the feeling of axiety without knowing consciously the reason. By training my concious mind to ignore them my subconscious was left to deal with them producing a feeling others describe as floating anxiety.