So, today has been fun, if unproductive. Went flat-hunting in the morning, and had an interesting choice between a pokey little place in a good location, a single room and a cupboard kitchen and and spacious dark house miles from uni. So, none of thoooose places then...
Also, found an article toting the (rapid) benefits of meditation - a practise I've been interested in - though ironically never found the time for. Saying that I may have been doing it subconsciously it at work for months... not sure how much I believe change could happen in 4 days, in a culture where we want everything NOW that seems alittle idealistic. I'd be willing to put it to the test though, not much to lose there I don't think.
So, mediation is apparently "the art of silencing the mind ... [to achieve] ... inner peace in the midst of worldly turmoil" (ala here - it also says meditation teachers have described the mind as a "mad-monkey" which is a pretty awesome description for anything). It (hopefully) results in better concentration and health, and makes you more laid back and able to deal with lifes little irritations What's not to like? So, if anybody else feels similarly inspired to try something new, the steps to mediation (peeled out of various places from the above site) are:
- sit with a straight back. Don’t try to meditate lying down because you are likely to fall asleep. [I have done that soooo many times]
- you must learn to concentrate on one thing at a time
- after you’ve practiced concentration and learned to focus on one thing at a time, you can proceed to the next stage: no thought at all.
- sit with a straight back. Don’t try to meditate lying down because you are likely to fall asleep. [I have done that soooo many times]
- you must learn to concentrate on one thing at a time
- after you’ve practiced concentration and learned to focus on one thing at a time, you can proceed to the next stage: no thought at all.
So, it's that easy... Well, that's going to take muchos time I imagine. I'd still be interested to know if a weeks worth of trying really makes a difference though. According to the original article the participants of the study were put through a "broad battery of behavioral tests assessing mood, memory, visual attention, attention processing, and vigilance". Now, not knowing what tests they took, or being a phycologist, I have decided to turn to the wonderful world of the internets (what's the worst thing that could happen... >_>). If I just want to see if there's a change I just need to measure it against the same point of reference and compare my result. So, I'll come back in a week and do these again and see if anything's changed... (now I have the dubiousness of having mentalhealth.com on my history... however:)
mood
used the awesomely named Goldberg Mania Questionnaire which gave me a score of 31 - or 'moderate mania'. Hmm, that doesn't sound very good lol... but it is mildly entertaining.
memory
I completed both a verbal and visual memory test from here ... I have a visual memory score of 50, which is pretty below the average score of 20-25 (apparently if I get a score of 60+ I'm worse than 75% of participants >_> However, 120 is the worst possible score I could get, so, not so bad then...
The verbal memory was tested in two parts - verbal recall and verbal recognition. My recall score was 14 out of 40 words, which I thought was pretty bad until it was revealed 6-10 was the norm, and doing better that that put me above 75% or people ^_^ cool. My recognition score was 38 out of 40 which I think's pretty good ^_^ - which is exactly the average for that part of the test, and it's apparently normal that your recognition score be that much higher than your recall. So, anyway, jobdone...
visual attention
considering this is a massive exercise in procrastination, it's probably gonna be small ;p Found a test for 'facial recognition' here which I think is about the right thing... of which I got 81% which is about average :)
processing
only thing I could find was this link which analysed my brain and determined I was auditory 41%, visual 58%, left 41% and right 58%. Not sure what that means, or if it will change particularly, but it's the best I could find.
vigilence
... what? ok no idea what that is :)
mood
used the awesomely named Goldberg Mania Questionnaire which gave me a score of 31 - or 'moderate mania'. Hmm, that doesn't sound very good lol... but it is mildly entertaining.
memory
I completed both a verbal and visual memory test from here ... I have a visual memory score of 50, which is pretty below the average score of 20-25 (apparently if I get a score of 60+ I'm worse than 75% of participants >_> However, 120 is the worst possible score I could get, so, not so bad then...
The verbal memory was tested in two parts - verbal recall and verbal recognition. My recall score was 14 out of 40 words, which I thought was pretty bad until it was revealed 6-10 was the norm, and doing better that that put me above 75% or people ^_^ cool. My recognition score was 38 out of 40 which I think's pretty good ^_^ - which is exactly the average for that part of the test, and it's apparently normal that your recognition score be that much higher than your recall. So, anyway, jobdone...
visual attention
considering this is a massive exercise in procrastination, it's probably gonna be small ;p Found a test for 'facial recognition' here which I think is about the right thing... of which I got 81% which is about average :)
processing
only thing I could find was this link which analysed my brain and determined I was auditory 41%, visual 58%, left 41% and right 58%. Not sure what that means, or if it will change particularly, but it's the best I could find.
vigilence
... what? ok no idea what that is :)
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