Let me precede by giving a big fat disclosure that I am not a meditation expert nor a mental health professional. I am just a girl standing in front of the internet, sharing her personal experience and research regarding meditation. Please take any advice I give with a grain of pink Himalayan sea salt.
I’ve a confession: I don’t think meditation works for me. I’ve tried it for 30 days straight using the app Calm. (I’ve used headspace before but I didn’t really get into it.) I enjoyed it. I thiiiink I was calmer? But it might have been a placebo effect. Following the guidance of the app’s narrator’s peaceful voice, the experience was quite pleasant, and I actually recommended the app to a few people.
But did meditation make a significant difference to my life? Not really.
I felt almost wrong for admitting that – what is wrong with me? A lot of people I’ve talked to said meditation makes them more centered and calm – why doesn’t it really do it for me? I also know that we’re not supposed to make meditation “work”. But if I don’t see my life change significantly after doing the same thing over and over again for a prolonged period of time, I’m going to call it what it is – it doesn’t really work for me.
People react differently to meditation
What I gather from both talking to friends and doing research is that when it works for people, it really works. There are people whose lives are completely transformed for the better because of meditation.
There are also people who have experienced negative side effects from meditation, including increased anxiety, sensory hypersensitivity and emotional instability. In fact, Willoughby Britton, the director of the clinical and affective neuroscience laboratory at Brown University, runs a support group online for people who have experienced distress from meditation. She gets referrals from meditation centers, meditation teachers and apps, which she describes as “the new frontier of completely unsupervised meditation in mass quantities.”
These are the stories on the positive and negative end of the spectrum that get most highlighted and I perhaps fall in the middle. But who wants to read an article headlined “8 benefits of meditation that might not happen”?
What I gathered is that mediation doesn’t necessarily work for everyone and we shouldn’t feel bad about it if it. After all, we are all built differently. It’s like chocolate might do it for some people and doesn’t for some. I actually know someone who straight-up hates chocolate (shocker right?). Why do we expect the same thing to have the same effect on everyone?
What are you meditating for?
A quick google for “benefits of meditation” and you will find plenty of articles about the extraordinary advantages of meditation. They include reduced stress, increased concentration, better emotional health, and more.
These might be goals for your meditation practice as well. Meditation might help a bit to your process of achieving a low stress and a mentally healthy state, but what if what you really need is something else entirely?
I love how the narrator of this video on “Does Meditation Work?” puts it:
“Our capacity to be present is always there… Whether it’s your job or your relationship, there might be more fundamental reasons for your lack of presence which a mindfulness practice is not going to fix. If you’re not already present, the only thing that is going to change that is a change in belief or change in environment. In the West, meditation has been commodified and in order to sell it to people, we place the problem on them. You’re distracted and stressed because you’re not mindful. But the statement should be in reverse – you’re not mindful because you’re distracted and stressed. If you change your environment to one that pulls you to the present, you’ll naturally be more mindful.”
“You’re distracted and stressed because you’re not mindful. But the statement should be in reverse – you’re not mindful because you’re distracted and stressed.”
– by Freedom in thought
What if meditation can’t fix the lack of concentration caused by work that you don’t care about? What if meditation can’t fix the anxiety caused by an emotionally demanding family member? What if meditation can’t fix the stress caused by an abusive boss?
This reminds me of something a friend said. He worked in a high stress service industry environment, and he had been having a severe headache for two weeks. So he went to see three different doctors and tried various stress release activities like hiking and meditation. At the end he said “Gloria turns out I don’t have a brain tumour, I just hate my job.”
What to try other than meditation
Maybe you still need a solution for yourself to become more present, calm and less stressed. If meditation is not the answer, what is?
When I look back at the past two years and compare times when I meditated and times when I didn’t, I realize the factors that influence my mood and mental health most, way more than meditation, are fulfillment from relationships, work and regular exercise.
In a capitalistic society where we can seemingly buy or try a product, service or activity to fix everything, meditation is sold to us as the medicine for our relationship, work and life problems. What if we don’t need to add anything new, we just need to change something that isn’t working for us?
Changing our situations
Meditation won’t fix stress caused by a toxic relationship or a job. It might manage it, it won’t fix it.
If meditation hasn’t been working for you, perhaps it is a chance to evaluate whether you need to change the situation you are in. It is also pointless to directly compare yourself to how another person deals with the same situation. A friend of mine might thrive working in a surgical ward, but if you put me in there, I would likely curl up and cry in a corner. The situation might be in reverse if you put us both in a dress-making competition. We are all built differently and we are allowed to react differently to the same situation.
(But if you’re in a relationship with a narcissistic prick, forget about what I said above and just get out.)
By changing the situation you are in, I don’t necessarily mean just straight up breaking up with your partner or quitting your job. Perhaps it is about identifying exactly what is causing you stress in your situations and communicating openly with people involved about it. There might just be a way to work together towards changing it. You might not only be able to solve the problem you raised, your personal or work relationship might even become stronger after such open communication!
Changing our mindset
Being able to change our situation is a privilege sometimes. For some people, changing situations takes more than guts. If we can’t change our situation, another method is to change our mindset. Perhaps it is about accepting the situation as is, reframing our perspective on it and not trying to have our peace depend on someone or something changing. Perhaps it is about adjusting our expectations.
Stress and anxiety is often caused by our reality and expectation not meeting. If the reality can’t be adjusted, what about our expectations? I have definitely done work before where I didn’t enjoy much and was stressed out constantly. At some point, I was mostly just working for the paycheck. It is not ideal, but what’s wrong with that? Many people have to work on jobs they don’t like to support their families or save up for their future, and I am certainly not above that. I adjusted my expectations and saw it as an opportunity to gain valuable management experience and save up for the future when I could take more of a risk in my career. By no means was it easy to change expectations, but ultimately it contributed more to my sense of fulfillment.
Change your situation, and if you can’t change that, change your expectations!
Try exercise
Ok now for something that you can quickly access and do. I will be the first to say that exercise has changed my life. Changing situations and expectations take time and aren’t easily achievable, but another method to reduce stress and calm your mind is exercise.
Regular exercise is said to have a profoundly positive impact on depression, anxiety, ADHD, and more. It also relieves stress, improves memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood. Exercising releases endorphins, which generates a positive feeling for you.
I am not saying exercise is a cure-all solution for life’s problems, but I could see how compared to meditation, its chance of benefits without side effects are higher – if your goal is to become less stressed out. Meditation allows you to disassociate from life’s stresses and problems and look at them from “outside”, but we can’t cherry-pick the benefits of meditation – it could also cause you to disassociate from life’s joys. While this is probably a good thing if your goal for meditation is to achieve enlightenment, if you goal is to reduce stress… Maybe try exercise first?
You don’t even need to sign up for a pricey gym membership. I squeeze in 20-30 min of vigorous(ish) exercise almost every day by following Youtube workout videos. This allows the perfect change of pace for my day as well, which helps alleviate concentration challenges brought on by my ADHD.
Maybe don’t give up meditation yet!
This article is about how meditation hasn’t worked for me and alternatives to it, but to anyone reading, I would say don’t give up completely on it if you haven’t tried it! To be honest, when I receive an email whose first paragraph make my pulse rate spike, I still take a pause to observe my breath for five seconds. That is something taught in the practice of meditation. The observing breath part, not the five seconds part.
As I mentioned, everyone reacts differently to it and meditation might have positive benefits for you.
While apps would work, what seems better, if this is accessible, is to follow the guidance of an expert. After all, especially if you are planning to pursue meditation intensively, we are talking about the potential change of your mind. An app can’t help monitor your mental progress (at the moment), but a real human can. (But listen, lots of people have reaped benefits meditating to apps so it might work for you too!)
However, if your goal for meditation is to help reduce stress, calm your mind, and increase emotional stability, I highly recommend the aforementioned strategies of changing your environment, changing your mindset, or incorporating exercise into your days first.
They have worked wonders for me, and with exercise, it is something I het a lot of joy out of doing!
What has been your experience with meditation?