I recently hit a milestone in personal development. Over the last year, I have done my best to find quiet-time for myself. Meditation has helped me manage stress, focus on what is important, and gain a second (sometimes third, fourth, and fifth) wind to approach the day or problems with a fresh set of eyes. I believe you can not help others, lead a team, or do your best work until you get yourself in order. This past week I hit 365 days straight of finding time to clear my head, and it feels incredible.

Before consistently meditating I had trouble sleeping. I would let the stressors of the day impact my night and even experienced a few night tremors. Waking up screaming and not knowing where you are, sucks. I also let stress impact my personal life by taking out my stress on others or being withdrawn from situations I should have been enjoying. I needed to take control. I spoke with my doctor, ran tests, and very luckily all was well physically. We discussed how stress kills, and how I could take control of it. I decided to give meditation a try. Quietly sitting, getting lost in my own head would be a great start to understanding why I was stressed and under self-inflicted daily pressures. Meditation forced me to start making sense of what was going on in there.

As it is men’s health month, I wanted to share and (hopefully) inspire anyone to give meditation a shot if you are feeling overwhelmed. I know that I can say meditation and breathing exercises have done wonders for me and I believe it can for you too. If you have any questions or need any advice on getting started, feel free to contact me at Matt@YourFriendMatt.com, I would love to help anyone!

It is okay not to be okay, man.

-YourFriendMatt