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How do you get out of that rut where your current setup just can't produce the sound you want?

And ……..this:
B43C2331-53D7-4ED3-922F-D2557356F202.jpeg

I am still quite a little low, when it comes to the Percussion & Drum libraries. This can only add some & help in doing some things.
 
MartinH. said:
I would love to hear more about this and especially about how you managed to escape that vicious cycle! I've read the article that you've linked and a lot of it sounds familiar.




Bold assumption that there will be satisfaction at the end of completing a piece of music :emoji_sweat_smile: .
Maybe I just haven't achieved "completion" often enough yet, but my confidence of a reward at the end isn't super high, even though I would say that on average I am a lot happier with my own music than with my paintings for example. And at times I have listened to snippets of music that I made, and felt quite good about them. But still the process of composing seems to often be emotionally painful and draining for me, and I just don't do a lot of it. I know (by now) it's not the tools that cause this.
Click to expand...

Hey Martin sorry I'm only just replying now… Below is a playlist of some guided mindfulness meditations… It starts with a 7 minute primer about mindfulness if you want to check that out 1st, the woman who narrates all of them is an accredited clinical psychologist from the UK. I’ve also linked a neuroscience podcast episode about meditation if curious...

The meditations are all relatively short, on average between 5 & 10 minutes, a good length to start with without them feeling daunting… The longest one is around 15 mins, the shortest one is around 3 mins. The shorter ones can be useful for moments where you might want to take a short break between activities.

I’ve also linked an NIH study called “meditation and the wandering mind”. It explains the phenomena of ‘wandering thoughts’, not just in meditation, but as a a phenomena of everyday life. It’s estimated that the average person experiences between 30% & 50% of their ‘waking hours’ as ‘automatic thinking’ (being lost or distracted by your own thinking while trying to do other things)…

LINKS:

Here’s the playlist of mindfulness meditations. You might want to try starting with the Progressive Muscle Relaxation. It can be a great tool for relieving tension, (as well as experiencing a physical reduction in stress the 1st time). ‘Soothing breathing rhythm’ would also probably be a good place to start. The order doesn’t really matter, I just think these two are very approachable, and help you immediately feel less stressed out, more clear headed, etc…

EDIT: 'The body scan' is another very approachable one (as she mentions). You might want to try this one, and 'soothing breathing rhythm' to see which one feels right. I feel that both of these are useful for ADHD because they both give you something to focus on, and come back to, as you start to become better at noticing that your thinking just wandered off on you...

Lewis Psychology: Mindfulness Meditations:




Huberman Lab Podcast - “How Meditation Works & Science-Based Effective Meditations”:
(This channel is an amazing resource, with information about just about anything you can think of):





NIH study - Meditation and the Wandering Mind:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Meditation and the wandering mind: a theoretical framework of underlying neurocognitive mechanisms

During the practice of meditation, the occurrence of self-generated and spontaneous thought and the tendency of the mind to wander away from the intended goal of meditation is ubiquitous, and comprises one of the fundamental teachings of meditation: a ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
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jcrosby said:
Hey Martin sorry I'm only just replying now… Below is a playlist of some guided mindfulness meditations… It starts with a 7 minute primer about mindfulness if you want to check that out 1st, the woman who narrates all of them is an accredited clinical psychologist from the UK. I’ve also linked a neuroscience podcast episode about meditation if curious...

The meditations are all relatively short, on average between 5 & 10 minutes, a good length to start with without them feeling daunting… The longest one is around 15 mins, the shortest one is around 3 mins. The shorter ones can be useful for moments where you might want to take a short break between activities.

I’ve also linked an NIH study called “meditation and the wandering mind”. It explains the phenomena of ‘wandering thoughts’, not just in meditation, but as a a phenomena of everyday life. It’s estimated that the average person experiences between 30% & 50% of their ‘waking hours’ as ‘automatic thinking’ (being lost or distracted by your own thinking while trying to do other things)…

LINKS:

Here’s the playlist of mindfulness meditations. You might want to try starting with the Progressive Muscle Relaxation. It can be a great tool for relieving tension, (as well as experiencing a physical reduction in stress the 1st time). ‘Soothing breathing rhythm’ would also probably be a good place to start. The order doesn’t really matter, I just think these two are very approachable, and help you immediately feel less stressed out, more clear headed, etc…

EDIT: 'The body scan' is another very approachable one (as she mentions). You might want to try this one, and 'soothing breathing rhythm' to see which one feels right. I feel that both of these are useful for ADHD because they both give you something to focus on, and come back to, as you start to become better at noticing that your thinking just wandered off on you...

Lewis Psychology: Mindfulness Meditations:




Huberman Lab Podcast - “How Meditation Works & Science-Based Effective Meditations”:
(This channel is an amazing resource, with information about just about anything you can think of):





NIH study - Meditation and the Wandering Mind:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Meditation and the wandering mind: a theoretical framework of underlying neurocognitive mechanisms

During the practice of meditation, the occurrence of self-generated and spontaneous thought and the tendency of the mind to wander away from the intended goal of meditation is ubiquitous, and comprises one of the fundamental teachings of meditation: a ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Click to expand...



Thanks so much for all the resources and sorry for the late reply! I wanted to give this a fair shot before I answer. I've probably heard the Huberman Labs episode before, but never can remember all of it, so I've happily listened to it again, some parts twice and plan to revisit it in the future, since I catch a new angle every time. I'm a big fan of his podcast in general, but didn't manage to keep up to date with new episodes. I've also revisited one of the videos on different meditation practices from Dr. K's guide and both make the same point that mindfullness isn't the right choice for everyone. I have come to the conclusion, that it isn't for me either...


jcrosby said:
I can link you to a few 'clinical' guided meditations if interested... (Clinical being key word, not the stereotypical new agey ones you might come across in YT or podcast search)...
Click to expand...
I was mainly interested to see whether or not the "clinical" take on it was any different from what I've already tried and I don't see a significant difference at all. I think my problem with mindfulness is that it's so focused on bodily sensations, when that attention skill is already (too) well developed in me and I'm nonstop having unpleasant sensations when I'm not distracted. Right now, there is always an itch or pain, or usually both when I direct my attention towards how I feel.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but I've known (just not frequently applied) related techniques for most of my life. I've first done "Autogenic Meditation" (which I think is very similar to "body scan") excercises when I was a child. I've known PMR for roughly 15 years and it works, but I don't really like it. I use it when I'm in significant pain from back blockades to try and get the muscles relaxed enough for the block to release, but it doesn't work reliably for that. I don't find it helps much with anxiety. I do feel an overall reduction in muscle tension, but I intensely dislike what's required to get there. This was the first of the guided meditations from the list and I felt the opposite of relaxed during it. On another day I've tried unguided PMR while listening to music and that was better but I'd still rather not move a muscle at all when I try to relax.

For lowering anxiety I like what Dr. Huberman calls the "physiological sigh". If you watch him regularly, you surely have heard him talk about it many times. That one does work for me and only takes a few seconds to do, so I use it somewhat regularly when I can remember it.

The guided breathing pattern meditation in this playlist doesn't have a comfortable timing for me. I've tried others before with different counts for inhale, hold, exhale, hold, that worked better for me, but in general there is something about guided meditations that makes me recoil. I thought at first it might be the unfamiliarity of a new voice, but I've listened to over a dozen of other videos on her channel (quite interesting stuff, definitely got a lot out of the recommendation, thanks again!) to make sure that's not it, and I think I just viscerally dislike being told what to do :emoji_sweat_smile: .

In terms of how I feel during and after, I still get the most out of lying down and just listening to music with my eyes closed. I still have resistance to starting it, but once I've started it's usually a good experience. Like a warm blanket for the mind and my brain feels better during and after. I think this could just be like an externally focused meditation technique for me. Catching your mind wandering off and returning back to just focusing on the music should excercise the same mental muscle that other mindfulness based meditations do, just without experiencing all the physical unpleasantness that I get from bodyscan and breathing excercises.

I haven't had a chance yet to dive into the study you've linked, but I'm aware that mindfulness is the most well researched of the meditation practices and there is a mountain of evidence for its efficacy. There might be other interesting topics in there about different brain circuits and -states. Huberman briefly mentioned an experiment related to gaming, and playing certain kinds of games gives me a similar relaxing and focusing effect as the "music meditation" does. Would be interesting to understand the potential mechanisms behind that better.

From the guided meditations from your list I had the least resistance to the ones that come from the compassion focused therapy angle - one which I had never heard about before and plan to learn more about! I've already watched most of the playlist for it from her channel.

Have you ever heard of neurofeedback therapy? Many years ago I bought a NeuroSky MindWave headset, which is basically a "consumer grade" lowend EEG measuring device that displays a graph of different brainwaves that they labeled "attention" and "meditation", and I was able to get that meditation line to go up through focus. Worked with eyes closed too, so it wasn't just some kind of placebo fluke or feedback loop from looking at the graph, I tested it several times. The software was clunky as hell and the device didn't fit me very well, so it never saw much use, but it was an interesting experiment to confirm I can affect the state of my brain in a physically measurable way. Afaik the efficacy of this approach is still lower than medication and therapy though, so not sure it's even worth persuing beyond the initial curiosity.

In the meantime I've found a couple of other interesting leads.

A podcast about a music service that is tailored to boost focus:



Get A 4x Increase In Productivity By Listening To Music | Focus@Will

www.focusatwill.com www.focusatwill.com

I tried their service but didn't like the music or website enough to be paying for it. Interestingly their ADHD channels have some rather abrasive industrial techno. Not at all "meditation music" as one might expect. But I don't think the kind of videogame soundtracks that I listen to are that far off from what they are trying to do on their website. It might be worth looking a bit deeper into ideal intervals to change the looping track to a different one to retain focus for longer. I mostly go for a regular game soundtrack, or the same track looped for an hour, but going for example in blocks of 10 minutes per looped track might be better.


I heard about interesting studies on the cerebellum and how balance exercises can apparently help with ADHD symptoms:




And this Dr. K video was quite enlightening:



Although he neither talks about ADHD nor meditation there, it made a few things click for me on why I'm never able to stick with anything like meditation longterm and I think I need to dig into this issue first and learn to feel and cultivate "resolve" on an emotional level.
 
MartinH. said:
Thanks so much for all the resources and sorry for the late reply! I wanted to give this a fair shot before I answer. I've probably heard the Huberman Labs episode before, but never can remember all of it, so I've happily listened to it again, some parts twice and plan to revisit it in the future, since I catch a new angle every time. I'm a big fan of his podcast in general, but didn't manage to keep up to date with new episodes. I've also revisited one of the videos on different meditation practices from Dr. K's guide and both make the same point that mindfullness isn't the right choice for everyone. I have come to the conclusion, that it isn't for me either...

.........


^ TRUNCATED QUOTE: The reply hit the character limit
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No worries… I’ve been pretty slammed with work anyway. I haven’t been able to properly reply until now…

Sorry to hear you didn't find them helpful Martin. Some people do find it difficult, others find it stressful because they discover that their emotions become self critical and uncooperative. (Ironically, that’s sort of the point, because everyone starts from the same place... A noisy & self-critical inner dialogue...) Anyway... If listening to music puts you into a clearer headspace without stressing you out then maybe that's the approach that resonates with you the most…

I’ve only been aware of Andrew Huberman for about a year now but yeah, I immediately appreciated his channel when I found it. I have listened to a few episodes where he talks about the 'physiological sigh'. If that helps you then it's great that you have a tool in your toolbox for dealing with anxiety, stress, etc.

I understand what you're saying regarding the 'exercise' of refocusing. The purpose of this in terms of 'mindfulness' is different though because it has specific goals that relate to how thinking influences emotions and vice versa. (I hope that doesn’t come across as dismissive, I’m just trying to be clear that ‘mindfulness’/meditation has specific goals related to the relationship between thoughts and emotions). I'm also not discounting the power of listening to music and getting lost in it, it's one of my favorite experiences.

As far as therapy and/or medication being 1st, I’d be the last person to say otherwise… I have a long history with both. Anxiety, Panic disorder, periods of depression, ADHD, etc. Decades of various therapy types & medications. Basically I’d never suggest that it’s a replacement, and I would never want a reply like this to be interpreted as that... I would suggest that it’s a supplement though because it's become a standard tool in therapy approaches for anxiety & panic attacks, depression, ptsd, even borderline & addiction, etc... I personally have found that it bridged a gap between therapy and medication by helping me notice anxious or emotional thinking, stepping back, and disengaging it from it quicker, sometimes completely.

I know of neurofeedback. I've never done it, but I'm always curious to look into and/or try anything psychology related. If it becomes widely available in the future I'd absolutely be interested in trying it… If by balancing exercises you mean yoga (?) that wouldn’t surprise me at all, balancing requires a crazy amount of focus! I could definitely see how they're related…

As far as music that makes you focus... It's an interesting concept, but I'm a little skeptical because of some of the language I see used on the 'how it works' page. (I.e. "Research has suggested", "we believe", "we hear from our users"). I don't doubt there's research supporting the concept that they're selling, but something about the language used makes me a little skeptical. That said, I'm pretty much always going to be skeptical when a technology company claims to have a product effective for 'clinical' condition like ADHD without some kind of clinical trial backing it up.

(I also realize the superficial irony about being a skeptic while talking about meditation that some might have as a knee jerk reaction if they aren't aware of the research. In which case I'd say that the research of meditation is thorough, and some of it really is compelling. (The video below goes pretty in depth about this while be very straightforward).

Anyway, I do realize you didn’t feel it was a good fit for you, and I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be pushy or convince you, (or anyone else)… I’d also never discount the impact of immersive music listening. Music therapy exists for a reason… And, I'm also a big proponent of trying things on to see what works for you…

I just feel it’s important to look at the differences because there are still a lot of misconceptions around ‘mindfulness’/meditation, and it still has somewhat of a stigma as being trendy, new agey, spiritual, etc. The research shows the opposite though, and some of that research is genuinely captivating…



 
jcrosby said:
No worries… I’ve been pretty slammed with work anyway. I haven’t been able to properly reply until now…

Sorry to hear you didn't find them helpful Martin. Some people do find it difficult, others find it stressful because they discover that their emotions become self critical and uncooperative. (Ironically, that’s sort of the point, because everyone starts from the same place... A noisy & self-critical inner dialogue...) Anyway... If listening to music puts you into a clearer headspace without stressing you out then maybe that's the approach that resonates with you the most…

I’ve only been aware of Andrew Huberman for about a year now but yeah, I immediately appreciated his channel when I found it. I have listened to a few episodes where he talks about the 'physiological sigh'. If that helps you then it's great that you have a tool in your toolbox for dealing with anxiety, stress, etc.

I understand what you're saying regarding the 'exercise' of refocusing. The purpose of this in terms of 'mindfulness' is different though because it has specific goals that relate to how thinking influences emotions and vice versa. (I hope that doesn’t come across as dismissive, I’m just trying to be clear that ‘mindfulness’/meditation has specific goals related to the relationship between thoughts and emotions). I'm also not discounting the power of listening to music and getting lost in it, it's one of my favorite experiences.

As far as therapy and/or medication being 1st, I’d be the last person to say otherwise… I have a long history with both. Anxiety, Panic disorder, periods of depression, ADHD, etc. Decades of various therapy types & medications. Basically I’d never suggest that it’s a replacement, and I would never want a reply like this to be interpreted as that... I would suggest that it’s a supplement though because it's become a standard tool in therapy approaches for anxiety & panic attacks, depression, ptsd, even borderline & addiction, etc... I personally have found that it bridged a gap between therapy and medication by helping me notice anxious or emotional thinking, stepping back, and disengaging it from it quicker, sometimes completely.

I know of neurofeedback. I've never done it, but I'm always curious to look into and/or try anything psychology related. If it becomes widely available in the future I'd absolutely be interested in trying it… If by balancing exercises you mean yoga (?) that wouldn’t surprise me at all, balancing requires a crazy amount of focus! I could definitely see how they're related…

As far as music that makes you focus... It's an interesting concept, but I'm a little skeptical because of some of the language I see used on the 'how it works' page. (I.e. "Research has suggested", "we believe", "we hear from our users"). I don't doubt there's research supporting the concept that they're selling, but something about the language used makes me a little skeptical. That said, I'm pretty much always going to be skeptical when a technology company claims to have a product effective for 'clinical' condition like ADHD without some kind of clinical trial backing it up.

(I also realize the superficial irony about being a skeptic while talking about meditation that some might have as a knee jerk reaction if they aren't aware of the research. In which case I'd say that the research of meditation is thorough, and some of it really is compelling. (The video below goes pretty in depth about this while be very straightforward).

Anyway, I do realize you didn’t feel it was a good fit for you, and I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be pushy or convince you, (or anyone else)… I’d also never discount the impact of immersive music listening. Music therapy exists for a reason… And, I'm also a big proponent of trying things on to see what works for you…

I just feel it’s important to look at the differences because there are still a lot of misconceptions around ‘mindfulness’/meditation, and it still has somewhat of a stigma as being trendy, new agey, spiritual, etc. The research shows the opposite though, and some of that research is genuinely captivating…



Click to expand...


Thanks so much for your patience and continued excellent mentorship on this topic! That video was great, very ADHD friendly presentation too. I tried the guided meditation at the end and was pleasantly surprised that it didn't trigger all those pains and itches that I tend to get from the breath focused mindfulness meditations. Might be worth exploring more guided meditations along those lines of visualizing physical activities. I think there are studies that showed that such kinds of visualization excercises can have a training effect on the brain related to the task that you are mentally performing. So there's probably something slightly more useful than mentally doing pullups that I could be doing on that front. It was a very interesting experience though!
I also went through this playlist on the same youtube channel:


For now I've settled on this guided meditation as the best fit for me that I've found so far:


I like that he does not force me into a counted breath rhythm and that there are long stretches of silence. I also like that at the end there is just a sound and not some guided "wake up ritual" that many guided meditations seem to have because I usually want to go a bit longer, which I guess must mean I'm doing it right, because I feel tangible and immediate benefits from it.

You mentioned something about the relationship of attention, thought and emotion and I'd love to hear more on that. I've always struggled with painful memories randomly bubbling up and making me physically cringe and I feel like meditation helps align my mind into a direction that lets these pass much quicker and with much less friction. Can you relate to that? This is definitely something that I'm very happy to have gotten a glimpse of and that motivates me to pursue this angle on meditation further!

What I'm also still interested in would be a guide to unguided open mindfulness meditation that doesn't focus on any one particular thing like breath, but instead assumes a broader perspective to just notice all thoughts with some distance.
 
MartinH. said:
@jcrosby: Wow, that was a lot more than I expected, thank you so much! Really! Your posts are always full of valuable insights, that's why I asked you in the first place. I feel bad not having replied sooner, but I've gone back and re-read your post multiple times since you wrote it and have been pondering on it intensely. I've also had a good talk about it with a friend of mine.

He made me realize that I need to re-evaluate my definition of what a "finished" thing is. And your post and that talk got me to question whether I really want to finish songs or not. The things I do finish tend to be sounddesign or mixing tasks. I never consider them as finished, more like fragments of unfinished projects that never came to be, but other people do manage to make money off of selling presets or pre-mixed DAW templates etc., so who am I to say those aren't finished things? Maybe I just think I want to finish tracks because reaching back to my childhood I wanted to "make music" and "putting out finished tracks" was my definition of what someone who "makes music" does. But maybe that's just not who I am and I'm more someone who likes to solve audio engineering problems with a creative spin on them? Maybe that's... enough? I genuinely don't know. I feel like I'm either having some creative growing pains as I gain a deeper understanding of my artistic self or sliding deeper into an existential crisis.

I should mention I was diagnosed with ADHD this year and I'm currently in the process of trying out the various new meds that have since become available to me, and that in and of itself is a profound experience as I peek behind doors that have so far been locked for me and experience new states of mind. I think the effect of these things on creative work can be quite profound, for us not-neurotypical folks at least.

I don't have a lot of personal experience with meditation, because trying to engage with it, it always has felt like I'm hitting a brick wall. But since I've spent vast amounts of time researching neuroscience stuff in the hopes of finding something that... helps... I have of course heard a lot about it. An article on a site for people with ADHD made the point that while meditation is especially beneficial for people with ADHD, the lack of stimulation while not doing anything also makes it extremely hard and unpleasant for people with ADHD. They saw "just listening to music" as a valid meditation-equivalent for people with ADHD. And anecdotally I can confirm that just lying down and listening to music for an hour usually has me feeling better afterwards. However it's still hard to do for me and I haven't been able to turn that into a regular practice. Please send me one of those clinical guided meditations that you've mentioned. I'm curious to see if it's any different than what I've already got with "Dr. K's guide to meditation".

I think I never reached the point of getting detached from what I think and feel, and rumination is almost a constant for me. It's very hard for me to turn that off or distance myself from it. I also can never quite accurately describe how I feel emotionally, because I'm not actually sure most of the time and mostly "feel" in the form of bodily sensations. There's a thing called Alexithymia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia ) as I learned recently and I think I might be somewhat on that spectrum as well. I just did an online self-assessment test (TAS-20) for it and just like with the ADHD test I once took (a clinical questionnaire one!) I barely made it into the "you probably have it" category.




@Henu: Thanks a lot for your reply as well! I always appreciate your perspective on things and what you say makes a ton of sense! Iirc you have ADHD too, right? How do you manage to get back to old projects in the first place? For me it's not a struggle to take a break and leave it be, it's a struggle to ever pick a project back up again. I have no shortage of old abandoned things. Almost everything I would consider "finished pieces of music" I've made in 1 or 2 days, often with some kind of time pressure applied to it. I have abandoned stuff lying around that is so old, I don't even remember writing it anymore. Zero desire to get back to work on any of it though.

This Saturday I dialed in a couple neurofunk basses, improvised about 10 minutes of wub-wubs over the most basic looped DNB beat and then added some random voiceovers with a "demonic" voice effect chain over it that I had made a couple years back. I exported that "jam", and it came out as -5 LUFS-I without me even trying to be loud and I almost posted a screenshot in the memes thread, because the waveform looked like a solid black bar in the Reaper export window.

I listened to it 2 or 3 times and felt quite good about it! I genuinely felt like in that incoherent mess there's a worthy neurofunk track hidden, if I just chisel away at it, slice, repeat and move around improvised parts to create structure and patterns... I went grocery shopping afterwards and still heard the wub-wubs in my mind, making me feel as if I could easily form a vision how I want to shape this into a track. Felt quite good about the whole thing! Been wanting to make a track in that genre for like 10 years or so, and this was definitely the closest I've come.

The next morning I tried to work on it again and all that positivity was just gone. It felt like "work" in a bad way. The music did nothing for me, sounded like the totally incoherent improvised mess that it's always been. I don't know what that means for me though. Is creating a vibe and listening to an improv once all I need out of music? Maybe even all I should be asking from it? Is it a pure skill issue that I struggle too much with navigating the endless possibility-space of bringing order to creative chaos? Am I a fool for trying to go for finished pieces when it's just not my thing, or am I a bigger fool if I settle for cranking out half-baked improvs that only ever could amuse myself? Am I a fool for overthinking something yet again? Or was the problem as banal as me making the mistake of trying to do creative work before the Ritalin kicked in?
I stepped away from the track and haven't touched it since...




@aldous Thanks a lot to you as well, the support you provide on this forum is truly appreciated! You've not only gone above and beyond with the outstanding tech-support in my BSOD thread, I've seen you help others as well and I'm really glad you joined our little community!

Perfectionism is a real issue for me for sure! I definitely miss-allocate effort all the time and it has ultimately killed many of my private projects. Professionally (not music, but creative work nonetheless) I do better with that because I'm always on an external time constraint, but that has in turn made me resent being under that kind of pressure. So naturally when I do private stuff I want to give myself permission to just dial in guitar tones for months if I want to, instead of settling for a reasonable "good enough" tone and just writing a damn song. I want it to feel decidedly different from work, even though that's not an efficient way to make anything.




Thanks again everyone! I'll keep you updated if I make any progress on this journey.
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I don't even know what this site is for or anything at all about it
 
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