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Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

I wake up at 6:30am and feed my cats. Then I sit in a comfortable chair with my journal and Bible and stare out the window and I journal and contemplate and read and write and pray.

I used to do this with coffee, but I found the caffeine was actually shifting my energy window forward, even shortening it. Now I'll do calisthenics and spend a few minutes outside, taking deep breaths, if I need to wakeup before I sit down.

The amount of time varies, depending on what's going on in my life. I may spend more time journaling, note taking, reading, or just staring out the window and chewing on the thought. I have sessions that last fifteen minutes and others that last three hours.

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That's super fascinating. Does praying enrich your life? Do you think it's something you could replace with meditation?

It absolutely does. I've been praying pretty consistently since I was very young, around 5 years old.

When I discovered that wasn't normal for everyone, even people I go to church with, I was pretty surprised.

When I started meditating a few years back, I took to it like a duck in water. I had no problem doing 20-30 minutes right away.

But I don't get the same thing out of it that I do out of prayer. Meditation is like local maintenance - a reboot or a defrag. Prayer is more like a software update, connecting back to the home server for bug fixes and feature upgrades.

It's the feeling of being connected to something greater than yourself that seems to be the key difference.

When I was in college and I was in the Ultimate Frisbee club we played with a group of young Christians and it seemed very much to me like meditation (something I was more familiar with) and prayer were very similar. The concept of God may just make it more pointed, or more like a conversation.

Thanks for the share. You may want to check out Anthony De Mello if these are things you enjoy, I've been enjoying his meditations very much lately. Found out about him on HackerNews. He does Christian meditations with an Eastern style. But there's very little that is preachy about them.

it seemed very much to me like meditation (something I was more familiar with) and prayer were very similar. The concept of God may just make it more pointed, or more like a conversation.

Yes, if I was going to introduce a non-Christian to prayer, that's pretty much how I'd describe it. There definite similarities, but with clear differences that make it more like a dialogue.

I'll look into Anthony De Mello, thanks for the heads up.

> It's the feeling of being connected to something greater than yourself

Well said. I find it interesting that I feel the same towards the Universe. Maybe that's why I never felt the need for a deity.

> Meditation is like local maintenance - a reboot or a defrag. Prayer is more like a software update, connecting back to the home server for bug fixes and feature upgrades.

This is a brilliant analogy.

Praying is a form of meditation. In Hinduism a short prayer called the gayatri mantra is repeated 108 times, three times a day and this is supposed to improve your focus.

What do you mean by "shifting the energy window forward"? Can you elaborate?

When I don't drink coffee, it might take several hours for my mind to hit peak alertness, performance levels, but it when I do finally hit my stride, it seems to last longer.

When I drink coffee, I hit peak alertness/performance in 10-15 minutes, but then I'm crashing by early afternoon, sometimes even before that.

So the window in which I'm most alert and highest performing seems to shift when I drink coffee, rather than widen, say, 7:00am-1:00pm with coffee, for a 6 hour windows, compared to 9:00am-6:00pm without it, for a 9 hour window, but it's not open until later in the day.

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