Matt Cooke recommends using a 100% blackout eye mask during meditation to deepen the practice. Morning light triggers serotonin and beta brainwaves that keep you engaged with the external world, while darkness maintains melatonin and shifts you toward alpha and theta brainwaves where your mind becomes more receptive to visualization.
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Simple video, but this will change your entire meditation practice, especially when it comes to manifestation. This is a very simple 100% blackout eye mask, and I recommend to all of my clients to wear one of these when they meditate. And there's a simple reason, several simple reasons. Firstly, when you're going to put this over your eyes, it's just going to make it feel just that little bit more immersive. We really want to detach from our sensory input and we want to really find that present moment. But actually, several things are happening in the brain, especially when you meditate either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. When your retina interacts with daylight, you are producing a chemical called serotonin. And serotonin is this chemical which really helps you wake up. It puts you in what's called beta brainwaves, and that means you're more plugged into the external world than the present moment and the imaginary world. So if you're meditating first thing in the morning, even without an eye mask, and there's perhaps some light coming in, that serotonin is increasing, and you're actually fighting against the natural process of your brainwaves increasing when the whole purpose of meditation is to slide down those brainwaves. We want to really get down to alpha and theta brainwaves because we're really suggestible there, meaning that when we're suggestible and we can hold a vision for our future, we're going to emotionally feel it and embrace it. We're not going to be fighting with the left side of our brain which is the analytical part of our brain. So when we wear the eye mask first thing in the morning or last thing at night, it keeps melatonin levels steady. And melatonin is the chemical that naturally helps us go down and helps the brainwaves slow down. This is something I've been doing for years myself. I absolutely love it. So if you're not meditating with a blackout eye mask, I 100% recommend it.
