Thread: Mindfulness - An Alternative Approach to ADA

Wow this thread comes pretty close to what I am trying out right now. Here is a part of my workbook:

I decided I want to try being aware of my breathing at all times. That way I have an easy task, that I know I can accomplish. I have been trying this out a bit and I have noticed this also interrupts my dozing of. Every time I start mindlessly doing stuff I realize I am not aware of my breathing. And therefor stop dozing off. So it helps to keep me aware.
This also gave me a good idea. Since I now have multiple times a day, where I realize I am not paying enough attention. They are the perfect time to do a RC.

Indeed, the way you feel after snapping out of a state of non-awareness, feels a lot like waking up from a dream. So by training on catching yourself in the act, you might just do that in your dreams as well.

But, even if it does not help. You still are making yourself more aware by stopping your dozing off. So it makes your day a more aware one in general. Plus, since it feels like you have just awoken from a dream, it is very easy to question reality. Making your RC's a lot more valuable. And lastly when you have a FA, the first thing you will do is RC since you again feel like you dozed off for a bit. So it will help you in all your FA's as well.

In the end. If it doesn't help directly, it still helps indirectly. The side-affects are good enough for me, to practice this.

I have only started this training in the last 5 days. So I guess I do need more time before I can confirm all this.

Originally Posted by MrPriority

Wow this thread comes pretty close to what I am trying out right now. Here is a part of my workbook:

I decided I want to try being aware of my breathing at all times. That way I have an easy task, that I know I can accomplish. I have been trying this out a bit and I have noticed this also interrupts my dozing of. Every time I start mindlessly doing stuff I realize I am not aware of my breathing. And therefor stop dozing off. So it helps to keep me aware.
This also gave me a good idea. Since I now have multiple times a day, where I realize I am not paying enough attention. They are the perfect time to do a RC.

Indeed, the way you feel after snapping out of a state of non-awareness, feels a lot like waking up from a dream. So by training on catching yourself in the act, you might just do that in your dreams as well.

But, even if it does not help. You still are making yourself more aware by stopping your dozing off. So it makes your day a more aware one in general. Plus, since it feels like you have just awoken from a dream, it is very easy to question reality. Making your RC's a lot more valuable. And lastly when you have a FA, the first thing you will do is RC since you again feel like you dozed off for a bit. So it will help you in all your FA's as well.

In the end. If it doesn't help directly, it still helps indirectly. The side-affects are good enough for me, to practice this.

I have only started this training in the last 5 days. So I guess I do need more time before I can confirm all this.

Any mindfulness improves mindfulness, I think we can get faster results if we concentrate out efforts though; since several of us here seem to have the same notion that dreaming is just another state of mind (remembering, daydreaming, planning, spacing out, happy, sad, angry, sleepy, tired etc..), if we think of it as a state of mind then perhaps concentrating on mindfulness of our state of mind (more narrowly state of awareness) is worth paying the most attention to.

Also I feel that there is a danger that if we get too used to "snapping back" to reality once we find ourselves zoned-out, we might do the same in a dream, effectively waking us up. We're only aiming to be mindful that we are zoned out in the present moment, that way we can then decide what we want to do now that we know where we are.

So personally at the moment rather than mindfulness of breathing (which I do during meditation sessions) I'm doing all-day mindfulness of awareness (aiming to notice when I'm zoning out or am zoned out, since I reckon this is the same state of mind as dreaming).