Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I considered myself an extroverted and disciplined person. However, I was unaware of the many mental blockages I had formed over many years to shield myself from my own thoughts. These thoughts were mostly negative, but they stayed repressed because I made sure to keep myself overly stimulated (school, social media, extracurricular activities, movies/TV, and substance abuse). The framework I created depended on constantly moving my focus to different places in short periods of time. This fell apart when the pandemic brought my life to a standstill. My entire routine was uprooted, and my healthy coping mechanisms quickly became unavailable, while the unhealthy ones became all too accessible. The more unhealthy habits I indulged,…show more content… During this time, I felt like I tapped into every sense, which created an intense focus. Thoughts would occasionally appear, but the more I practiced, the quicker they dissipated. I had always made the association of studying acting as a workout for the brain, and to add to that analogy, meditation acted like the stretching of my brain “muscles”. My capacity for mental stress increased the more I meditated. Professor Raskatov and I conversed about many other aspects of meditation, but the two methods I implemented worked best for me. Towards the end of the quarter, he introduced me to what I can describe best as a big glass tube filled with beads that created a sound akin to an hourglass, except much louder. I love this device. He flipped the tube over to start the noise during one meeting, and I felt how sharp my thoughts became as if everything else was tuned out due to the noise it made. It has a set timer of 10 minutes which also fosters this momentary period of full concentration. I ended up purchasing a similar tool that lasted for 5 minutes instead, and I use it to this day when
