Meditation is the Zamboni for Your Brain

Watch the short video above to learn how meditation is the Zamboni for your brain.

May was mental health awareness month and with things heating up on the ice during the NHL playoffs, I thought it might be a fun parallel to explain how meditation is the Zamboni for your brain.

Imagine your brain is the ice and each day is a game of hockey.

All day long, our brain is:

• Concentrating
• Solving problems
• Creating solutions
• Weighing the options
• Analyzing information
• Making decisions

All of this activity creates a residual buildup of debris in our brains, that needs to be removed. This residual debris is removed every night with AT LEAST seven hours of sleep.  And a daily meditation practice can also help remove the debris and clean the ice so you’re refreshed for the next period.

There is a mountain of data, perhaps I should say an iceberg of data, touting the benefits of a consistent meditation practice. My personal experience with meditation is that at first I thought I was doing it wrong; I couldn’t remain focused on one thing for more than 10 seconds let alone 10 minutes. But as I read more, I learned that your brain is built to think. That’s it’s job. Just like you can’t stop your heart from beating, you can’t stop your brain from thinking.

Within your meditation, the act of going down a tangent, realizing it, telling yourself to not follow the thought, and come back to focusing on whatever you’re meditating on, IS the meditation practice. You’re building mental muscle memory by continually telling yourself to come back and focusing your energy and attention on the thing.

This mental muscle that I’m working while I meditate, has benefitted my work as well. Instead of going down tangent and rabbit holes when I’m trying to focus on something, I recognize the divergent thought, tell myself to either write it down on my to do list or let the thought go, and refocus on the project in front of me.

The other big benefit I’ve noticed is that my afternoon meditation legitimately refreshes my brain. Around 2 or 3pm in the afternoon, I can feel my batteries on low.  But if I diligently carve out even 10 minutes for meditation, I recharge my batteries. My afternoon meditation clears the debris, refreshes the ice, and I really do get renewed energy for the second half of the day.

If you’re interested in an introduction to meditation, the book Bliss More by Light Watkins is one of my favorites.

I encourage you to experiment with meditation. There’s no right or wrong way to meditate!