by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. & Salvador Cefalu, M.S., L.Ac.
Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below — what are your fears and/or experiences with meditation practice?
Meditation has become one of the most popular forms of relaxation in the world. But it may not work for everyone all the time.
While there’s a lot of research to support its efficacy, in this episode we’re going to address some of the dangers of excessive meditation and one of the most common complaints we hear about the practice of meditation — what if just sitting down to meditate stirs up more anxiety than relaxation?
Ashtanga Yoga & Meditation
In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali classifies Meditation as the seventh of the eight limbs or stages of ashtanga yoga.
The eight limbs are yama (abstinences), niyama (observances), asana (physical postures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption that leads to enlightenment) — in that order.
Each stage helps raise your consciousness and bring you closer to samadhi, or enlightenment.
This means that to cultivate a state of dhyana, or meditation, you must already have advanced your cultivation of the mind through abstinence, observance, withdrawal and concentration, and have cultivated your body and breath through pranayama and asana practices.
Most of us are not this advanced, which is why the practice of meditation has a greater potential to wreak a greater sense of havoc than bring on a sense of calm.
When we sit for Meditation without having worked on the other stages first, we may end up feeling scattered and anxious.
And because Meditation has developed such popularity in the West, if you don’t know ‘how to meditate’ it’s easy to feel like there’s something wrong with you. We assure you, there is nothing wrong with you!
Since we’re all wired differently, a person who naturally has a stronger Water energy will find it easier to sit quietly and practice Meditation while a Fire type person will find it creates anxiety despite inexhaustible efforts to make it otherwise.
The reason for this in part is that the mind needs to be calm and cool to sit quietly without feeling so restless.
This often demands that deeper inner work be done first, whether this is with a therapist or hypnotherapist or receiving Acupuncture treatment to clear and cool the body and mind.
Once much of this heat is cleared, it’ll be much easier to feel more settled and therefore be able to sit quietly.
In episode 2 of our podcast, Salvador shared the Waterfall Meditation, which is a wonderful practice to begin to cool and settle your mind. Click here to listen to that episode and learn the practice.
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*A Practice to Calm Your Mind
If you want to try to cultivate this cooling effect on your own, here’s what we suggest…
*You can find this guided practice starting around 13:50 of this podcast episode.
Start by practicing relaxation — let go of the idea that you need to learn how to meditate. Instead, focus on learning how to relax.
A simple way to do this is through practicing a relaxation technique called Counting Down.
This technique relaxes your mind by training you to focus on your breath.
Start by taking three deep breaths.
With your next inhale, begin to count down starting at 50. Your inhalation will be 50, exhalation will be 49, inhale 48, exhale 47, and so on.
Once you reach the number 20, you’ll begin to take an entire breath for each remaining number. In other words, rather than 20 on inhale and 19 on exhale, you’ll count 20 on your inhale and exhale, then 19 inhale and exhale, 18 inhale and exhale, and so on.
Each time you lose count, start over, beginning with an inhale at 50 then exhaling at 49 and so on.
At first, you may not make it past 45. That’s ok. Keep starting over again, and again.
Sometimes you’ll fall asleep. That’s ok too.
In order to relax, you need to first feel rested and oftentimes the thing you need more than anything is to sleep.
Over time, as you practice this technique you’ll find that in five to ten minutes you’ll be able to count all the way down to the number one. When you do, your mind will feel immensely more calm. And even if you don’t, you’ll likely notice that your mind is quieter.
So rather than focus on the trends and the stigma around people who don’t know how to meditate, start as a student of relaxation.
To meditate, you must first learn to relax, and then to concentrate. And it all begins by cooling and calming your mind with techniques like Counting Down.
Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below — what are your fears and/or experiences with meditation practice?