Meditation can leave you even more stressed
IT IS meant to leave you calm, confident and content – but meditation may actually stress you out.
During research into socalled meditation sickness, scientists found it could cause insomnia, anxiety and hypersensitivity to light and sound.
Touted as an antidote to the frantic pace of modern life, meditation is practised by millions around the world, including the actresses Emma Watson and Angelina Jolie.
But while some people felt bliss from having to concentrate on their breathing and striving to achieve ‘ loving kindness’, others were left in pain or struggled to cope with normal life.
Explaining the symptoms, the US researchers said meditation could cause problems by mimicking sensory deprivation.
People who spend a long time with their eyes closed and very still in a silent environment can find the noise and light of normal life become too much for them.
Willoughby Britton, assistant professor in the psychiatry department at Brown University, Rhode Island, said: ‘ There is a phenomenon called “relaxation-induced panic”, where some people have increased anxiety or panic when they relax. This is one possible mechanism for why meditation could lead to increased anxiety.’
In a report, the scientists said meditating also causes
‘Some people panic when they relax’
activity in the brain that can make it difficult to sleep and eat. Lead author Professor Jared Lindahl said: ‘A study on insomnia has suggested that, while meditation is often associated with relaxation, it in fact arouses the frontal region of the brain.’
Dr Britton added: ‘This may explain why the research on meditation and sleep has shown mixed results, and why some people, especially on more intensive meditation retreats, report insomnia or reduced need for sleep.’
The arousal caused in the brain may also account for reports that people’s appetite and weight changes after meditation.
The study, in the journal PLOS One, describes the ‘billion-dollar meditation industry’, with more than 20 mobile phone apps now devoted to meditation.
But medical reports document cases of meditation-induced psychosis, seizures and mania, while Zen Buddhists have long acknowledged the existence of ‘meditation sickness.’
The report claims people could suffer ill effects from doing less than an hour of meditation. Professor Lindahl said: ‘Meditators are often immobile, they are in a quiet environment, often with their eyes closed and they are restricting their attention to a specific object, which could explain certain changes such as becoming hypersensitive to light and hallucinations.’
His team interviewed 32 Buddhist meditation teachers and 60 meditators, all of whom had difficult or distressing experiences as a result of meditation, with 82 per cent feeling fear, anxiety, panic or paranoia, 42 per cent reporting hallucinations, visions or illusions, and 28 per cent becoming hypersensitive to light and sound.