# What's your opinion of meditation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 18, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907 "2012-08-18T21:51:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/21 "2012-08-19T15:42:33Z")
I meditate through physical movement. While walking, doing yoga, or when I’m working with my hands. They call this “flow” aka “being in the zone”. It is where you lose self-awareness and become the thing that you’re engaged in. It’s wonderful. Traditional meditation where you sit in silence? Very hard for me. But every week I give it a try in my restorative yoga class. ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/22 "2012-08-19T15:50:34Z")
I have no doubt it’s one of those things - like exercise - that everybody should be doing. there are many proven benefits and I keep meaning to start, that’s for sure. ---
**Author:** ![slm2955](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@slm2955](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slm2955)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/23 "2012-08-19T16:36:27Z")
works well ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/24 "2012-08-19T16:54:22Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I meditate through physical movement. While walking, doing yoga, or when I’m working with my hands. They call this “flow” aka “being in the zone”. It is where you lose self-awareness and become the thing that you’re engaged in. It’s wonderful. > > Traditional meditation where you sit in silence? Very hard for me. But every week I give it a try in my restorative yoga class. Interesting, I make primitive bows and arrows as a hobby. I start with a log and I use hand tools to reduce it down to a working bow. I am totally addicted to it and spend about 4 to 5 hours everdy day doing this. The physical aspect of reducing the log kind of gets me into a state of tired but very relaxed. As work progresses I find myself becomming more one with the wood as it comes to life and starts the bending process. I have to be able to monitor the cell structure of the wood to know how hard I am pushing it. I come away from each session very very relaxed and for some reason very happy. ---
**Author:** ![Dickie.and.his.cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f0a364/32.png) [@Dickie.and.his.cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dickie.and.his.cat)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/25 "2012-08-20T09:20:46Z")
I’ll definitely give it another go. Although pretty calm and laid back on the surface, I’m a bubbling cauldron of emotions under the surface, fear, anxiety, rage, etc. When meditating it does help me realise that they’re of no consequence and a waste of time and energy. PS Ignore most of what I say on this site because I’ve never been very good at explaining myself ☹ ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/26 "2012-08-22T06:13:12Z")
I used to meditate a couple times a day when I lived in a peaceful setting, but now that I live somewhere with a lot of noise, mainly generated by a housemate, I can’t concentrate meaningfully to meditate, so I just play video games to zone out. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/27 "2012-08-22T11:49:09Z")
Finding any way to relax is as good as any other. If you want to call it meditation, then whatever. I usually just snooze, or sit in the sun and watch the bees and butterflies, or just gaze out the train window. As far as I know it achieves the exact same thing as any kind of formal meditation. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/28 "2012-08-22T17:37:52Z")
As others have said, there are many forms of meditation, and as many purposes. I use several, most developed on my own to suit my mental quirks. I use different techniques to compartmentalize pain, build and retrieve complex memory associations, brainstorm, and even (with intermittent success) to induce a controlled hyperfocused state. > [@badger5149](#): > > I find if I imagine something like a tunnel, or a tube int space for instance that it is easier for me to simply erase outside thoughts than trying not to have any. Tunnels my have streaks of color or have a background color but otherwide are devoid of anything else. Try finding the entrance to the tunnel, then entering and then traveling through not knowing where it is taking you. I’m fairly sound-oriented, and I use a chime in a similar fashion. There’s a particular metal chime that I’ve had for years, and I can easily recreate its sound in my mind without actually striking it. To clear my mind in the initial stages of meditation, I focus on that sound, following it down to the instant the sound gives way to silence, and stay there for a moment. It’s a very quick, effective exercise, I find. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/29 "2012-08-23T01:47:05Z")
I go for long walks. After a while, all the blood goes to the legs, and stops going to the brain. It leads to a nice, comfortable, “empty” sense, given order by the rhythm of walking. The first mile takes fifteen minutes. The next three miles (seem to) take no time at all. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907/30 "2012-08-23T01:51:16Z")
On my walk home today, I was totally lost in my thoughts. I have almost no memory of the three mile journey. I know this is not the same thing as meditation, but it did make me feel like I’d stepped into another psychic dimension. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-meditation/631907.md?page=1)