43. Meditation - Can It Help You Reduce Stress?

Unknown Speaker 0: 0:10

05 Welcome to it don't drink your weekly dose of positivity.

Sparky 0: 0:15

09 We're your hosts Sparky and shell. Join us each week

Unknown Speaker 0: 0:20

12 as we have changed your habits to tackle fears and challenge your mindset. Let's get to it. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 43 of a dopamine kick. Today we're going to be talking about meditation and how to improve your stress level. I apologise

Sparky 0: 0:25

31 straightaway for this episode because shower just kind of threw this onto me. Oh, today you're going to be talking about meditation. So if I'm not sounding great or perfect, then that's why but you know, like we always say on this podcast, it's not about getting it perfect. It's about just getting it done.

Unknown Speaker 0: 0:30

49 Some things are a bit different this week as well, because we're together. Well, I mean, we've been together before we've done a few together, haven't we been? Not? Not that many? No, most of the time they're online. So yeah, we're actually sort of face to face we've never actually been to each other in the eyes. It's like it's really intense. Yeah.

Sparky 1: 0:35

17 I can see show spikes. It looks like she's like,

Unknown Speaker 1: 0:40

20 what's going on? rabbit in the headlights? Yeah, yeah.

Sparky 1: 0:45

24 So yeah, I've got no idea what's going on. But we're here and this is what we're doing. It's gonna be about meditation.

Unknown Speaker 1: 0:50

30 So what I thought is I'm gonna grill you on how you meditate. Because you this works really well for you and you you do use it a lot to combat stress. And I want to end on that so if you are going to be my guide, and I'm going to learn how to meditate through you and for the benefit of all

Sparky 1: 0:55

50 of our listeners. Okay, so I guess I should start with what is meditation. And meditation, for me anyway, is a technique that I use that allows me to relax my overactive mind and think about some of the things that you know I want to achieve in the future. So I'm able to put myself in a place where I am not. And I think meditation is a really good tool to help reprogram your mind or to do something else. So hope that makes sense. Does that make any sense? Or am I just might just literally just make

Unknown Speaker 2: 1:00

22 sense to be able to sort of control where your thoughts are drifting too.

Sparky 2: 1:05

26 So think about it like this, right? So imagine you're in a race. And I don't know perhaps you're at school or sports day, but you're you're winning and race and let's say you win that race, and you get that feeling that you've just won, and you're like, Oh my God, I've won the race. And I know you can't explain that feeling until it happens. But we have these feelings all the time because we have things that that are that are good that happened to us. But meditation and hypnosis as well can achieve that same feeling, but without ever doing it so you can win the race, just in your head and the brain doesn't understand that you weren't actually there in the race, but you still have the same feeling as if you were a new one. Does that make sense? You

Unknown Speaker 3: 1:10

07 feel like you've won the race. actually, physically, you

Sparky 3: 1:15

10 don't know you don't actually have to physically win the race. I'm on board. But the brain thinks that it has even though it hasn't because it doesn't understand the difference between when you're actually doing it, or when you're thinking about doing it, which is why thoughts are so powerful. And when we experience anxiety or you know, even depression, we think about our thoughts like they're real because the brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. So, with anxiety, for example, when you're faced with a threat in real life, like say a lawyer, you're obviously going to be anxious and stuff like that, but the brain can have the same level of anxiety over just a thought. So it creates a similar feelings. Your brain doesn't understand. It's like what we talked about before that primitive, primitive, primitive, primal primitive difference. So for me, that's how I use meditation. So for example, I no secret I went to see a therapist. Because of problems. But it really worked for me and she explained all of this to me as well. And so the person that I'm going to talk about her name is Julie, and hopefully we're gonna get our own here on the show at some point, because she can explain this so much better than I can. And I have asked her to come on and she said that she would to explain it. So she was the one that explained to me that the brain doesn't know the difference between what you're doing in real life and what you're thinking about in your head. So that's one of the reasons that I use meditation to help me well guided meditation anyway. So if I want to be somewhere and I don't want to wait, I don't want to really feel it, for example, like a beach. Or if I want to get over a fear or I want to reprogram how I'm feeling about something, say to get over anxiety, I can listen to meditation that is going to allow me to achieve all of that. And you know you have to do it consistently. I don't do it all the time. And you've got to do all the time for it to work properly. So it works for me. So, um,

Unknown Speaker 5: 1:20

14 so when you talk me through like how you do a guided meditation, like presumably you don't just have it on in the car, like is there a certain do you have to set it up? In a certain way? I don't know. Like, you know, a special room do you sit down lie down eyes open i shirt.

Sparky 5: 1:25

31 Um, well, there's not really a set thing really. But what you have to do each have to do at a time before you're going to sleep or when you first wake up in the morning because it's it's at a time where you are closer to the state of sleep. So there's different brain waves and stuff like that and when it works best and I'm not going to go into all of that here because I can't remember what everything was called. And I'll probably say it all wrong. But basically you need to be as close to this one state as possible for it to work. Otherwise, if you just do an eat in the middle of the day or something like that, it's not going to have the full effect. I mean, I mean, people will meditate just to relax, which I call mindfulness. And and mindfulness is like putting on a meditation, listening to it and being more in a moment but what I use meditation for is not so much mindfulness, per se what I do but but more for like trying to reprogram my own thoughts subconsciously, so I can get over certain fears or just daily stresses and stuff like that. So

Unknown Speaker 6: 1:30

33 yeah, and when you say guided meditation, what's the difference between that and normal meditation or just non guided meditation? I don't know. Apologies if I'm getting the terminology.

Sparky 6: 1:35

45 Just before we carry on what meditations Have you listened to? Because I kind of need to know like, I've listened to

Unknown Speaker 6: 1:40

52 so I have done I've tried ones with like, sound Yeah, like the beach waves or like the jungle or whatever. But I found that very, very quickly. I just fell asleep. That's good. And I tried like first thing in the morning and that was just disastrous because I fell back asleep. And the last thing at night yeah, I just fell asleep. But it was great for getting me to sleep, but I don't I didn't feel like I was awake long enough to see any benefits. I tried those. And then I've tried ones where someone is like talking to you. But I find those quite difficult because I don't listen to anything for a very long period of time. What do you mean, my mind just drifts? Even if I'm in a conversation with someone if it goes on for too long, I just My mind just wanders. And that's when I'm able to talk back so when it seemed like a recording of someone's voice, like very quickly, like I'll be trying to listen, I'll be trying to

Sparky 7: 1:45

54 be easy because you you you instantly want to chat to them. You're like No, no, no, I'm not on a beach.

Unknown Speaker 7: 1:50

59 Yeah, I'll just be thinking other things like saying I don't know. So yeah, so someone's saying like you're on a beach and stuff and you're just there in the background of the beach. Just thinking like, oh, it would be so nice to be on a beach. And then I'll be thinking like, oh, it's really annoying though. When you get sand everywhere. Oh, that reminds me did I ever when we went on holiday before did I ever get all the sound that that towel? I can't think about whether or not I did that. Maybe I should go and sort that out. No, no, I'm in the meditation. I'll go to that afterwards. And then I'll like try and listen again and then gradually my attention will go on to something else

Sparky 8: 1:55

34 ADHD

Unknown Speaker 8: 2:00

38 pretty possibly just describing it in a nutshell, that's what you should take to the assessment. Show them this podcast. I am seriously considering just taking our back catalogue but you 52 know you potentially have ADHD as well. Yeah, that just takes looking at like some of the things that can help people with ADHD meditations listed. So it's obviously not the two are not mutually exclusive. I should be able to have ADHD and meditate so there's some area that I'm not doing it right.

Sparky 9: 2:10

18 As you know, I'm just trying to think of the question

Unknown Speaker 9: 2:15

21 well, what did you ask? How do you like set it up? Oh, no, the difference. The difference between guided and non guide Oh, okay. So someone's talking to you. Well,

Sparky 9: 2:20

33 yeah, sort of you because you guided through, but there are there are meditations where people talk and it's not guided if you know what I mean. Okay, so guided meditations guided to me would be a specific theme. So so I don't know say you need to get to sleep. Then it's going to focus on you getting to sleep and then there's going to be ones that focus on helping with your anxiety and stuff like that. So an unguided meditation. There might be somebody talking but it's still very broad and they'll probably talk about things like relaxation and you know, things like we close your eyes and did they say from side to side? Because that would definitely see them there. But, and then there's obviously South Wales and stuff, which again, like mindfulness and relaxation, so I guess it really depends what it is that you want to achieve if you if you just want to relax and you could just listen to anything basically that it's all it's all going to relax in one way or the other. Because you need to be relaxed to feel the benefits of meditation anyway, I don't even know if I'm explaining this right. I know what I mean. But

Unknown Speaker 10: 2:25

46 and how do you it's a very fine line between me for me sorry, very fine, nice.

Sparky 10: 2:30

51 We knew I know. Literally one person I

Unknown Speaker 10: 2:35

57 know I mean, between being relaxed and just being asleep, but like I'm not sure I have relaxed like I think I have like awake or asleep.

Sparky 11: 2:40

07 ADHD.

Unknown Speaker 11: 2:45

10 We don't know that yet.

Sparky 11: 2:50

11 Sorry. I'm just gonna keep doing that. But it's all the same thing, isn't it? Relaxation, sleep, you know, an actual fact you can still listen to meditations while you're sleeping. It still works.

Unknown Speaker 11: 2:55

23 Yeah, I've tried to fight up before you should try that with exams like just have like the lectures on repeat, like in my sleep and you're like, retain any confidence. It didn't do anything.

Sparky 11: 3:00

33 You got I mean, you passed. You must have learned something.

Unknown Speaker 11: 3:05

36 I don't think sleep learning was any of it.

Sparky 11: 3:10

39 Okay, so I guess it depends on how you think about it as well. Because I'm very much into the subconscious mind and all of that sort of stuff. So for me that's that's how I see meditation as well. Meditation used as a relaxation tool, and also as a way to, just to just to reprogram yourself, I think it I think it's well I'm adamant that it worked. It worked for me. At some point, I stopped doing it often you've got to keep doing it. That's the thing. It's repetition. It's like a habit. You know, if you don't if you don't do it over and over again. It's not gonna work.

Unknown Speaker 12: 3:15

14 So for your meditation, so you said before there Julie did ones that were personalised didn't they to you but presumably, chilli, you said I was chilling. Generally. There was a chilli sorry. Anyway, my point is, presumably, because they're personalised to you, that means they're the same. I don't know how many you have. But so you've got 10. That means that once you've listened to them, you're listening to the same 10 if there's only 10 of them, so you do want every day at the end of a month. You've listened to all of them three times. Yeah. How do you manage to keep listening to the same thing and keeping your attention because for me, I would, my mind would drift immediately if I knew what was coming next if I knew what was going to be said next

Sparky 13: 3:20

05 Yeah, I Well, do you know

Unknown Speaker 13: 3:25

13 what I wish I had not told you about this personality at all. I just have ADHD symptoms, as Sparky enjoys pointing out to me.

Sparky 13: 3:30

25 You did say you can't keep pretension on it. And that's that's part of what you need to do. You need to you basically so I know. Okay, so this is a great, a great, great way of explaining it. I know that I I went to see God for a lot of reasons, obviously. And one of the things that I was really focused on at the time was very difficult to explain. But I didn't like the fact that nature was brutal. And I know this sounds really, really silly, but I guess life was really depressing. So I used to find the negative in every situation and everything and just just overthink and stuff like that worry. And there was this one time where I was sat watching a David Attenborough a duck. I mean, anyone that can get upset over David Attenborough. Well, I mean, I wasn't upset by it, really. But I just remember thinking, Oh, God, this is absolutely brutal, like animals doing this stuff to each other. And I just saw I just I just can't live in a world where this stuff happens. And it wasn't just I'm looking off the week, that sort of thing. This thing was really brutal. It wasn't just all just animals picking off, you know, they were hungry. You know, it was horrific what these animals were doing to each other and it made me think about what humans do to each other and then I started spiralling you know, thinking Oh, my God, this happened, and this happened. And it was almost like, a series of flashbacks. And I was probably suffering from PTSD as well. But, but a series of flashbacks of all the things in my life that I watched that way that rific or that I that I had seen, or that I'd known that were happening in the world. So obviously, I told him this. And she said to me, you know, Sparky, you just need to accept that life is a balance. Yin and Yang sort of stuff. Even though I knew that anyway, when you're told dishes thinking, Yeah, well, I know that but I just, I just couldn't get past it. But when you do the meditation, it's a completely different feeling afterwards that that wouldn't have been changed by by just someone's words. So I did the meditation. And after that, meditation, hypnosis, I just thought, you know, I actually really don't care about any of you anymore. And it changed the way I felt. So I go back to listen to it as a reminder of that same feeling. So anytime I start feeling a little bit overwhelmed with what was going on with blowing obviously the fact that we had a lockdown and, you know, there's a war and everything like I can go back and listen to it. Anymore might be actually don't really care. No, no, no, don't really harsh,

Unknown Speaker 15: 3:35

59 but not that I don't

Sparky 16: 3:40

00 care about what's going on. We'll carry on with your life. Yeah, but sometimes I do need to go back and listen to it. I haven't really explained any of this really well. Basically, I'm talking about the subconscious mind and the programming. And if you can hear dogs in the background, I'm really sorry. I can't remember the point I want to know because I've got I'm not the greatest at explaining these. So I'm really hoping that we can get to the on the podcast at some point soon. And now we've mentioned it now the pressure is the guys that depression is on so I'm really hoping we can get her on and we can explain about meditation and other things as well. So

Unknown Speaker 16: 3:45

37 I'm excited for that. What I want to see whether or not like whether or not she can work for me.

Sparky 16: 3:50

43 I think she would do and also I think that it's going to be good for us as well because it could be our first guest and we've

Unknown Speaker 16: 3:55

49 never had a guest Yeah.

Sparky 16: 4:00

52 I was gonna be like shaking up nervously like a nervous wreck. I love that. Anyway, I really think that we should end this with this episode this week, because we're over 25 minutes now. And we're going to bore you all to tears if I carry on talking

Unknown Speaker 17: 4:10

18 any longer so Okay, so we'll see you next time guys and we will get Julie on sometime soon.

Sparky 17: 4:15

25 All right, that's everything this week, guys, but if you want to carry on with the conversation, join us over on our social media platforms. We're on all the major channels and our handle is a dopamine kick.

Unknown Speaker 17: 4:20

34 We'd also be super grateful if you could leave us a review on the podcast wherever you're listening, because it helps us grow our audience and help more people. Okay, we'll see you in the next one. Bye bye

Transcribed by https: 4:25

//otter.ai