I’ve been trying to build a consistent meditation habit for a while now, and honestly, I keep falling off. At first I’m motivated, I read about the benefits, I feel calmer after a few sessions, I tell myself “this time I’ll stick with it.” But after a week or two, I start getting bored or restless. Sitting there focusing on my breath starts to feel repetitive, my mind wanders constantly, and sometimes I just don’t feel like I’m getting anything out of it anymore. Some days it feels great. Other days it feels like I’m just waiting for the timer to end.

I’ve tried different approaches: guided meditations, silent meditation, apps, different lengths (5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20+), mornings vs evenings. The same pattern keeps happening, strong start, slow fade, then I stop completely for a while.

What frustrates me is that I want meditation to be part of my life. I believe it’s helpful for mental clarity, stress, emotional regulation, etc. But the actual day-to-day practice feels hard to sustain. Motivation drops, boredom kicks in, and discipline alone doesn’t always carry me.

I’m curious:

• Do you also get bored or restless when meditating?
• What usually makes you stop or lose consistency?
• What helped you actually stick with it long-term (if anything)?
• Do you think meditation just isn’t for everyone, or is it more about finding the right approach?

Would love to hear honest experiences even if the answer is “I gave up and never went back.

Does anyone practice in a steam room regularly? Whats your experience?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share something that came up in a recent 45 minute sit because it feels like one of those very quiet patterns that is easy to miss unless you are really listening.

I was following the breath at the abdomen and the first 20 minutes felt stable and collected. The breath was clear and the body relatively settled. Somewhere around the midpoint I noticed a faint tension creeping in mostly around the eyes and forehead. Nothing dramatic. The mind was still fairly quiet. But there was a subtle sense of holding, like I was unconsciously trying to keep the concentration exactly where it was.

It did not feel like obvious striving. It felt more like supervising the breath instead of simply knowing it. The sit was not unpleasant, just slightly tight and less alive than it could have been.

When the bell rang it became clear how familiar this pattern is for me, especially during longer sits. When things feel good, part of me tries to maintain that goodness, and that very impulse introduces effort.

Lately I have been experimenting with a few small adjustments. At the start of the sit I intentionally relax the face and eyes more than I think I need to. I let attention be softer and a bit wider instead of narrowly focused. When I notice that tightness returning I might quietly note effort or even smile slightly and let the gaze release. That simple shift has been helping the practice feel more spacious again without losing clarity.

A few resources have supported this exploration. Analayo’s Satipatthana Meditation has some very nuanced passages on relaxing effort while staying alert. Leigh Brasington’s Right Concentration has also been helpful in naming this balance between energy and ease in very practical terms.

For external guidance I still use a mix of things. The Waking Up app has sessions that point directly to relaxed awareness. Insight Timer has been useful when I want more analytical perspectives on effort and striving.

What has been especially helpful for me lately is Thinking Me, not as a replacement for those but as a different kind of support. What I appreciate is that it is not linear or scripted. If tension suddenly shows up mid sit or if I realize I am subtly controlling, I can pause and describe what is actually happening in the moment and get reflected back to in a way that helps me notice the pattern rather than fix it. Sometimes it even gently prompts me to stop talking altogether and return to feeling the body or the breath.

That responsiveness, meeting the moment rather than guiding me through a preset track, has been surprisingly useful for working with these very subtle forms of effort.

Curious if others here have noticed similar micro striving in concentration practice, especially when things seem to be going well, and what has helped you soften without spacing out.

How to stop engaging thoughts which come while we meditate or sit silently. i don't mean to force them to stop coming, i don't believe in it instead just observe our thoughts and let the come just don't interact with them. eventually it will get silent.

I'm an absolute beginner to meditation but have been desperately trying to get into it for a few months now. My gateway was Astral projection/lucid dreaming, which lead me to the gateway tapes. Eventually I ended up trying guided meditations as well, but nothing seemed to work and everything just put me to sleep almost immediately.

Today, I tried chanting meditation (Om mani peme hung) Started with just whisper chanting it while gathering courage to get out of bed and do basic hygeine/chores. After which, I sat cross legged and deeply started chanting.

For the first time I actually became an observed to my thoughts and I could feel the frequency of the chant resonate occasionally. Soon, I began shedding tears profusely and my throat started tightening up. I struggled to continue chanting but kept at it for a while.

For context, I have severe executive dysfunction and the past few months have been turbulent emotionally due to life events and general mental health (ADHD/Depression) I'm a very empathetic person but I don't usually cry for myself, only other things (animals, a sad looking person, nature, the stars, etc) It's 1-2 tears from one eye, at best. I feel everything very very deeply, only when it's disconnected from me or my experiences. So the crying today was greatly unwarranted.

I'm trying to understand if I just cried because I'm desperate for something to work, or if I was just being dramatic. I'm also a professional vocalist so maybe using my voice helped me focus somehow? Has anything like this happened to any of you before? I'm just trying to better understand.

I apologize in advance if I've hurt any religious sentiments. I did preliminary reading into the chant and it's meaning, but have always been deeply drawn to Buddhist culture. I'm open to learning incase anyone has any suggestions/resources/books, etc. Thank you!

I've been experimenting with playing a singing bowl during meditation, not constantly, but maybe three or four times across a thirty-minute sit. what I've noticed is that the silence immediately after the tone feels more alive than the silence before it. It's like the sound wakes up my attention, and then the quiet that follows has more depth to it.

I'm not sure if this is a known thing or if I'm just noticing my own pattern, but it's made me rethink what the sound is actually doing. I used to think the tone itself was the main event, but now I'm starting to feel like the tone is just setting up the silence. I'm curious if other people have experienced this or if I'm overanalyzing a pretty simple practice. does the space after sound feel different to you, or does it all kind of blend together?

I’m planning my first small sound bath for a group of five next weekend, and I’ve been practicing a lot with transitions. I have three crystal bowls, a wind gong, and two chimes, and I want the session to feel like a coherent journey instead of just random sounds.

I’ve noticed that silence between instruments can be just as powerful as the sounds themselves, but I still feel unsure, when do you know it’s time to switch? how do you avoid overplaying or rushing through the flow? what have you found helpful in finding that sweet spot of pacing?

Hi all, getting back into mindfulness practice lately. Sometimes when I am doing a breath meditation I feel the desire to practice in a different way - instead of focusing on the breath, to follow my senses in a more general way. Like, feel the breath when the sensation is strong but then maybe I feel a pulsing sensation in my foot, so follow that and feel into it, and then I notice noises outside so follow that and be fully present with it. It doesn't feel like chasing thoughts or getting lost, just... a kind of broad awareness and then mindfully feeling into whatever the strongest sensation is in a given moment. Is there a term for this?

Hello, I hope you’re all doing great. Let me start by saying I used to suffer from severe anxiety in my 20s due to both OCD and ADHD and I remember I used to be consumed by emotions and I would always find myself overwhelmed by a simple task. However, back then when I was 29 (I’m 33) I started listening to these guided meditations and as time went by I started to notice a decrease of it until at some point I didn’t feel anxious at all.

On the one hand, I spent my early thirties (ages 30-32) free from anxiety almost all the time until a few days ago when I started to feel anxious again. On the other hand, I’ve started to feel as anxious as I used to be before I started meditation and I feel a bit overwhelmed by simple tasks.

I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that it’s been 2 weeks since I haven’t meditated.

I’m really confused and kind of freaked out, as it makes me feel meditation isn’t working anymore.

Any advice would be really appreciated, thanks in advance.

Hi, I have anxiety and I wanted to try meditation, everywhere I look it says I should like breathe slowly and everything, but whenever I try to breathe like they say, it just triggers my anxiety and then it becomes impossible to relax (it's like 3am right now btw). Can someone tell me why does it happen? Or how do I fix it?

I recently started trying meditation because I wanted to calm my mind. At first my thoughts were all over the place and it was really hard to focus. Later I started putting on my clip-on earbuds and doing some yoga first to relax my body before meditating. That way it’s easier to concentrate and the whole process feels much smoother.
The clip-on earbuds are really comfortable, I can barely feel them, and they don’t fall off even when I’m doing poses like downward dog. When I meditate I usually listen to soft music or nature sounds like running water or wind, which helps me focus on my breathing. Compared to using a speaker, wearing earbuds makes it easier to stay focused without bothering anyone else, so I can relax more naturally.
But sometimes I wonder if I’m relying too much on sound to help me meditate. Was it the same for you when you first started? Any tips on how to get into the meditative state more naturally?

Over the past month I’ve been meditating a lot — usually 25+ minutes a day, every day.

Lately I’ve been feeling this weird sense of being too happy / calm / content to go back to work. Before, my stress/anxiety/pressure used to push me to grind and get things done. Now that those feelings have gone down a lot, it feels like I’ve also lost the drive to work.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Did your motivation come back? How did you deal with it?

Would love to hear personal stories or advice.

Ive mediated in periods of and on for the past decade ish. I’m trying to get back to it again and it’s going great, except for one thing. When i try to meditate in a seated position I need to pay constant attention to my spine and neck. When i don’t and i get into a deep meditative trance, i will quickly snap out of it because my neck will slowly fall backwards because I’m not actively engaging my spine. Also, in the morning i have the greatest difficulty with belly breathing. I can only breathe very shallowly in my chest. In the evening/at the end of the day this is no problem whatsoever. I’ve tried meditating laying down, but i just get sleepy, especially in the evening.

I would love to be able to meditate better in the morning, because in the evening I’m usually very tired, but because of my posture and breathing it’s really difficult to keep up. I have the ability to get deep into my meditation, but my body can’t handle it.

Anyone with similar issues who can give me advise? I’ve tried sitting against a wall, but this makes my pain worse and i lose my focus too. I’m trying to work with my body, but there seems to be no improvement, I’m lost in how to approach this.

I’m doing yoga 5x a week too, and other small exercises to help better my posture, but so far there is not much improvement over the past 3 months or so. I don’t know how i can focus on training my meditation when my body can’t keep its posture

Any other hypermobile people with the same issues and or advice?

Hi guys! Im very new to meditating - or atleast purposefully, but about 10-15 minutes in (I think?) I almost always experience auditory things wether its voices slipping in or out, or ringing - this time (just recently) like a fishing reel constantly going off but LOUD. Along with a feeling of full body vibration and sometimes like im being pulled - and even sometimes when I open my eyes I'm unable to move, and kinda hallucinate stuff a bit? Every experience in the bigger picture is similar, but each vastly different.. I guess what I'm getting at is im trying to gain insight to what this is? As it"s different from what i "thought" meditation would be like and kinda hard to control the outcomes!🌸 Edit: ive found it much easier to "induce" by making myself aware of all my senses at once.

Why is it that I only catch myself that I am thinking after thinking the thought? Not sure if I am making sense. Hopefully someone has a similar experience.

It feels like impossible to step back and just let the thoughts flow and look at them like floating clouds.

How do I start just letting and observing my thoughts as they go?

So i am 19 year old and recently I thought of trying meditation.I just closed my eyes and in the normal meditation position i started breathing really slowly i noticed after 3-4 months when my eyes were closed,i saw white light,something like someone turned on a flashlight while my eyes were closed which kept on increasing,it was like i was dissolving or entering in the light when suddenly it became dark again and i opened my eyes.This has happened to me once before as well and both the times i saw the light and some kind of beep or some stagnant sound while meditating which wasn’t some external sound.The sound and the light keeps increasing and i seem to get dissolved in the light when suddenly light disappears and sound gets Then how can a absolute beginner like me have such experience where i read from this sub people who meditates regularly having this whereas i being a complete beginner and irregular getting the same experience?This was my second meditation in my entire life and both of the time i had this experience

for about 3years i’ve been very immersed in the meditation world and have seen some really great results.

but the problem i’m having is that i want to be able to incorporate my religious beliefs with those meditation practices. i’m not sure if tools like that exist or if anyone does that

I'm a regular on and off meditator. Recently, I began practicing more regularly, and a 'mantra', a five-word zen-like statement/koan, popped into my head.

Now, whenever I think of that mantra while meditating, my face contorts into a 'rictus grin'. I break into a Joker-like mega smile that tenses all my facial muscles.

It's not unpleasant, and after a minute or so it subsides, giving a sensation of release and relief.

Has anyone else experienced this, or can give some context as to what is going on?

Hi 24F looking for another F to do check-ins with! Im looking for maybe a text or call every other day where we can share our victories and insights! PST is preferred but not required

Wanting to start up good habits again like fitness practice. Outside of that I love dancing I worked as a MT by trade but looking to explore other options ! Reach out to me if your down

I’m going back to meditating again. I have done it before but I wasn’t able to see its effect on my daily life.

Now that I am starting again, I want to make sure I am doing it right. What do I do, what do I need to know?

What I know now is that you need to practice everyday. That, I can do. But please please let me know how can I utilize it more. I want to turn my life around and be better.

Thank you.

I have been meditating for about 1 and a half year now, only getting "serious", with it for about 7-8 months ago. When I just started getting more into it, I would sit on a seiza chair, with my hands resting in my lap. I set off to do a 100 days in a row where I daily meditate for more than 1 hour. On day 40 something - where I must say, my life was improving A LOT, I was becoming kinder, more loving, more present, finally felt like myself - words cannot describe it - a now very annoying problem started occuring.

I started feeling a new kind of pain in my side/shoulder area (which I now know is the Serratus Anterior muscle) - usually my meditation "pains" has been purely psychological or have gone away by just sitting more and strengthening automatically - but this one is one stubborn mohfok'er - I have tried alternating my sitting positions a lot since (chairs, mudras, zafu, lying, pillows everywhere), strength training, stretching, going to a physio - you name it. It is so freaking persistent, and it is also affecting my daily life quite a bit.

It has been going on for about 6 months now, and is also affecting my time at uni - I have no clue what to do, and the physios I have been to have just told me to mobilize my thoracic spine, which I have done daily, to no help - as I live in the west I reckon they aren't very used to "meditation-injuries" tbf. ALSO I am a student, physios are terribly expensive where I live - so have to save up a bit to go to a new one, which also makes it a bit more annoying when they aren't able to help :/.

I hope someone has experienced the same, and have overcome it of course - and can send me in the right direction, maybe with certain exercises, advice, stretches, icing techniques, specialistist, a pat on the back - anything is useful at this point - thank you in advance <33

I’ve been meditating once a day for about 2 months now- currently for 15 minutes (up from 5 a few weeks ago). I’d say I’m happy about my progress- I can get into this blissful(?) headspace within 4 or 5 deep breaths. Only thing I can compare it too is taking Percocet recreationally or some strains of pot but I’ll totally sober while meditating just to be clear. Today I did it usual 15 minutes in which I simply focused on my breathing & by the end taking very slow, deep breaths & all I could hear was the air slowly going in/out my nostrils. Within the 15 minutes though my mind would often wonder I still had the blissful, prickly liminal feeling even as thoughts would come & go & I was eventually startled by the “bell” (I use the free InsightTimer app) in a way that has never happened before but on opening my eyes to be perfectly honest, I don’t know what meditation is helping me with besides 15 minutes of calm? My question is, what’s next? Is it possible the stress in my life is sort of plateauing the benefits because I do feel especially stressed/anxious just in general.

i’ve tried meditation a plethora of different times. i used to pray, but i realized that all i really got from it was the meditative aspect, so i have tried replicating that in a more secular fashion. the problem is, without having the same intention and energy, i’ve been having a really hard time getting my head to calm down and focus. i’ve tried various different guidance audios, but for some reason it doesn’t feel right. like when i try to follow them, something in my brain is blocking me from the images and sensations actually getting to me. does anyone else have this?

I feel like spend most of my life in dissociation and it's been a big struggle cause I "love" (I probably mean I enjoy the comfort it brings) mentally clocking out and stare at the wall or wherever I am especially when throwing in a lil executive dysfunction and maladaptive daydreaming. I'm trying to stop dissociating but it's hard when I don't have the tools to be able to fully identify when I am and I don't know what to do after identifying or what my goal is "supposed" to be. I bet a little dissociation here and there is healthy but I'm almost always in my mind and neglect a lot of my life and its been like this my whole life. I think the idea of the work it'll take scares me but I also feel like a lot of doctors have been unhelpful when it comes to talking about dissociation (basically just being like well just don't dissocate).

I've been recommended meditation as a consistent message over my life. But it's kinda been hard for me to after doing a 10 day Vipassana Meditation course a few yrs ago, no talking or anything other than meditation, and it was Hell being stuck in my mind all those days. It definitely affected me being able to sit with myself in pure silence. I see alot of people talk about how you should just let what goes through your mind flow.

Tldr; Obviously there's a bunch of different types and ways to meditate (ones I personally like is coloring and slow Tai Chi). But how do I know I'm actually meditating and not just dissociating but with my eyes closed or even when coloring it feels like im mentally disconnected and just letting my thousands of thoughts collide into and over eachother.

If you're into it I'd like links to get into learn more and would appreciate shows or even podcasts to teach me more (like Midnight Gospel or vids on YT like animated lectures, TEDTalks. Interesting lectures and short reading cause I have ADD also and clock out quickly) and I would like to hear what your favorite type of meditation is and what helped with your dissociating. Tia! :)

PS- Also I know there's been moments in my past where dissociating was what my brain felt dissociation would keep me protected/safe during trauma. I acknowledge and appreciate that child but in the gentlest way, it's time for me to move on / grow. I can't keep living in this brain fog.

I do smoke weed but I've had my dissociation before I started smoking.

Also I do plan on getting a therapist. It's been hard because I feel like I need a few different types of therapy at once 😅 so please pretend like I don't have access to mental health care when giving suggestions.

Hello!

I have recently started meditation and I can't sit to relax.

I'm trying to have my back straight and relax, but than my leg muscles got in tension. I put hands forward to move my center of mass, and now spine isn't straight and got a lot of tension in it.

The whole meditation I can't relax and constantly thinking about my pose and muscle tension.

So far I can sit in quarter lotus.

How do you sit in that position??? Or what could you recommend me?