A number of studies on the psychology of happiness indicate that meditation has beneficial qualities. Unfortunately, my experiments on this were far from inclusive.
I don’t mean to question the benefits of meditation, nor the studies of the psychology of happiness. I believe the problem lies in my methodology.
My plan was to meditate directly prior to going to bed. All I really achieved from this was making sure that I fell asleep quickly every night. I think relaxing that late at night just ensured I’d fall asleep quickly. I didn’t finish a full guided meditation full once over the course of the week.
Conclusions: Lessons to be learned, if meditation helps with stress, give yourself time to relax while your brain is still in a mood to be thinking. When you’re tired, you’ll just fall asleep, which is great, but it doesn’t solve any issues you might have with stress.
However, if you find yourself having trouble falling asleep, this is a strategy you might want to explore!
I’ll be revisiting this experiment in the future, but moving the meditation time to an earlier point in the evening.