I have an experiment that I\’d like everyone to try. If anyone would like to volunteer, you only have to do the following and report here via comment or on Facebook your results.
I was meditating on the train the other morning, during it I was attempting to observe my Mind Chatter as it was happening. I made a kind of discovery in regards to myself and how my mind chatter works in conjunction with my breathing.
I found that if I hold my breath, the \”mind chatter\” is expressed much slower in my mind. What I mean by this is that the chatter happens much slower (sometimes at a complete standstill) than if I was breathing normally. When I hold my breath, each word that occurs seems to have a long break in between and feels like each word is struggling to be said. Whereby if I\’m just breathing normally the chatter happens at normal speaking speed with no struggling occurring.
I found this rather intriguing and wondered if everyone/anyone else is like this as well? Obviously, it\’s ineffective and useless to attempt to hold your breath for extended periods of time in an effort to meditate \”mind-chatter-free\”, BUT, as a result of this, I was now attempting to keep the mind chatter at bay by focusing on the quietness that occurs between my breaths.
So give this experiment a quick try. Try to \”observe\” your mind chatter while you\’re breathing normally and when you\’re holding your breath and see if you notice a distinct difference between the speed of the two. As I said, for me the mind chatter was expressed significantly slower (sometimes completely stopped) while I was holding my breath.
Feel free to post your findings here or on facebook. 🙂
So I’m getting some really good response from people who have been trying this experiment to see how it goes for them.
They’re responding that their mind chatter is almost completely stopping simply by holding their breath. Very interesting, indeed…
I wonder why this is.
I have problems with “ear worms”, songs that get stuck in my head. I have noticed that they are caused by part of my consciousness that has “compulsive” tendencies, similar to how you will tap your foot or play with your fingers without noticing it, when you are distracted.
It seems to be related to rhythmic, physical movement. When walking, ear worms are more likely to occur, but also when breathing rhythmically (such as during exercise or intense concentration). This makes sense, since the ability to detect and duplicate rhythm is the key to spoken language (something we have in common with birds but not with chimps. Birds talk and dance, chimps do neither, even though they are “closer” to us evolutionarily).