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4 Science-Backed Steps To Deepen Your Meditation & Overcome Distraction (For All Skill Levels)

Neuron #4: The Meditation Cycle

Hey human! How is your monkey mind today?

I used to be EXTREMELY hard on myself in my meditations.

“WTF Connor, you can’t focus. You suck at meditating. Meditation is too hard. Waste of time. This isn’t working. My brain is screwed up. My monkey mind will never go away.”

- Connor's ever-critical monkey mind

Then, neuroscientist and bestselling author Dawson Church helped me better understand the science of meditation.

This imbued me with self-compassion and peace of monkey mind, as well as the practical tools to achieve the powerful meditative states.

Dawson’s spectacular book *Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy outlines a scientific study of the brain regions that are activated in meditation.

It turns out that our meditative mind works in a predictable for part cycle:

Focus: We start in an attentive state.

Mind Wandering: Inevitably, we get distracted.

Awareness: We notice that we are distracted.

Shift: We Shift our attention away from Mind Wandering and back into Focus.

Here’s what it looks like in the brain and as a cycle.

As Dawson teaches, meditation is NOT a single profound state of Focus.

As with EVERY human being, your Focus is guaranteed to get hijacked and take you away from a blissful brain state.

“Falling from ecstasy isn’t the problem…Choosing to elevate your state back to bliss brain, even if you only maintain it for a second, is the crucial component.“

Dawson Church

So, the work begins as you continue to stay Aware and Shift your energy back to Focus.

Remember, what you do with your brain creates your brain. This is the law of neuroplasticity.

The more you work at this, the more you strengthen neural pathways for deeper meditations.

You can train your brain to do anything.

Better yet, every second your body generates 810,000 new cells. If you train your meditation muscle for a mere 15 minutes each day, you would birth 729,000,000 cells (in 15 minutes) that could physically rebuild your body into a stronger meditator.

Here's your action plan:

In your next meditation, simply experience this cycle happening.

Then, in following meditations, your goal is to:

  • Increase the depth (quality) and length (quantity of time) of Focus

  • Decrease the depth and length of Mind Wandering

  • Decrease the length of time it takes to become Aware of Mind Wandering. AND celebrate yourself for EVERY victory over Mind Wandering.

  • Increase the energetic strength and conviction behind your intention to Shift back to Focus

That's it.

Meditation can be this simple, practical, and empowering when you follow clear frameworks like this.

Waste no more energy on hating yourself when you don’t have deep meditations.

Instead, invest your energy in this deliberate practice.

And the power of neuroplasticity will steadily build your brain in your favor.

Love, Connor

P.S. Thank you for your time and attention. It means the world to me.

Questions, comments, feedback, need help? Reach out. I read every reply (so far, I have 0 replies; please, be the first and make my day!). It'd be a privilege to connect with you.

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