Thought Control, Mental Discipline and Concentration

[Wandering Star]

First thing to do is to understand the machine. Only then can you try to take it apart, clean the parts, and put it back together.

Books like "Thinking Fast and Slow", "Strangers to Ourselves", "Blink", "Inside the Criminal Mind" (Samenow is VERY good), etc.

Of course, in "The Wave" series, I spend several chapters talking about how we are programmed, how it works on the chemical level, and what efforts are required to overcome this programming. I've been told by a number of people that just reading "The Wave" series has helped them get a grip on their thinking.

I'm sure some other members can follow my line of thinking here and add other suggestions in that trajectory.

It also helps to be in good physical condition. If you have inflammation in the brain, you can work until you collapse and won't make much progress. So, diet is one factor. There are other health factors and this would be where EE might come in. Many of us have been experiencing enhanced thinking by using HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) chambers. That really only might be necessary if there are health issues to deal with, though certainly added oxygenation to the brain can't help but be a good thing.

In short, optimizing from every angle is the best approach.

You received very good recommendations, but I think it's important to highlight the perspective of developing being if you're to focus. I have found that rereading the Wave, especially after crucial experiences, helps to re-focus big time. Your aim gets sharper and clearer, as you understand better.

There is not much to add to the wisdom provided in these two comments and that of the rest of the people who have commented.

My meditation and focus always improves on reading writings that speak about the truth and based on the truth.

And as Gaby says, with each new reading of the same text, you learn more and see things that you hadn't seen before, with moments of inspiration like "aha, so this has happened to me because of...!" .

In fact, you suddenly realize that you have been meditating for a while without really reading the text and many understandings are reached.

Very good advice.

 

[lindrie]

This After Skool video popped up in my feed today that I feel is relevant:

Andrew Huberman is the audio for this episode and he talk about using vision focus as a technique for improving mental focus. There's a bit more information than just that but the vision part was the idea that caught my attention. In the description, there's also a link to his original podcast episode (

) that the audio is sourced from. I have not watched that one yet.

During EE's meditation portion, I have a hard time catching myself when my mind has wandered. Its been in the back of my mind if there was anything I could practice that would help me, not so much hold focus, but be able to realize quicker when I've wandered. I close my eyes for meditation but I realized after watching the video, I tend to "close my eyes" for lots of thought related activities, ie thinking of what's for lunch, problem solving for job-related work, etc so perhaps I built a bad habit. I'm also near-sighted so vision focus has never been a high priority.

The meditation portion I've been doing over a year now, daily, and I haven't seen any improvement in the re-focus area (although I have seen improvement elsewhere). For the full program, I've only been able to do it consistently (Mon/Thus) since Jan of this year, if that context is helpful.


I haven't heard of this person before (not that I went out looking) but did find he had one podcast on meditation itself, which I thought had some interesting info, in a supplementary info kind of way:

Timestamps
00:00:00 Meditation
00:04:13 InsideTracker, Thesis, ROKA, Momentous Supplements [Sponsors]
00:08:25 Brief History of Meditation: Consciousness, Psychedelics, fMRI
00:16:19 How the Brain Interprets the Body & Surrounding Environment; Mindfulness
00:26:07 Neuroscience of Meditation; Perceptual Spotlights
00:32:27 AG1 (Athletic Greens) [Sponsors]
00:33:41 Interoception vs. Exteroception
00:42:20 Default Mode Network, Continuum of Interoception & Exteroception
00:53:30 Tools: Interoceptive or Exteroceptive Bias, Meditation Challenge
01:01:48 State & Trait Changes, Interoceptive & Exteroceptive Meditations, Refocusing
01:07:35 Tool: Brief Meditations, Waking Up App
01:10:30 “Third Eye Center” & Wandering Thoughts
01:20:46 Meditation: Practice Types, Focal Points & Consistency
01:24:10 Breathwork: Cyclic Hyperventilation, Box Breathing & Interoception
01:30:41 Tool: Meditation Breathwork, Cyclic vs. Complex Breathwork
01:39:22 Interoception vs. Dissociation, Trauma
01:47:43 Model of Interoception & Dissociation Continuum
01:53:39 Meditation & Dissociation: Mood, Bias & Corresponding Challenge
02:00:18 Meditation & Sleep: Yoga Nidra, Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR)
02:11:33 Choosing a Meditative Practice; Hypnosis
02:14:53 Tool: Space-Time Bridging (STB)
02:25:00 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Social Media

I don't keep up-to-date on medical/neurological lingo, so not sure how accurate the terms he's using. There's also terms he brings in that sounds very New Age-y to me, but whether that him putting biological/medical context to New Age terms or New Age took terms out of context, I'm not so sure. I also don't keep track of New Age stuff, my internal sirens keep going off whenever I see it so I've haven't been able to really investigate it. If anyone has insight on that, much appreciated!