Mental Health Visualization and meditation

[stardust10]

Just curious how many people here practice these?
What's your method?
Does it help in everyday life and/or certain situations and in what way?

I have found visualization to be greatly helpful since university I started practicing before job interviews and exams. (Yes I'm currently an unemployed bum who's life's in a state haha but trust me it works!)
My method for meditation is belly breathing in for 4 out for 7. 10 minutes a day - helps tremendously with physical tension in the arms and legs.
Sometimes when I'm really depressed and anxious though I will admit I cba with any of it and am lucky to eat something or drink some water that day.

 

[bongdong]

Hey. I practice. Don't plan on writing much about it here though. (But if you have a specific question, got stuck etc., you're welcome to PM me on this topic.)

My method for meditation is belly breathing in for 4 out for 7. 10 minutes a day - helps tremendously with physical tension in the arms and legs.

Yep, what you do is very effective. Occupies the mind and directly relaxes the body, and the breath is always with you so you can potentially do it everwhere (don't do while driving etc.!!), unless you're dead. Back in the day, when freediving was my passion, I used to do (an extended version of) this a lot, as a preparation/warmup for diving or training. If 10 minutes help you so much, imagine what 20 will do..

I've wondered about this, and I have no clue whether it is weird or kind of to expect that meditation isn't really a thing here. On the one hand, conditions and life events that often lead to substance abuse, drug addiction itself and the often lengthy recovery process is more or less steeped in suffering. So one might think that at least some people find their way to meditation as a potential means to investigate/address this. And then there is this group of drugs some actually link to spirituality. On the other hand, it's not all about coping. Pure hedonistic pursuits of drug experiences, the addiction cycle per se etc. involve quite a bit of 'unconscious'/unobserved behavior, so meditation (which is or can be more than just surface relaxation) is kind of the natural enemy of this, in case it actually increases awareness. So .. . And then there is probably everything in between too, I guess..