#878 overall
The Science of Mindfulness
The Great Courses
1 recommender · 1 thread · recommended in 1 year, 2020 · score 0.7
The Science of Mindfulness is a Great Courses lecture series, available as an audiobook, that explains the research on how meditation and mindfulness practice affect the brain and behavior.
One commenter points to it as the place to learn the science behind how meditation changes the brain, after recommending guided meditation recordings.
Science & Engineeringbeginnerpaidvideo lectures#mindfulness#meditation#neuroscience#psychology#brain
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Here are some guided meditation recordings that I found very helpful for getting started (if you’re on mobile, scroll to the right for the play button): https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/mindful-meditations
Of these, I have listened to the Breathing Meditation (5 min) and the Body Scan for Sleep (13 min) the most and would recommend them. Maybe keep the 5 minute one open in a tab, and if you find yourself in a procrastinatory tab-switching vortex, break and listen to it.
Here are some longer and more “themed” guided meditations from the meditation guru Tara Brach. She also does weekly livestreams if you’re into that: https://www.tarabrach.com/new-to-meditation/
If you want to learn about the science behind how meditation changes your brain, look at “The Science of Mindfulness” from The Great Courses (it’s on Audible): https://www.amazon.com/The-Science-of-Mindfulness-audiobook/...
Aside from meditation, as a gold medalist procrastinator and long-time (~20yrs) Adderall user, I’d caution you against seeking that out to help you with the problem you describe. It can send context-switching behaviors into overdrive and cause a host of other problems. That said, there’s no shame in taking them if they’re right for you (definitely would encourage you to find a doctor that’s comfortable treating ADD etc, possibly a specialist).
For managing tasks, this the only method that’s effective for me: get some {red, yellow, green} post-it notes (color = priority) and a sharpie. Write down every task that is weighing down your mind (this is the basis of the GTD method). One task per post-it, and write down the estimated time in minutes to complete. If it’s a long task (refactor script.py), I convert it into X number of 30 time blocks that I want to spend on it, not necessarily expecting completion by the end of that time. Use the pomodoro method to knock out tasks, and draw a big ass check mark on the post-it when you finish one (feels great!). I also organize the tasks on a whiteboard with the following rows as categories: {health, life, work, finance, education, projects/other}.
This is my procrastination eradication method. There are many like it, but this is mine.