Meditation will calm you down, they said. It’ll quiet your mind, they said. But what happens when meditation doesn’t do what the mindfulness influencers say? What if it actually makes you feel worse?
When everyone is pushing meditation as a trend these days, it’s hard to feel heard when you say it doesn’t work for you. People tell you to just keep practicing or try harder or wait and the results will come. But the fact is, meditation might not be the best mindfulness practice for you. Let’s talk about why and what you can do instead.
Why Is Meditation So Popular?
First off, it’s not that meditation is bad. It can help people relax, lower stress levels, and improve mental health. It can help you focus longer and make you more aware of how your body feels and responds to different environments and situations. It can even improve some physical conditions, like high blood pressure and headaches.
Since it has so many potential benefits, it’s easy to think, “Well, of course this will help everyone!” But everyone has a different body, brain, and experience.
Saying meditation will help everyone the same way is like saying everyone’s body responds to the same medication for the same health condition. It’s just not true, and sometimes you need a different solution.
Why Doesn’t Meditation Work for You?
Pushing the traditional idea of meditation on someone without knowing their circumstances can be both unwelcome and dangerous. Some people’s brains just don’t vibe with it.
Others have conditions that prevent meditation from helping as intended. Meditation can cause more harm than good if you have:
- Severe mental health conditions: Meditation can make anxiety worse by giving you time to repeat paranoid or obsessive thoughts in your mind. And if you’ve got severe depression, a solitary meditation practice can make it too easy for you to self-isolate.
- Psychosis: Meditation can make it harder for people who experience psychotic episodes to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. It can distort your reality, making psychosis symptoms worse.
- Trauma and PTSD: Meditation can stress your nervous system out if you have trauma or PTSD. It can trigger panic attacks, flashbacks, and make you feel more disconnected from yourself and your body.
- Addiction: When you sit with your own thoughts during meditation, it can feed into the thoughts of using drugs or alcohol, increase cravings, and make it harder to stay away from substances.
- Chronic pain: People with chronic pain may not be able to sit in the same position for long periods to meditate. It can worsen their pain, and if you’re in pain during the meditation, it’ll be much harder to concentrate. It won’t benefit you if your focus is on how uncomfortable you are.
Even when you meditate exactly as intended, it’s still not a magic fix. It can take weeks to see a change. Then, if it’s not the change you wanted, it’s easy to get frustrated. Having a broader understanding of what meditation feels like and how you can benefit from it can help you find other activities that create the same effect.
Mindfulness Practices That Aren’t Just Sitting and Breathing
Meditation isn’t always sitting in silence, alone with your thoughts. You might actually need to bring your focus away from yourself rather than deeper inward to calm your mind.
Repetitive motor tasks can give you the same meditative effect. Here are a few to try if sitting and breathing doesn’t work for you:
- Walking: Taking a walk engages you with your environment and gives you a repetitive, rhythmic movement to do.
- Coloring: Coloring puts you in a flow state and grounds you with tactile tools and repetitive motor movements.
- Gardening: Gardening grounds you, since you’re literally working with the earth. Plus, it gives you the benefit of cleaner air, if you have indoor plants, or a beautiful outdoor space.
- Cooking: Cooking lets you get creative and experimental. It requires you to keep your focus on your task so you (and your food) don’t get burned.
- Cleaning: If you like to clean, it can reduce stress with repetitive wiping or sweeping motions. These movements offer the same benefits as deep breathing.
- Fidgeting: You can sit still and meditate without closing your eyes and looking inward. Try using fidget toys and combining it with deep breaths. Or just notice how the objects feel in your hands to make you feel more present.
- Fiber arts: Crochet, knitting, cross stitching, and sewing promote concentration and flow. You don’t have to make anything specific. It’s fine to stitch until you feel done and then unravel it.
- Drawing: Drawing and other types of art can ground you and put your focus on the act of creating something and expressing yourself. While you can do it digitally, it may benefit you more to grab some paper and a pencil for this.
There are plenty more ways to get that same meditative flow state you’re looking for without risking your mental health. Try what sounds good, and remember the most important thing is that it works for you.
The Only Rule: Don’t Worry About Doing It “Right”
If you’re not seeing a benefit from meditation, it might not be because you’re doing it wrong. You might just need a different approach.
Instead of forcing yourself to do what the experts and influencers say, let yourself explore what calms you down. Switch between activities as much as you need to, and try to enjoy the process of learning what works to regulate your nervous system.
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