Silent meditation retreat
Ten residential days of silence and long sitting, no reading or phone
Ten residential days in silence, with no reading, writing, exercise or contact with anyone else. The day starts around 4am. Roughly eleven hours of it go to sitting, learning a body scanning technique in stages across the week. People who go tend to describe the first three days as awful. What they report from the back half is nothing like ordinary practice at home. Courses in the vipassana tradition run on donation, so the real cost is the ten days away from work and family.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Tiago ForteDoes it
Productivity writer · Building a Second Brain
Sat a ten-day vipassana course in California with no talking, reading or writing, waking at 4am for the first of about eleven hours of meditation a day. He wrote it up afterwards as a lesson about attention rather than as a spiritual account.
Source: fortelabs.com: 10 Days of Vipassana
Aimed at the same thing
Other entries filed under stress or focus.
- Protocol$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Deliberate cold exposure
Cold showers or ice baths used deliberately, usually a few minutes at a time
On record from 25 of 62 tracked people: 19 do it, 6 have discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Non-sleep deep rest (NSDR)
10-20 minute guided body-scan rest, sometimes called yoga nidra
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it, 1 has discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Physiological sigh
Two inhales through the nose, one long exhale; heart rate drops within seconds
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it, 1 recommends it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Shipping creative work
Publishing on a schedule rather than waiting for the work to feel ready
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it, 1 recommends it - Protocol$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Transcendental Meditation
Silent mantra repetition, about 20 minutes twice a day, taught in a paid course
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Vision setting
Write down a specific picture of who you are becoming, then filter decisions through it
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it
Protocol entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.