Day 3 - Meditation

Yesterday was another seated meditation in my yoga space. I meditated later in the day than the prior two days. I had already had dinner and had even finished my 10k steps for the day (the Global Corporate Challenge is forcing me to keep my steps up and I had to make up for the prior day).

Again, my iPhone and I headed back into the yoga space. I grabbed my yoga blanket and sat down and began to meditate. I made all 10 minutes of my goal!

My experience today: I was able to be present the majority of the time, perhaps it was the time of day. I focused on my breathing, very simply counting the top of my inhalation and the bottom of my inhalation as one breath. The next time it was two breaths, and so on. I heard the rain outside and felt the temperature and humidity, and was able to simply count. I knew that if I lost count I would restart at 1, though I pretty determined not to lose count, and I didn't. I had promised myself I wouldn't look at the timer until I had 100 breaths (I know me, I'm likely to cheat without a goal). On my 68th inhalation/exhalation, the timer went off. I was actually a little surprised by it.

I most definitely noticed a decrease in my breathing and heart rates. I had the best sense of calming that I've felt yet, in fact, it carried over throughout the evening and I slept great. Let's see if this trend continues.

Lessons learned: I used my yoga blanket to be a bit more comfortable sitting still for 10 minutes. The bolster was too high, the blanket too low. Today, I will fold the blanket a bit more for comfort. I will also choose a different alarm notification or turn my volume down, it was a bit jarring yesterday. I also think I prefer evening meditation to morning or afternoon meditation, but more experimentation is needed.

-Desk Dwelling Yogi