In a story out of Chicago, IL, 23-year-old busy woman Erica Park has enjoyed listening to her guided meditation at 1.75x the default speed.
“There’s nothing like being fully present in the moment,” Erica said. “It’s just that the dude drones on so slowly about the beauty of observing your own consciousness from the inside that I start thinking about what else I could be doing in that time.”
“Like, c’mon dude, spit it out,” Erica continued. “Yes, I am deeply aware of the sensation of cool air entering my nostrils and filling my diaphragm. Next?! I just heard my inbox ping. Let’s go.”
According to our sources, Erica sped along her path to mental clarity by fiddling with the speed-adjustment setting on her meditation app, warping her instructor’s soothing narration into chipmunk-speak.
However, Erica still retains a lot that helps her day-to-day.
“Something I’ll always remember from this one meditation I did was to ‘becomeawareofeachbreathaseachbreathmovesinandeachbreathmovesout,’” she said. “Or something like that!”
While some people have told her that listening to a guided meditation on mindfulness on 1.75x speed is actually defeating the whole purpose, Erica strongly disagrees.
“Time is a limited resource,” Erica said. “When I meditate 75% faster than the normal speed, I’m basically getting more mindfulness, with less opportunity cost. I’m just telling my brain, hey, I’d like expedited shipping on that mindfulness, please!”
To each their own, we guess!
