Headspace

 

As I came back to focusing on the room around me, my messy desk and computer to the right, the traffic crawling along outside and the sound of the whippet's feet and claws tip, tip, tapping along on the laminate floor I felt focussed, calm and peaceful.

Headspace website

Ten minutes earlier I'd sat down, started running an app on my iPhone and been guided through my first 10 minute meditation.

The app in question is from Headspace. I downloaded it after seeing a tweet from Kevin Rose raving about it. It's a guided meditation tool for beginners and I'm impressed.

kevinrose-headspace

I've never been a fan of meditation and do naturally shy away from new age, chanting, hippy, culture. It's not my thing, but I am willing to give new tools a go.

My mind races, I turn over a million thoughts a day and I sometimes find concentration difficult. I worry about many things, I don't switch off. I know that I need to focus more in order to achieve my goals, but at the same time every new shiny shiny thing takes me away from what I'm doing. This pisses me off and makes me feel more stressed out and the more stressed out I feel, the less able I am to concentrate.

To me, meditation feels like pushing the reset button on life.

STOP.

RESTART.

BOOT UP.

START FROM SCRATCH.

BLANK SLATE.

The headspace app guides you through a set of 10 minute meditation exercises for absolute beginners.  One episode per day. It talks you through exactly what to do without being patronising.

I found it easy to follow and good at helping me bring my focus back to what I was trying to do, when my mind instinctively tried to wander off.  I did have moments when I became distracted, but also managed periods of time where I was mindful of my body, my breathing or just my surroundings, as well as moments of just "being".  It's these small successes that did make me feel something new.  Calm and peace with the world and myself.

I was surprised at this.  I expected a lot less of lesson one.

And at the risk of sounding like an overexcited teenager, after my first go, it seems to have a lot of potential to work. So I'm going to run with the first 10 days of the course and report back my findings.

I'm also going to recommend it to you, dear reader!

If you are feeling restless, unfocussed or just in need of a quiet pause from all of the overstimulation of modern everyday life, I think this is one tool you should check out.

If you do, or already have done, I'd love to hear your thoughts good or bad, as well as any tips in the comments.

For me, I'm going to go back to work, a tiny bit more refreshed and definitely more at peace with myself and what today will bring.

Can't wait till tomorrow...