So I "think" I suffer from stress, both work-related and from other real-life things I have very little control over.
I also have a physical problem: random twitching of muscles that one doctor thought might be stress-related. It's not that serious to my knowledge, but it is annoying.
Can people give me input on whether meditation helps in some capacity? Is it worth getting into? When/how often should I meditate? Please share your views or stance on it.
Meditation has been shown to have very clear positive benefits.
One caveat though: if you have OCD or you suffer from genuine delusions, meditation needs to be approached cautiously because in some cases, sitting alone with your thoughts like this can actually have negative impacts. This doesn't get talked about much and it needs to be said.
I think there are two streams of meditation:
There's the calm, quiet relaxation kind of meditation and then there's the more complex form of meditation that you find in religious practices like Buddhism and Hinduism, which has a quite a bit more to it.
I think that anyone can benefit from spending time in calm, quiet relaxation.
If you practice it, you will find it gets easier to do and you'll be able to do it in situations that are less than ideal.
If you are feeling particularly stressed out, tense, worried, preoccupied with thoughts, emotionally overwhelmed or similar things then meditation can help with this.
I'd say that, at least to begin with, practicing meditation is best to do when you're already feeling calm and centred. This will help you to familiarise yourself with the experience. If you are experiencing a lot of distress of some form, it can be a lot harder to reach a meditative state so that's why it's good to get practice in when things are okay for you. It's a lot like a muscle - you need to train before you can expect to do the heavy lifting.
You can meditate anywhere. You don't need a special place to do it in, you don't need a special posture, you don't need any particular environment. There are things that can be more conducive or less conducive to meditation though. If you have room, creating a designated place for mediating can help cue your brain so that it recognises that it's meditation time, a lot like how it does the same thing with bedtime cues.
There's really no limit to how often or how long you should meditate for. Even just brief moments of meditation can be very beneficial. I'd say that especially in the early days of trying meditation if you find yourself getting agitated or you have a strong urge to do something else, that's probably a good sign that you should wrap up the meditation for now.
Just some parting thoughts:
Meditation and mindfulness is really heavily commodified. Don't believe the hype, don't buy the tools or the special programs or anything like that. On a basic level, it's just sitting calmly and allowing your mind to settle - nothing more, nothing less. There's no need to buy stuff because of it.
Meditation can take on a lot of different forms and there are also more active types of meditation that can be particularly useful for people who have ADHD or who have physical difficulties with sitting for longer periods of time, such as walking meditation or yoga.
Beware of the cults and the gurus.
If anyone tells you that you have to do meditation one particular way or that their meditation is somehow superior to other forms of meditation, those are red flags.
I can talk in more depth about meditation but tbh a lot of that info just serves to overcomplicate the whole thing.