82.Meditation

Mark: Hey, Haruka. I have a question for you. Do you ever meditate?

Haruka: Only occasionally. I know it's very good for your mental health, but I forget all the time. Do you?

Mark: I do, but not in the most traditional or usual way. I don't sit in silence very often. I do that too sometimes, but I'll meditate either by going through a guided meditation, like a voice, someone telling me to relax your shoulders and focus on your breathing, et cetera. Or I meditate at other times like when I'm doing the dishes. I just focus on just the act of the water going over my hands or cleaning the dishes. And that's a form of meditation to me.

Haruka: Do you feel much better after that?

Mark: I feel calmer. I certainly feel more relaxed. Yeah. I feel like when I do that, my mind usually is going very fast and it's a good way to slow it down and bring it back to a more tolerable way of thinking.

Haruka: Is meditation similar to zoning out?

Mark: I guess, but to me, zoning out is letting your mind wander. Whereas meditation, you're bringing it to a single focal point.

Haruka: I see. Actually, I remember that I have used this app called Undo. It's a very simple three minutes or whatever minutes you choose. And it start with a bamboo sound. And I like it and I feel, yeah, much calmer after that meditation.

Mark: Yeah. I have the same app. That is the one time I will do a silent meditation. I'll use that app because, like you said, there's this bamboo sound at the beginning and a gong at the end, but it's just silent in between. Other than meditation, what else do you do when you get stressed out?

Haruka: Recently, I do try to do deeper breathing, inhale and exhale. And also looking at the window, mountains, skies, feeling the breeze. They are all very calming to me. How about you?

Mark: If I get stressed out or if I'm unhappy, I try to think about other people. What could I do for someone else to make them happy? How could I surprise someone, something like that.

Haruka: That's very nice of you.

Mark: Yeah, I guess. It just, it helps me. Because if I don't do tat, I will probably focus too much on whatever's making me unhappy or stressed out. But if I put my attention on someone else, that makes me happy.

Haruka: I love that way of thinking. I will try that.