How Meditation Made Me Better At Moisturizing

The first time I was exposed to meditation was when I was 16 and my english teacher made us do it on a school trip. 

We had snuck alcohol into our room the night before so I was tired and a bit hungover. He made us close our eyes for 30mins while lying on the floor and guided us through a body scan meditation.

I remember experiencing some kind of trance and when I finally came back to reality I was  surprised to realize that I felt much more energized and my hangover was gone. 

I liked it so much that I tried to recreate it multiple times on my bedroom floor, but every time I tried, I would just fall asleep. 

Then I didn't really meditate for about 10 years until I started getting stressed at work and was encouraged to get the Headspace app.

I remember struggling so much to sit still for the 10mins; it felt like an eternity and most of the time I would either fall asleep or my mind would wander off. But after powering through for about 2 weeks, I started enjoying it and felt I was getting better at sitting still. 

Coincidentally around that same time I also stopped feeling stressed 🤔  and therefore meditated less and less until eventually I stopped altogether. 

I repeated this pattern so many times… 

I would meditate when I felt stressed, stop when I felt better and start again. It was like I was on a Meditation Yo-Yo diet.

How often do you do things purely as an instant remedy instead of more regularly for the long term benefit?  

Maybe you only exercise when you’re out of shape… Maybe you only stretch when you have an injury…  Or maybe you only moisturize when your skin is dry…

Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to experience the benefits of meditation (i.e. feeling more calm, more peace and less stressed) then I needed to do it even when an immediate problem didn’t present itself. 

Of course, without the immediate pain of stress reminding me to do it, I needed something else to keep my goal front of mind. 

So I started meditating first thing in the morning, as soon as my alarm went off. 

It has now been nearly a year of doing this everyday and I’m happy to report that I’m consistently less stressed, more connected to myself and less attached to my thoughts. 

Not only that, but I’ve also stopped waiting for my skin to be dry to moisturize. 

So often we struggle to cultivate habits because we only focus on them when we are in an immediate state of discomfort… 

I think one of the reasons we do this is because when creating habits, we need cues (or triggers) to remind us to do them. For example, when your alarm goes off and you get out of bed that is generally a trigger that leads to a few habits like brushing your teeth, showering or making a cup of coffee. 

When we are stressed, out of shape, injured or with dry skin these all act as cues that remind us of the habits we need to do to fix them.

But then, once we’ve done them for a while and the cues become less visible, our reminders disappear and we automatically start doing them less and less. Then the whole Yo-Yo cycle starts again. 

Another reason for this is that we are conditioned by our current society to always seek instant gratification. In a world where dopamine hits are available any time and anywhere, it becomes very hard for us to ever do things that give us delayed gratification. 

One of the ways I found that really helps with this is to get clear on your Why. The more time we spend getting clear on why we want to do something, the easier it will be to not be tempted by instant gratification and focus on long term benefits.

So if you want to stop the Yo-Yo cycle of good habits, you need to get clear on your why and make sure to have cues/triggers to remind you to do them. 

For example, for me and meditation, my “Why” is that it teaches me to distance myself from my thoughts and emotions in a way that limits their influence on me. This in turn allows me to be a better friend, partner and family member. My cue is my alarm clock and I do it first thing in the morning when I wake up. 

So next time you want to start a new habit that will give you little instant gratification but tons of long term rewards, ask yourself “why do you really want this in your life?” Write it down, sit with it and make sure you really connect with that feeling. The why needs to be strong and meaningful for you. 

Then find a cue that will remind you to do it. This could be a post-it… an alarm… a time block in your calendar… you can be as creative as you want. 

So tell me, if you could finally cultivate one daily habit that you know would have a significant impact on your life, what would it be?