Meditation

People say a lot of things about how to study. There are myriads of books written on this topic. General consensus dictates that a proper study environment and a healthy diet are good ideas for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. But what about more unorthodox approaches?

I was sitting on my floor listening to my Zune (which is functioning great so far by the way) , stretching, and thumbing through flash cards for Elite, when I thought of meditation. From Aikido I had minimal experience in the area, but I was pretty sure that some nerd or weird new age person had something to say about it (not derogatory terms, just a quick way to classify people, no hard feelings okay? :D ). So I summon the near all-knowing internet and did like... 10 minutes of research.

There are always radicals that claim supernatural abilities from things like meditation and yoga. Then there are people who think it is absolutely useless. Science daily pretty much said evidence wasn't quantitative, but one should not dismiss the posibillity of benefits for such practices. Athletes and martial artists and other such have been using meditation for eons to increase concentration and calmness.

The Conclusion: Meditation is fine and dandy and all, and the benefits are very much likely to be real. However, (though some may call this meditation as well) I think it would be far more practical to do a more "active" activity that offers similar therapeutic results. For example, I find blogging to be relaxing, to help my concentration etc... Other activities may include playing piano, guitar, etc. I guess what I was doing with stretching and such is likely to be an example of what I am advocating as well... a calming activity that increases awareness, concentration, etc.