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Having Trouble Relaxing


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If you're familiar with the ASMR community (or if you want to give it a try) go to youtube and search for "ASMR." There are a lot of really relaxign videos by members of a community dedicated to figure out what little nuanced things are extremely relaxing. Things from nail tapping to soft reading to traditional ocean noises and stuff, and soft spoken instructional videos, eye exam and massage videos, all sorts of relaxing things. Watch a few of those and you should get into a pretty relaxed mindset.

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Smoke a bowl. Have a drink.

 

If there are places where you feel calmer than usual, go there. It's in the vacant lot next door for me. Mmmm the sound of dry grass blowing in the wind, the smell of it, the trees creaking... perfect.

 

Personally I don't get how people can sleep and work in the same room(tulpaforcing is work, okay), there's just too many distractions.

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Smoke a bowl. Have a drink.

 

If there are places where you feel calmer than usual, go there. It's in the vacant lot next door for me. Mmmm the sound of dry grass blowing in the wind, the smell of it, the trees creaking... perfect.

 

Personally I don't get how people can sleep and work in the same room(tulpaforcing is work, okay), there's just too many distractions.

 

I usually smoke a bowl of pipe tobacco before forcing. Tobacco stimulates brain activity while relaxing the body so it's pretty much the ultimate wonder drug for forcing.

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I once heard a theory that seemed legit to me. Smoking (tobacco) only relaxes you because it forces you to breathe deeply.

 

That kind of makes sense, though I also know tobacco has been studied from medical and psychiatric perspectives so I'd have to research the objective data around it (which is hard to do because it's so politicized now) to see if there's more to it than that.

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Hmm. I can get into this state in which I block all thoughts, but it's weird. I hear/see/etc. no thoughts, but I can sort of feel what one might. Think of as underlying thoughts, like my brain is still thinking while I'm not. Like a flowing river under a frozen layer.

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Guest Anonymous

Despite the bad advice that meditation isn't useful, you should definitely learn it. I'm a pretty vehement Atheist and I've been meditating for 8 years now (even though I went on a 2 year hiatus until recently) and can tell you it works without any new-age hippy bullshit. I've also been studying tulpas for about 4 years and have seen there is a prominent correlation between those who meditate before each session and success rate. I posted some links back in the introduction thread but I'll post them here.

 

The best place to start is

Mindfulness in Plain English by Venerable Henepola Gunaratana:

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.htm

 

Mastering the Art of Meditation by Daniel Ingram is good if you're more advanced with meditation:

http://www.interactivebuddha.com/Masteri...ersion.pdf

 

And Shinzen Young's The Science of Enlightenment is good if you're skeptical and want more concrete proof of meditation. But I can't find a link to it for free.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Enlightenm...1591792320

 

A good source of thousands of talks about meditation, and buddhism in general.

http://www.youtube.com/user/expandcontract

 

And here's a very good talk on mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_v...plpp_video

 

In terms of techniques I've tried everything from making complex patterned cards to memorize while in a full-lotus to sleep-deprivation-induced-meditation and I can honestly say simplicity is the key. The best method is to find a dark, quiet, comfortable room and sit however is comfortable (although I don't recommend laying down) and simply focus on your breathing. Every time your mind wanders just acknowledge what the thought was and why it may have popped up and return your attention to your breath. It'll take quite a bit of time before you can go longer than a few minutes without intrusive thoughts, but it's worth it. As of now that's the main technique I use and I do it for about 30-40 minutes a day every day, although you can do it for as little as 5 minutes a day or 5 hours if you'd like.

 

And I haven't gotten around to posting any yet, but relaxing music is my absolute specialty and I can give you some music perfect for the job when I stop being so lazy.

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I'm a pretty vehement Atheist

 

What do you mean? Why? Are you one of those people that attack religious people with words? Cause that's what you're implying with that "vehement".

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Guest Anonymous

 

What do you mean? Why? Are you one of those people that attack religious people with words? Cause that's what you're implying with that "vehement".

 

No. That's not what I was implying. I was raised in an extremely Christian family, and was taught never to question anything or try anything like meditation because it's all "the Devil's work". Because of this I became an Atheist when I was a kid and was almost beaten for implying I wasn't entirely religious. Since then I've never been one to believe something just because there isn't a valid explanation of it yet, and am rather skeptical. Especially for someone who used to frequent /x/ for years.

 

However, this doesn't mean I attack anyone for believing in religion. Unless you're a Scientologist, I won't say anything bad about your religion or spiritual views as long as you don't criticize mine. However I do consider myself partially Buddhist, since traditional Buddhism is considered a philosophy, rather than a religion.

 

Just because I don't necessarily agree with your views doesn't mean I'm going to be an asshole about it.

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Okay. You miiiiight want to reprint your business cards with a sliiiightly less militarized adjective. Just sayin'. Sorry for misinterpreting.

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