I practice mindfulness, especially with the Pomodoro Technique (working for 25 minutes and resting for 5 minutes in mindfulness). I practice mindfulness to be able to rest well during breaks and return to work better. But I have difficulties with mindfulness because I keep ruminating.
I tried using the technique of labeling emotions, and it helped a little at first. But now it’s like saying “I’m irritated” and detailing the feeling, but it seems to only make me ruminate more: “Why should I be irritated?” “Should I be less irritated?” “How can I be less irritated?”
Considering my difficulty with mindfulness and the technique of labeling emotions, I speculate that a considerable reason for my mind ruminating is because it doesn’t know if it’s worth the effort to solve the problem.
You know? When a system doesn’t have a stopping criterion, it doesn’t know if it’s worth solving now, too complex for the moment, or if it has already solved enough to test? It’s as if my mind doesn’t know whether it’s worth investing in solving it or if it’s better to file it away for now.
So, I speculate that asking myself some questions, a pre-meditation, like the 5 minutes at the end of a 25-minute Pomodoro, would allow me to align myself enough to improve my mindfulness practice; perhaps my mind would stop searching for solutions for a moment.
Could I set up experiments and measure how much a mindfullness to focus analyzing physical EEG waves?Where does my reasoning break down? Has anyone tried something like this?
Perhaps the kind of meditation where you try to label everything is not a good fit for resting between work? Because it sounds like work, only of a different kind, so you are not really taking a break to relax. Maybe try some loving kindness meditation instead?
Yes! It’s work, as I understand it, that kind of pre-meditation work, to properly wrap things up before practicing mindfulness.
Like, to have loving-kindness in my rational side, to align myself properly and finish the work well before truly resting.
You know, when a system doesn’t have a stopping criterion, it doesn’t know if it’s worth resolving now, if it’s too complex at the moment, or if it’s already resolved enough to rest. So, I’m looking for a way to align my internal investments and be able to pause. Does that make sense?
How do you conclude your rational/productive moment, Viliam?
I can procrastinate on a task a lot, like I know that I should do something, but at the same time I am afraid to start, because I am not sure about something or I expect a problem.
So, starting is a big problem for me. Stopping is not. What is done, is done. Maybe it sucks, but I have many other things to do (which doesn’t mean that I am actually doing those other things, maybe I am just procrastinating on them).
I know people who make a choice and then spend weeks thinking about whether it was the right choice, sometimes to the extent that they can’t focus on other things before them. I am not like that. I think a lot before doing a thing, not after it is done.
.
Right now, our washing machine broke, and we need to buy a new one. So I wrote a list of criteria, found some machines in a shop that seem to fit them, downloaded their manuals, made screenshots of the pages that contain their programs (length, temperature, load). I have been preparing this for a week. Now I will give the summary information and screenshots to my wife and let her choose, and hopefully she will either choose quickly or leave the choice to me (I already have a preference), then I will buy it, and I will no longer think about “what if we bought a different one”.
As I know my wife, she will spend the following month second-guessing our choice (and it will be super annoying for me) and then hopefully she will get used to it.
Haha, I hope the laundry’s clean by now. I hadn’t realized that rumination isn’t just about dwelling on the past, but also about ruminating on future predictions… I don’t even know what to call overthinking, haha.
For example, I might spend more time considering washing machine options because I enjoy thinking about them. And it’s an easier problem to solve than others I work on. So I’d “ruminate” thinking about various aspects, like “which washing machine has the most comfortable button to press?”, and I’d stop working, so to speak.
Then, the more time and effort I put into planning my projects, the less time I spend procrastinating. Or does that not make sense?
I practice mindfulness, especially with the Pomodoro Technique (working for 25 minutes and resting for 5 minutes in mindfulness). I practice mindfulness to be able to rest well during breaks and return to work better. But I have difficulties with mindfulness because I keep ruminating.
I tried using the technique of labeling emotions, and it helped a little at first. But now it’s like saying “I’m irritated” and detailing the feeling, but it seems to only make me ruminate more: “Why should I be irritated?” “Should I be less irritated?” “How can I be less irritated?”
Considering my difficulty with mindfulness and the technique of labeling emotions, I speculate that a considerable reason for my mind ruminating is because it doesn’t know if it’s worth the effort to solve the problem.
You know? When a system doesn’t have a stopping criterion, it doesn’t know if it’s worth solving now, too complex for the moment, or if it has already solved enough to test? It’s as if my mind doesn’t know whether it’s worth investing in solving it or if it’s better to file it away for now.
So, I speculate that asking myself some questions, a pre-meditation, like the 5 minutes at the end of a 25-minute Pomodoro, would allow me to align myself enough to improve my mindfulness practice; perhaps my mind would stop searching for solutions for a moment.
Could I set up experiments and measure how much a mindfullness to focus analyzing physical EEG waves?Where does my reasoning break down? Has anyone tried something like this?
Perhaps the kind of meditation where you try to label everything is not a good fit for resting between work? Because it sounds like work, only of a different kind, so you are not really taking a break to relax. Maybe try some loving kindness meditation instead?
Yes! It’s work, as I understand it, that kind of pre-meditation work, to properly wrap things up before practicing mindfulness.
Like, to have loving-kindness in my rational side, to align myself properly and finish the work well before truly resting.
You know, when a system doesn’t have a stopping criterion, it doesn’t know if it’s worth resolving now, if it’s too complex at the moment, or if it’s already resolved enough to rest. So, I’m looking for a way to align my internal investments and be able to pause. Does that make sense?
How do you conclude your rational/productive moment, Viliam?
I am not very productive, but typically my work is concluded when the time runs out or someone interrupts me or the original goal is achieved.
So you don’t experience rumination?
I guess not much, compared to some people I know.
I can procrastinate on a task a lot, like I know that I should do something, but at the same time I am afraid to start, because I am not sure about something or I expect a problem.
So, starting is a big problem for me. Stopping is not. What is done, is done. Maybe it sucks, but I have many other things to do (which doesn’t mean that I am actually doing those other things, maybe I am just procrastinating on them).
I know people who make a choice and then spend weeks thinking about whether it was the right choice, sometimes to the extent that they can’t focus on other things before them. I am not like that. I think a lot before doing a thing, not after it is done.
.
Right now, our washing machine broke, and we need to buy a new one. So I wrote a list of criteria, found some machines in a shop that seem to fit them, downloaded their manuals, made screenshots of the pages that contain their programs (length, temperature, load). I have been preparing this for a week. Now I will give the summary information and screenshots to my wife and let her choose, and hopefully she will either choose quickly or leave the choice to me (I already have a preference), then I will buy it, and I will no longer think about “what if we bought a different one”.
As I know my wife, she will spend the following month second-guessing our choice (and it will be super annoying for me) and then hopefully she will get used to it.
Haha, I hope the laundry’s clean by now. I hadn’t realized that rumination isn’t just about dwelling on the past, but also about ruminating on future predictions… I don’t even know what to call overthinking, haha.
For example, I might spend more time considering washing machine options because I enjoy thinking about them. And it’s an easier problem to solve than others I work on. So I’d “ruminate” thinking about various aspects, like “which washing machine has the most comfortable button to press?”, and I’d stop working, so to speak.
Then, the more time and effort I put into planning my projects, the less time I spend procrastinating. Or does that not make sense?