Man shares simple hack to 'to meditate without meditating' and it's blowing people’s minds

Are you someone who struggles to meditate, which is believed to be the best-known way to achieve mindfulness? When life gets overwhelming we are often told to learn how to pause. But what really is that and how do we do it? Why do we need to know how to be more mindful?

According to TIME, Corrie Goldberg, a clinical psychologist and founder of Shore Therapy Center for Wellness in Chicago, explains: "Our body moves through the motions of life, but our head isn’t in the game. Our minds tend to focus on worries about the future, or upsets from the past, even when our body may be in a neutral or pleasant place." When our thoughts jump from one to the next filled with judgment, it can cause stress and unpleasant emotions. 

Nowadays more and more people are finding it hard to sit still and not let their thoughts wander. "The reason most meditators and practitioners of mindfulness struggle is because they have a faulty assumption about the central objective of the entire endeavor," David Gerken, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, wrote in an article published on Medium. "Specifically, they believe that it’s all about slowing down or even stopping their thoughts, which, if done successfully, will produce sublime inner calm." People usually tend to give up when they feel like they can't adequately stop their thoughts. He further elaborated that "stopping or slowing the mind is not the central objective here. It’s often the result of consistent, correct practice."

Meditation seems hard, but perhaps this life hack from TikTok creator @thementallevel can help. He believes his content will “transform and elevate your mind and emotions,” and recently posted a video that helps people learn how to meditate without meditating.

In the clip, he gets straight to the point from the start by saying, “You say you can’t meditate, but have you ever noticed how the front of your teeth can get dry sometimes? And that you can actually smell the inside of your nose? There’s actually a buzzing in your fingertips if you pay attention to them. Don’t look at them, just feel them. Notice how you can feel the buzzing sensation and vibration in your hands and fingers. Notice how you can hear the sounds in the room around you as you feel your hands and fingers at the same time."

“And notice how you can see the whole field of vision, without taking your eyes off your phone, you can see everything in your peripheral, without even trying too hard, as you hear the sounds, as you feel your hands,” he adds. He urges his followers to stay in the moment by being focused on “hands, sounds, the whole field of vision.”

“Take a deep breath in,” he continues. “Relax the muscles on the way out. Notice how you feel — you just meditated. Great job.”

The simplicity with which he explained the technique helped rake in millions of views. @julexox commented, "So meditation is just the awareness and feeling of being alive." Lexie Norby joked, "No don’t trick me into meditating I want to stay sad and crabby for a bit longer lol." Geronimo chimed in, "So much of the meditation content feels so fluffy and performative, you got straight to the point without a ten-minute intro. Thank you!"