Sherlocked!

Myriads of distractions exist in the world today for us to frolic away from being advertent towards the facets of our routine. Descrying the true quintessence of a person’s perception, actions and emotions, are often those trifling expressions and that precise verbatim in a conversation. We neglect that glimmer of formidable adoration brimming in the eyes of those solicitous for us, those eclectic expressions, that subtle modulation of tone with altering emotions, thus, growing more pensive towards negative thoughts induced by our subconscious mind. This inadvertence deceives us to surmise the inadequacy of time. It leads to decreased memory capacity, narrowed focus and domination of thoughts.

As quoted by William James, a philosopher and the father of modern psychology

"Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake."

While consuming a meal, we often ruminate in retrospect of a conversation or an event until we look down and realize that we’ve finished our food. Instead, if we try relishing the flavors, aromas, and sensations of the food we eat, or maintain an ongoing awareness of the gradual satiation, we can finish our food faster without being contained by our insignificant thoughts and feel full.

Mindfulness — that is, sustained moment-to-moment awareness of and attention to ongoing events and experiences, i.e. the present (pun intended) — might be the new hotness, but it's got a very long history. Its role in Buddhism dates back thousands of years.

But why is this important? Mostly because this inadvertence gets us in trouble. Misdemeanors and negative thoughts, for example, aren't usually conscious; they tend to happen automatically when you're not paying attention hence making way for you to trail off to your own world of unnecessary imagination (that is if you have one). The attention that mindfulness brings can help you keep those automatic processes at bay while you work to replace them with more constructive habits. Mindfulness can also boost your memory since it's obviously hard to remember something you weren't paying attention to. Likewise, research into mindfulness has linked it with benefits for people's focus, stress levels, and even relationships.

But we don’t know for sure if mindfulness is a state or a trait? According to one view, because it's a moment-to-moment practice, by definition, it's a temporary state. But according to researchers Kirk Warren Brown and Richard M. Ryan from the University of Rochester, you really can be a "mindful person." A fidgety and impulsive personality like me could also mindful, courtesy of wo de xingan baobei (folks who know mandarin), through a type of meditation.

Now, what is meditation? We all know that it is supposed to be beneficial for our mental health but what do we do in it?

As it turns out, we don’t just do meditation, there are a lot of different kinds. Here we’ll talk about the three most popular kinds.

Mindfulness meditation: It’s all about existing in the moment and, being aware of your thoughts and sensations. In this guided meditation, you will need to focus your attention to the sensation of breathing followed by body scanning exercises to focus on how each body part feels one by one. This will enhance your ability to concentrate. It’s about how well you choose what you pay attention to and what you ignore. Pretty useful in the world of super distracting devices.

Compassion meditation aka loving kindness meditation (Something I practice daily): It’s about directing your attention towards someone else. To practice this kind of meditation, you will need to concentrate on a person who cares for you, while inducing positive and loving thoughts. Eventually, you will have to extend these loving thoughts to strangers, and finally turn those thoughts on yourself. This meditation will enhance those parts of your brain which process or identify emotions.

Perspective- taking training: In this kind of meditation, you will have to label your thoughts, things like me or other, past or future, and positive or negative. You will also learn to divide your mind into sub-personalities - the parts that try to keep you in control at all times aka the managers and the parts that react when you have bad feelings aka the fire fighters. It might sound weird but the idea is to help you see your thoughts as mental events instead of representations of reality. That way, you can just let things go instead of reacting to every little thing. This meditation cultivates the areas of the brain associated with theory of mind, the ability to see things through other’s perspective. Empathy is a little different concept which is more like feeling how another person’s feeling.

Regardless of which type of meditation you get into, you should approach it like exercise - practice and change the methods according to what you want to get out of it.

So, What kind of meditation will work for you?

Also, why is the title sherlocked? Try contemplating, not over dinner please!