(soft music)
- All right so I guess I'm just supposed to sit down here,
legs crossed, palms up and clear my mind.
No thoughts. Stop thinking. Just focus on the breath.
- Whew. It's actually pretty easy.
I honestly don't understand
why people find meditation so difficult.
Wait am I thinking? Okay, that's right.
Focus on the breath in and out. I can get used to this.
Kinda peaceful, kinda calm, just focus on my,
I'm thinking again. Shit this is hard.
Meditation has gone mainstream.
It's no longer just reserved for mystics and hipsters
who wash their beard only once a year.
It's made its way into every corner of our society.
From the military, to the classroom, to the boardroom.
- Simply doing nothing.
- [Matt] Studies have shown
that meditation can improve focus,
sleep, heart health, reduce your blood pressure,
decrease stress, anxiety.
- And even make you nicer.
My wife is encouraging me to try it.
- A 2012 study found just 8% of Americans
have tried meditation at least once.
Compare that to 52% who have tried smoking weed.
And while the ladder is mind altering in its own way,
for most Americans finding weed can be much more difficult
than sitting still for 10 minutes.
So the big question we have to ask
knowing what most of us do about meditation,
why aren't more people not only trying it
but keeping it up consistently?
To answer that question, we could look at my own life.
If there's anyone that fits the description
of someone who would meditate, it's me.
I'm a self-help nerd, I've done it in the past,
I know it's good for me,
but I simply haven't kept up the habit.
The reason why is a little bit complicated
but if I'm being honest with myself,
I simply haven't made it a priority.
But I'd wonder what would happen
if I focused on meditating for 30 days.
Not only that how about an hour
every single day for 30 days.
Would the benefits be strong enough
for me to wanna stick through with it for the long run?
Let's find out.
Oh and by the way, I'm not doing this challenge alone.
Natalie is joining me in committing to doing
10 minutes of meditation a day.
Why did you decide to join me
on this 30 day meditation challenge?
- Because I like sharing things with you.
And I thought it would be a beneficial way
to bring more wellbeing practices into my everyday life.
And I have to try something new.
- Instead of doing it all in one big chunk,
I've decided to split up my meditations
at least for the beginning
into one 30 minute meditation in the morning,
and a 30 minute one at night. Even that was tough.
So I just finished my first meditation and it was brutal.
I was fidgeting a lot. I was adjusting myself.
I was stuck in thought,
I was trying to solve all these problems
of things that I have to do later today,
I was thinking about recording this video afterwards,
some of the things that I might say in the video,
just overthinking everything
and not just sitting still in the present moment.
So it felt a lot like a failure.
Although the fact that I sat down is a good first step.
Things didn't start out so well for Nat either.
This is a reoccurring character in my video is called life
and it has been known to punch people in the face.
On day one Nat came down with a really bad migraine
and was unable to get outta bed and unable to meditate.
Are you still feeling sick?
- Yeah I am.
- But Nat did get back on her feet
or at least the cushion for day two.
The methods of meditation will be using
over the next 30 days will vary,
but they all have their root
in a practice called mindfulness.
We'll be using Sam Harris's Waking Up app as our guide.
Mindfulness isn't so much a technique of meditation
as it is a quality of the mind itself.
It is simply undistracted attention.
It's the ability to notice the sights, and sounds,
and sensations and even thoughts
that are arising in consciousness in each moment
in a way that isn't cluttered or even mediated by concepts.
This isn't just about relaxing.
It's not even about stopping yourself from thinking
that might be impossible unless you're Natalie.
- Hey.
- [Matt] It's observing everything that arises,
seeing the inner workings of your mind
and noticing the patterns we fall into.
- You're seeing how crazy you are.
And that actually has a real value.
A systematic collision with the asshole in your head
has a real value because when the asshole offers you up
a shitty suggestion in the rest of your life
which is basically it's job,
like oh yeah you should eat the 17th cookie,
or say the thing that's gonna ruin
the next 48 hours of your marriage or whatever,
you're better able to resist it.
- [Matt] Day four for Nat.
- I like the course because it's actually like stretching.
I feel like this sounds douchy
but it feels like it's stretching my mind.
- Day five, that's five hours of meditating so far.
Just wasting my days.
- [Nat] I was gonna say, imagine all the videos
that you could have done in five hours.
- It was apparent from the very beginning
that having a course, an app,
something to follow along with is helpful
for even understanding why you're doing this to begin with
and having something to guide you along the way
as you think you're doing it completely wrong.
There are tons of popular apps for meditation.
I'm using Sam Harris's.
You might find similar success with Headspace,
10% Happier, or another app of your choice.
After a few days, I started to get more comfortable,
more settled into meditation,
I also started to realize how truly difficult it is to stay
in the present moment.
How often I get swept up in my own thoughts,
and how difficult it is to not judge myself for it
when I catch myself.
I also realized that
doing two 30 minute stints in and of itself
was also pretty ambitious
and it would be much more productive if I split it out
and spread it across my day from five, to 10,
to 15 minute meditations.
It wasn't until day 11
that I started to see some of the benefits
slip into the rest of my day.
I wrote in my journal one night,
"I can feel more productive,
more locked into conversation with Natalie,
more aware of every word she says and she says a lot.
My focus has grown even when it comes
to listening to audio books.
I can feel my mind start to drift
and I'll be able to catch myself much quicker,
and bring myself back to the audio book.
I'm realizing that my attention has always been scattered
and it has less to do with the messages around me,
and more to do with the messages I'm creating
in my own mind.
I'm sitting here writing this
after a short six minute meditation.
I'm staring out of the palm trees,
a cool breeze is hitting me,
a car who's muffler seems to be broken rattles past,
I can taste my whiskey in a way that I rarely do,
I can hold onto these things longer
and yet still let them go."
So there are two things that I really liked about
Sam Harris's guided meditation.
One is that oftentimes throughout the meditation,
he'll give pause and say
the moment you find yourself lost in thought,
bring yourself either back to your breath,
catch that thought that you were having,
listen to the sounds that are appearing.
And it was a great reminder to be present, to be aware,
because every time he did mention that,
I happen to be lost in thought.
And the other thing that he does is,
for the final 60 seconds, he'll often say,
in the final minute of this meditation, just begin again.
If you found yourself lost in thought
throughout this session, for the final 60 seconds,
start again, focus on the breath.
And it made me feel as even if the past nine, 15 minutes
were complete wash, or it felt like a waste,
if I ended the meditation with 60 seconds
where I was really mindful,
where I was aware of my surroundings and I was present,
I felt as if it wasn't a complete waste,
and I felt better about meditating in general.
Living in Los Angeles there are no shortage of distractions.
So I wondered if getting away for a few days
on a miniature retreat would help expedite the process.
So it's halfway through the month
and I'm packing my bags for the desert
for quiet and solitude.
And my friends that's how you pack as a minimalist.
Ah shit, I forgot about my film gear.
(soft music)
It's really quiet here. Like eerily quiet.
I feel like I'm making a lot of progress
but I wanted to come up here to experience solitude,
experience quiet and meditate in an environment
that was almost free of distractions.
I have a fly flying around here.
So there are some distractions.
(soft music)
This fly was definitely testing me on this meditation.
I almost, it kinda broke my process quite a bit.
I felt like it was the "Karate Kid,"
or "Kill Bill" or something.
- Man will catch fly with chopstick.
- I feel like no matter what, no matter where you are,
there are going to be potential distractions.
There's always something that will potentially
come into your awareness.
And really I guess the whole idea of meditation
is just to be aware of those things
and to observe just I didn't get it.
Stop judging me.
All right man this is great.
I'm like day 18 right now,
I'm already starting to think about ways
that I can implement this into my life past the 30 days.
I don't think it's gonna be an hour,
but I do wanna find a way to bring meditation into my life.
The benefits to me are pretty clear at this point.
You know what the one thing I'll say, is that during the day
the quietness, the solitude is really peaceful,
but at night the quiet turns to terror.
It's really creepy out here.
Like we're truly in the middle of nowhere.
Oh my God somebody's here. I don't know who that is.
What is this? Who is this?
Oh hey. - [Nat] Hey.
- It was Natalie and my sister.
They wanted to join me for a couple days.
- I always thought as meditation as like
just a really pure way to relax, it's kinda hard work.
I'm not sure I love it.
Decision made I don't like it.
- After a couple more days at the cabin,
and just as many hours of meditation, I felt recharged,
and ready to get back to reality.
But before we left, I had one job to finish.
(upbeat music)
- Bye. - See you.
- I can't believe you only brought a backpack.
- I'm not gonna lie,
I think I reached enlightenment on this trip.
- [Nat] I was born enlightened bitch.
(soft music)
- And as we got back and the final days of the month went by
we wrapped up our meditation challenge.
The big question you might have is
did Natalie eventually come around to
and experience the same benefits that I did?
- No. I get really bored.
I like it once in a while, not every single day.
So I like it as a time to get,
like as a way to get time out and to relax
when I've been really really busy and chaotic,
and just like just to take a breather.
- Well thank you so much for doing that with me.
And as for myself, I feel pretty good.
I feel yeah.
I think I feel more mindful, I feel more present,
I feel like it's something that
I definitely wanna bring into my life on a daily basis.
Definitely not for one hour.
There were some negative effects
of going this hard in the beginning.
It's kinda like running a marathon
before you've ever done a 5k.
My time wasn't that productive.
Although I didn't injure myself physically,
I did find myself mentally fatigued.
And I do believe that the difference
between zero and 10 minutes of meditating every day
is a far greater difference, than 10 minutes to 60.
So I'm gonna lower this down,
I'm gonna go 10 minutes every morning for the next 30 days
and see how that feels.
The process of letting go of stuff physically in our life,
the things in our life can be relatively easy.
Letting go of things that happened in our past,
negative relationships, negative thoughts,
is something that takes a lot more work
and a lot more practice.
And I found that meditation
is really one of the greatest ways to do that.
Thanks for watching.
If you like my videos, you might also enjoy my newsletter.
Every Tuesday I send out a short email
on minimalism habits and productivity.
If you sign up right now, you'll get access
to my 20 minute documentary called
"Unstuck. The Five Steps To Change."
This is a newsletter exclusive,
that you can't get anywhere else.
No spam, unsubscribe whenever you want.
Get it at mattdavello.com.
There's a link down in the description. Thanks for watching.
I'm really hungry.
- [Nat] Ugh, me too.
- [Matt] Wait did you hear what I'm saying?
- [Nat] Wait do you hear what I'm saying?
- [Matt] What the fuck.
- [Nat] Wait, what? - [Matt] Oh my God.
(upbeat music)
- This is my dancing.