Please read two books, in this order. After reading these, you will know:

1. Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratna [0]

2. The Mind Illuminated by Yates et al. [1]

And plese steer away from awful sources. People, the modern day "influencers" are piggybacking on Meditation to sell their own stuff. And it is related to a lot of stupid concepts that higher practitioners of Eastern Spirituality themselves reject. "Kundalini"... My ass.

Meditation, when reduced to the physical technique itself, is utterly worthless, I assure you. There are several 5-minute videos that teach you meditation are shit.

________

Since you want to know about personal experience, let's do that.

I also fell prey to the snake-oil salesmen at first, who taught meditation in five minutes.

I tried for months and years, and nothing came out of it.

When I was going through a list of books recommended in Hacker News, I learned about The Mind Illuminated by Yates.

I bought it and started studying, and practising.

And, I promise you it changed my life.

I meditate from 15 to 45 minutes a day. Everyday.

I will list here some aspects of it.

I sit there, I observe my thoughts, and gently bring my mind back to my breaths.

Primarily, it is like "intuition training" for attention holding.

Whenever I am doing work or studying for my research, whenever my mind deviates, this training kicks in, in an automated way. I can very quickly bring it back. And it does get better with time.

My fully-sanctitious Pomodoro cycle went up from 20 minutes to 90 minutes. I can hold my attention, unadulterated, for that long.

This was the first benefit.

Secondly, I am much better at processing my own emotions. Every kind. I am much saner and calmer for it. I can process and handle and deal with all my emotions.

Thirdly, I am a much better decision maker from meditating. Before, I often suffered with my options. I could not decide what to do- from small decision to big.

Now, it's like my emotions are wiretapped and I know better what I want. And I can act accordingly.

And I am able to enjoy pleasurable activities more. Swimming, walking through the forest, eating favorite dishes, sex- all are much more pleasurable for me.

I feel the "training" from meditation kicking in when I want to have deep experiences.

I am also a better learner now. This could be a placebo. I always was a good and fast learner, but, I have more experience with myself now, but I feel this happened from meditation.

Meditation is hard. I always was interested in Buddhism (the non-spiritual kind. Read: What the Buddha Taught by W. Rahula [2]). And Buddha was a total no-BS guy. He asked people to experiment and if they didn't find the results alignigning with what he said, he said that he should not be listened to [3]. So, if he asked to meditate, and talked about its benefits, there must be something in it- that's what I thought. That's why I prevailed.

Learning coding took time. Learning Math and Spanish took time. Meditation should take time to be learned properly. Buddha, an athiest, an unorthodox, an uber-debater, and rationalist talked about benefits of it, and that made me prevail.

I am so happy for it.

Please reply to my comment if you have further questions.

I am currently on the deep peace stage. Seven times out of ten, when I try to be in the deeply peaceful state, I can be.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-G...

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrati...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/What-Buddha-Taught-Expanded-Dhammapad...

[3]: https://becoming-buddha.com/ehipassiko-come-and-see-for-your...

While we're on the subject of meditation books, I can recommend Mindfulness in Plain English[1] and The Heart of Buddhist Meditation.[2]

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-G...

[2] - http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/the_heart_of_...

Headspace is a classic Samadhi+Vipassana meditation wrapped into casual language. I used it a bit for a couple of years and it's a great intro into the practice before going guideless.

I also highly recommend "Mindfulness in plain English"[0], I wish I found it sooner.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-G...

Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana has been a good start for me. It explains meditation, different flavors of mindfulness, as well as techniques and what to expect when you first start. I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-Gu...

There's a great book called Mindfulness in Plain English, which I've been recommending for some time. It's direct, to the point, and addresses many topics such as distractions, pain during practice, exactly how to prepare, and of course what to do with your mind.

I think this is complete: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

But it's always nice to have something in paperback or Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-Plain-English-Anniversar...

The printed edition also has a nice afterword.

Either join a course or pick up a good book. I found this book immensely useful and simple to follow: "Mindfulness in Plain English" [1]

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Plain-English-Anniversary-...

If you're reading books like that, might I also suggest Mindfulness in Plain English: http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Plain-English-Anniversary-...

I found it incredibly useful.