What's it like to meditate for several hours each day? How has it affected you in terms of stress, energy levels, health, and motivation?

This is my first post on Steemit, and i'll be happy to see if there's any interest and traction in me talking about these issues here.
i was originally asked and answer that question in Quora and i thought it would be a good idea to post this as my first post, because it would also be a kind of self introduction, at least by exposing something my spiritual side.

So, about that answer, with minor editing:

i had a few long periods (years) where i meditated 2+ hours of formal sitting meditation a day and then some, out of which about 2 years of 3+ hours a day. i won't even count the "informal sessions".

• Firstly, it is important to discern what one is practicing exactly, because for different types of techniques, methods and attitudes ("views") there may be rather different effects, and also the results differ by the spiritual maturity of the practitioner and his practice. Today, for example, i can achieve in a rather shorter a session of meditation the same results i got from a longer one back then, and my arsenal of "tools" is much, much larger (i was mostly Theravada practitioner back then, and now i'm Vajrayana practitioner).
• Also, at that time my main focus was on vipassana practice - mostly on physical sensation foundation, of the Four Foundation of Mindfulness - but not only - i also experimented by myself, due to the lack of any qualified teacher in my vicinity.
• It is also very important to understand, that in my situation, i practically walked that part of the path almost completely by myself. It was, apparently, a kind of illuminating, powerful, extremely sincere yet rather painful, in some ways.

So, what where the results? Let me enumerate what i remember:

1. i was usually (see below) very focused.
2. My equanimity was very high, usually (again, see below)
3. i was sometimes very sensitive in many levels - sometimes my equanimity did not "compensate" for that and it made me suffer.
4. My clarity was abnormal, usually, when i was approached by someone for advice. The intuition was like another mind that my normal mind was in awe of (i used to teach dharma then).
5. i did not understand, though, how to intimately approach people who were not in what i felt "adequate" level of clarity. Also - a source of suffering.
6. i was a bit attached to higher states of absorption, so when i fell out and down from them (and it bounds to happen, e.g. when you get sick) it often felt rather bad.
7. i kept my ethics and morality almost fanatically, no compromises (the 5 basic vows) and i couldn't even think about something that contradicts it without an immediate remorse.
8. The practice was very easy for me. Not practicing, however, was not easy.
   i barely needed to have a normal sleep. i meditated most of the night and my sleep was very meditative (i miss that part, in many ways).
9. i was practically a monk, for most of these periods.
10. i think most people felt they can't "connect" with me, because they wouldn't understand my world at all (i didn't learn how to pretend to be "normal" yet ;-) )
11. When i did the dishes, walked, drove, exercise - it was automatically meditative.
12. I felt that every month i learned a bunch of new things. Some of them were rather wondrous ...

All in all, it was wonderful and tough, and in some ways i miss this discipline and many of its fruits, although my tools today are much more mature and thankfully I'm not walking alone anymore...