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I've never got the hang of meditation before, I couldn't quiet my mind enough. While researching light therapy devices recently, I came across Smoooth Deep Breathing Assistant, which creates a moving shape at the bottom of your screen which expands and contracts at a rhythm you can breathe with. It took me a while to find a rhythm I liked, I had to change the inhalation/exhalation proportions and add little rests at the end of each (I used the Extra Calm setting as a model), and I can't breathe anywhere near as slowly as they seem to recommend, which may be to do with the ME. Once I got that sorted, it was quite relaxing. I put it at the top of my screen, where it doesn't cover anything more important than the window frame and a bit of a toolbar (and it's semi-transparent, so you can still get to what's beneath), and chose the green "jellyfish" version which looks rather like a toilet plunger. Having it pulsing away there is probably calming in a general way, and every now and again I would look at it and tune in my breathing for a minute or so.
I have to say that the idea is great but the execution is poor. It crashes if you hibernate your computer, the always on top feature is patchy, and the shape isn't even smooth around the edges when it's moving, although that may be worse because I've slightly lowered the DPI setting on my computer. The rhythm and speed of the shape can be altered in various ways, which is the important bit, but the selection of shapes and colours is minuscule. For freeware it would be a bit crappy. For paid software, it's ridiculous. You get a week's free trial, and after that a notice will pop up every five minutes. I may or may not decide to fork out for the proper version. I've e-mailed the company about the faults and they said the programme creator won't be able to get back to me for a few weeks, so I'll see how I do with using it only intermittently since then. The five minute warning is actually quite useful for having timed breathing breaks.
While hunting for other relaxation software, preferably freeware, I came across two more useful things. One is Atmosphere Lite Nature Sound Generator, proper freeware (though it reminds you helpfully of the paid version every time you open it up) which can create quite a complex variety of soothing sounds. I've used something like this in the past as a prescribed treatment for tinnitus, and discovered in passing that it was handy when someone was playing loud music in the next room. I don't like to have background noise on often, but sometimes it's quite nice, especially if it's bland enough without having so short a loop that I can notice it. So far I've used the ocean, rain and woodland settings.
The other bit of software was not freeware but had a free trial, and was called Nature Colors. The idea is that it pops up a picture three times a day for you to meditate on for however many minutes you set it to. There's a choice of nine pictures, all with a dominant colour and associated with an emotion, e.g. red flowers for energy and power, a small boat on a blue sea for anger relief. This is quite a nice idea, except that the pictures are poor-quality paintings with little detail and incredibly boring to gaze at. I'm not convinced by the strict pairing of certain emotions with certain colours, as I think that there are certainly common associations, and certain colours are repeatedly found to produce certain responses (though it's usually in a general way), but it's a highly individual response. Pink, for instance, has been found to be a calming colour to paint walls, but many people actually find it irritating. Orange is generally associated with vitality, but I've spent long enough using orange lighting in the evening to get my melatonin going that I associate it with sleepiness by now, at least when it's not screamingly bright. I'd rather make my own colour associations.
At this point it occurred to me that I have a folder full of absolutely beautiful, highly relaxing photos I've downloaded from Interfacelift wallpapers, all of which I can stare at happily for ages. So I scrapped Nature Colors and instead installed Kirby Alarm, a task scheduler I've used on previous computers. To my annoyance, it's no longer freeware, although at least you get a 30 day trial period rather than the paltry 7 days for Smoooth. I might try to find an alternative, all I need is something that can be set to open a file, though then I would have to redo all the settings.
I've set up 21 repeating files, midday, afternoon and evening for every day of the week, each set to open a different photo. Windows Picture Viewer, set to maximise, was the best for viewing the picture that I have installed, there's just a basic toolbar at the top which has the Smoooth shape on top of it anyway. When the photo appears on my screen, I open Atmosphere if I fancy sound, and open Smoooth (no longer permanently residing on my screen due to the annoyance of the reminders every five minutes). I stare at the shape and the pretty picture for five minutes, breathe nicely, and try to clear my mind. I don't have to clockwatch as I know the Smoooth reminder will come up after five minutes. I think it's actually working! There's enough for me to focus on so that my mind doesn't stray (much), but little enough that it's still very calming and doesn't really involve thinking past the level of "mmm, so that leaf goes to bluer tones as well as more greyed ones in that section". I'm enjoying meditating on colour and the images are wonderful to look at, plus the visual change is great for pulling me out of whatever I was doing before and imposing stillness.
The snag is that it's not free, unless I find a free task scheduler (which I probably will) and decide that I only want to use Smoooth for these sessions rather than having it on my screen full time. I could probably live with that.
Do any of you meditate? If so, what methods do you use? Am I the only one who likes to use colour in this way? It's one of the reasons why I love quilting, and I confess to occasionally staring at a beautiful, vivid batik and just drifting off for a minute or two.
I have to say that the idea is great but the execution is poor. It crashes if you hibernate your computer, the always on top feature is patchy, and the shape isn't even smooth around the edges when it's moving, although that may be worse because I've slightly lowered the DPI setting on my computer. The rhythm and speed of the shape can be altered in various ways, which is the important bit, but the selection of shapes and colours is minuscule. For freeware it would be a bit crappy. For paid software, it's ridiculous. You get a week's free trial, and after that a notice will pop up every five minutes. I may or may not decide to fork out for the proper version. I've e-mailed the company about the faults and they said the programme creator won't be able to get back to me for a few weeks, so I'll see how I do with using it only intermittently since then. The five minute warning is actually quite useful for having timed breathing breaks.
While hunting for other relaxation software, preferably freeware, I came across two more useful things. One is Atmosphere Lite Nature Sound Generator, proper freeware (though it reminds you helpfully of the paid version every time you open it up) which can create quite a complex variety of soothing sounds. I've used something like this in the past as a prescribed treatment for tinnitus, and discovered in passing that it was handy when someone was playing loud music in the next room. I don't like to have background noise on often, but sometimes it's quite nice, especially if it's bland enough without having so short a loop that I can notice it. So far I've used the ocean, rain and woodland settings.
The other bit of software was not freeware but had a free trial, and was called Nature Colors. The idea is that it pops up a picture three times a day for you to meditate on for however many minutes you set it to. There's a choice of nine pictures, all with a dominant colour and associated with an emotion, e.g. red flowers for energy and power, a small boat on a blue sea for anger relief. This is quite a nice idea, except that the pictures are poor-quality paintings with little detail and incredibly boring to gaze at. I'm not convinced by the strict pairing of certain emotions with certain colours, as I think that there are certainly common associations, and certain colours are repeatedly found to produce certain responses (though it's usually in a general way), but it's a highly individual response. Pink, for instance, has been found to be a calming colour to paint walls, but many people actually find it irritating. Orange is generally associated with vitality, but I've spent long enough using orange lighting in the evening to get my melatonin going that I associate it with sleepiness by now, at least when it's not screamingly bright. I'd rather make my own colour associations.
At this point it occurred to me that I have a folder full of absolutely beautiful, highly relaxing photos I've downloaded from Interfacelift wallpapers, all of which I can stare at happily for ages. So I scrapped Nature Colors and instead installed Kirby Alarm, a task scheduler I've used on previous computers. To my annoyance, it's no longer freeware, although at least you get a 30 day trial period rather than the paltry 7 days for Smoooth. I might try to find an alternative, all I need is something that can be set to open a file, though then I would have to redo all the settings.
I've set up 21 repeating files, midday, afternoon and evening for every day of the week, each set to open a different photo. Windows Picture Viewer, set to maximise, was the best for viewing the picture that I have installed, there's just a basic toolbar at the top which has the Smoooth shape on top of it anyway. When the photo appears on my screen, I open Atmosphere if I fancy sound, and open Smoooth (no longer permanently residing on my screen due to the annoyance of the reminders every five minutes). I stare at the shape and the pretty picture for five minutes, breathe nicely, and try to clear my mind. I don't have to clockwatch as I know the Smoooth reminder will come up after five minutes. I think it's actually working! There's enough for me to focus on so that my mind doesn't stray (much), but little enough that it's still very calming and doesn't really involve thinking past the level of "mmm, so that leaf goes to bluer tones as well as more greyed ones in that section". I'm enjoying meditating on colour and the images are wonderful to look at, plus the visual change is great for pulling me out of whatever I was doing before and imposing stillness.
The snag is that it's not free, unless I find a free task scheduler (which I probably will) and decide that I only want to use Smoooth for these sessions rather than having it on my screen full time. I could probably live with that.
Do any of you meditate? If so, what methods do you use? Am I the only one who likes to use colour in this way? It's one of the reasons why I love quilting, and I confess to occasionally staring at a beautiful, vivid batik and just drifting off for a minute or two.
