Once or twice a week I like to do a turbocharged session. These are incredibly effective but need planned recovery afterwards.
The way I go about it is to stack 2 or 3 meditations, from large to small, in order to manipulate my neurotransmitters into a state of high focus without needing to sit for 6 solid hours.
I will start with a bike ride. Zone 2 all the way, no silly clothes, no surges of effort. The local mountain: 40 to 60 minutes of steady state climbing.
Cycling is perfect because you can have attention totally focused on keeping steady body and breath but awareness remaining on balance and general road safety. Put some music on and set your cadence.
If thoughts start to export from your cmem as you ride, stop and text yourself. Get them out. This will clear your brain for the real workout.
Cycling raises your tonic baseline far faster than dry-sitting ever would.
Ride home, get off your bike, and sit. No stretching or showering - the workout is not over yet. The bike was just the warm up.
Take this turbocharged tonic dopamine and lower your dvar. This usually happens easily and quickly if you also cleared cmem, but you can throw in some rocking or swaying, or even some humming or chanting to speed it along.
You relax and you breathe. Do not force your mind anywhere. You will find that it naturally focuses in a diffuse kind of manner. You may feel a pulsating behind your eyes, independent of your breath or heart beat. You may feel a tingling or expansiveness in your thighs or temples. You may feel lots or you may feel little; it’s all good. The priority is to just feel, and be, and allow the river to flow.
As you sit you will notice that your focus is naturally sharper and more energetic than usual. This is because of the elevated neurotransmitters from the ride.
You got an hour of solid zone 2 exercise in, which is great for the body, but the main thing is that it has primed the mind to flush detritus you no longer need.
So you use the hyperdopaminergic state from the ride and you calm your dvar even more, then as you bring your focus to meditation the second system kicks in [I need names] and your dopamine is ramped even higher.
Sit there until you feel like you’ve done enough… then sit for 30 seconds longer. Or more, if you want. Don’t sweat it too much; open your eyes gently when you are ready to move, but do not give in to an ‘urge to move’ because that is a phasic spike and we are training the mind away from reacting to them.
This clears some really deep-rooted things. In the river analogy, the amount of water at play here can reach a critical mass and dislodge branches or even trunks.
And this is why you will need planned recovery afterward.
A few hours later you might find that you develop a processing headache, or you are unusually exhausted, or your sleep is not quite as good as usual, or you wake up with high dvar. This is all ok. This is the mental equivalent of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) and is a sign that things are being loosened from your mind and are preparing to leave.
Just remember: do not force it. Never force it. Never try to push things out. This just elevates dvar and frustrates the process.
You are merely increasing the water level so they can flow out by themselves. Every dam will break eventually.
Once or twice a week for these; they are very effective but need recovery.
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