Short answer - stress word started feeling like a joke

I'm sorry this seems terribly HN of me to not answer your question and go on a tangent, but consider a retreat. If you want to give it a serious try, it's night and day compared to doing it at home for 20 minutes a day, especially in the beginning when nothing makes sense and it's hard to know which direction progress even is.

The first time I did a Vipassana retreat many years ago it really showed me that "oh, right, the mind can get into a veeery different state if given the right environment".

Some might say it's an artificial environment you can't replicate at home, and I agree, but by getting much further in such a dense time, it provided a better anchor for me to know what I'm even trying to achieve in my 20 minutes at home.

But it can be very intense, it's possible it would be too much for someone that isn't in an appropriate mindspace.

I'm a very unserious meditator, but when I sit down I at least know when I'm doing "right concentration" or not, so it's possible to have a direction.

I'm speaking very vaguely, but, you know... it comes with the territory.

Stopped mistaking my thoughts and opinions with reality.

Result: 90% reduction of agony.

Meditation method: remembering the sense of “I am-ness” in every waking moment, stop thinking whenever possible, focus on senses whenever I remember. When: always, unless I forget.

> It's frustratingly difficult to even get through the first lesson in which you are supposed to focus on your breath and minimize the wandering of your mind.

There’s the problem: trying to control your thoughts. Thoughts will come and you shouldn’t beat yourself up when they do. Be patient, keep practicing, and you’ll get better at focusing.

Alternatively consider something like box breathing. I use the iBreathe app and find that works better for me than meditation.

What's the problem with stress? If you have sleep problems, just put something monotone on the TV/headphones in bed and try listening to it. If you don't - just roll with the thoughts. You will most naturally sleep it off every night.

Literally nothing, so I stopped

> I realized that even lifting weights, sleeping and eating well aren't enough

aren't enough for what?

> frustratingly difficult to even get through the first lesson in which you are supposed to focus on your breath and minimize the wandering of your mind

Everyone experiences this. Please don't be frustrated by it.

The mind wandering is part of the practice. In fact, that instant where your mind has been wandering and you "snap out of it" is perhaps the most valuable.

That little skill carries over into real life. When someone cuts you off in traffic and you feel that flash of anger, your mind will catch itself and you'll just let it go and get on with your life.

You're probabably already doing things right.

I also started with the Waking up introductory course. I took 10 min of my lunch break every work day and practiced, I wasn't so good on the weekends.

I am not sure if I can give definitive answers to all the ways how It's affected me, but I recognize more often when I've gone into autopilot

I read something that helped me keep going, can't remember the source so I'll paraphrase: Meditation is like showering. You have to keep doing it for the affects to stay

> minimize the wandering of your mind

To paraphrase the wonderful Thich Nhat Hanh, include that in your meditation. None of us, even the most skilled mediators can get to the kind of clarity and simplicity that people expect from meditation.

It's not about emptying your mind, that's impossible, it's about learning to be fully present in the moment. Anchor in your breath, in your senses, in the right now and think "Breathing in, I know my mind is wandering"

I like to imagine it as a clear afternoon day. Some thoughts, some clouds will appear, but my presence is the sky behind them.

https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/key-books

Sounds like you are trying to tame your thoughts? It will not work, they just don't succumb to effort. Noticing them is all that is required and it's the only thing possible.

Instead of a how-to course, I suggest you look for Dharma talks on the practice of meditation. They can be very, very profound, there is a lot of material available. On just one site, the first one I looked at, spiritrock.org, there are over 100 talks for beginners.

A how-to app is doomed, which fact can be hard to grok. It's not like learning to drive or learning a programming language. A teacher or a retreat can be very helpful to get you past the initial missteps and misapprehensions.

Your mind is designed/evolved to wander, it’s a feature, not a bug, So don't worry too much about that. In meditation, especially for beginners, it’s about how many times you catch yourself and bring your focus back to your anchor. More the merrier, every distraction is just another opportunity to practice.