Originally posted by GoremanX Sometimes I just can't shut my mind off. I envy my wife's ability to just turn off her brain and fall asleep within minutes. I've never been able to do that.
I once was in a Kaiser Medical program of non-chemical intervention for certain problems (which are nobody's business), which program included meditation training. Nothing mystical, just some simple stuff.
Lay down, close eyes, concentrate in turn on every segment of your body. Toes to fingertips, everything in-between. Slowly. Pace yourself. Think of nothing else. Don't move. Every muscle: feel it, relax it, be aware of it. Then, on to the next bit. (It's the same basic principle as telling a rosary.)
And: Put 'reality' aside. All your plans and problems and pains, whatever is grinding at you, obsessing you -- pack it up. Literally. Glance briefly at each item, mentally put it in a box, put that box on a shelf. You can open those tomorrow. You'll be going elsewhere now.
So: Think of someplace calm. A pond, meadow, beach, park, mountain, some quiet place you can visualize and put yourself into. Your favorite space; go there. Feel it, smell it, see it. Relax in it. Be very still. (This is a form of self-hypnosis.)
Now: Concentrate on one. Not one of anything; just one. One fills you, surrounds you, is you. Not a spirit, not a force, not a reason, not a theology; just one. After you've been one for awhile, you might go on to two; or you might stay at one. One is OK. (This is sort of like concentrating on OM.)
Those are some of the... tricks? exercises? techniques? ...that I learned. They work for me when I'm not too groggy, when I remind myself to use them. I nearly always do the go-someplace-calm thing -- for me, it's sitting under a conifer by an alpine lake. Each night, instead of being in San Francisco or Zacatecas or Tulsa or Guatemala City or wherever my body is parked, I'm at that lake. It's comfy.
Like any tricks, exercises, techniques, these take practice. Do them over and over. It might help to take some secular (or religious, if that's your trip) meditation-relaxation-stillness classes. Check it out.