"Medicine" for our mind?

Our mind has more power than we think, it influences our wellbeing, our feelings (also pain feeling), our health, maybe even our healing power.

It can help or makes things worse...

Here most of us are thinking about cancer every day, it takes our energy.

Yes, it is important to be informed, to try to find "solutions" (also new ones, since at stage 4 standard therapy does not offer too much), but what about stress, what about "medicine" for our mind?

What are you doing to help your mind, to fight stress?

Sport, nature, family, doing what you love, what about meditation?

How can one learn to meditate?

Other useful tools?

[LearnAll]

Scientifically ,meditation can be defined as reduction in number of thoughts per unit of time. That means..we use tecniques to slow down out thought processes with goal to have minimum number of thoughts at a given point in time.

It is possible by practice to have only a few thoughts and thus dramatically reducing the amount of neurotransmitter consumption and conserving all these neurochemicals .

In East, they say the thoughts can be reduced ultimately to last one thought and that is "I Exist" which never goes as long as we are alive.

There are 108 different tecniques to achieve the above mentioned goal. Broadly, they are classified into Active types and passive types.

Meditation causes physical and mental relaxation besides rejuvenating brain chemistry.

[Magnus1964]

I do yoga exercises in the morning and meditation in the evening. You should be able to find classes in both somewhere near you.

[Hex40]

I took a stress reduction series of classes through the health system I’m in. I use it on occasion before bed.

[dockam]

I get out and do hikes/runs, and enjoy nature. I engage my dental patients/wait staff/cashiers with banter, and video chat with grand kids on weekends.

There are things out on web to start the day with:

youtube.com/watch?v=_fSSRaz...(Not working as expected?)

headspace.com/headspace-med...

livepurposefullynow.com/gra...

mindworks.org/blog/guided-g...

In my case, I'm grateful to still be doing fine with my 2015 Stage IV PCa Dx.

youtube.com/watch?v=vJLMxD4...(Not working as expected?)

"Everyday is a new day

I'm thankful for every breath I take

I won't take it for granted

So I learn from my mistakes

It's beyond my control, sometimes it's best to let go

Whatever happens in this lifetime

So I trust in love

You have given me peace of mind

"

My best to y'all on your journey

Randy

[Drphil1938]

I totally agree. Since my DX of stage four PCA in March this year, I have struggled somewhat with attitude and some depression. This was primarily during the first six weeks. I have moved on to a more relaxed attitude and a optimistic approach since I have experienced some excellent results from my meds and encouraging words from my MO.

I have tried to return to my daily activities, golf, fishing, doing Suduko, Crosswords and ect. All of this has helped, but I would be remiss if I did not give credit to some daily prayers and spiritual meditation. We all need a bigger shoulder to lay our head upon.

I pray for all of us afflicted with this beast and know that we can overcome with faith. I dont mean to preach, just saying there are many ways to meditate and this is my way.🤠🍸🍸

[MelaniePaul]

Hi everyone,

Yes the men and women here on this forum think a lot about cancer, educate themselves and each other, and of course there is always a lot of worry too. And I think finding something to really relax and switch off from it for a while is important because, as stated in the above post starting this thread, all this takes a lot of energy.

As for meditation, it is really easy to learn to meditate. And you can even work with online guided meditations. The teacher I love the most - and my husband Paul loved as well - is Tara Brach and her website is

tarabrach.com

and you will find online guided meditations as well as her weekly talks there for free.

There is also an ap called Headspace which offers a lot of guided meditation instructions, long and short, and is really good for beginners.

Best wishes to all of you

Mel.

[Captain_Dave]

This is one of my favorite topics. I use HeartMath meditation. I use a HeartMath Inner Balance sensor linked to my tablet. I also listen to Paraliminal recordings. My favorite are Gratitude and Miracle Mindset. I am also a fan of Bruce Lipton, Gregg Braden, Joe Dispenza and Lynne McTaggart. You can look them up. They often talk about epigenetics and switching genes on and off with your thoughts. I am sure a lot of folks think that is woo-woo, way out there and fake news. Think what you want, I would rather study this information than watch the news on television and it makes me feel better & sleep better, that can't be bad.

[Hidden]

I see friends a few times a week. Frequently go out of town on short trips. I love to exercise (I'm on an exercycle as I write this) - good for cancer and good for my mental state.

Right now my mood is fantastic.