The challenging effects of meditation
Buddhist derived meditation practices are increasingly popular and are often employed for treatment of stress, pain relief, addiction, depression and more.
Although, meditation has many reported benefits for the mind and the body such as increased awareness of thoughts and emotions and improved calm and wellbeing, there are other experiences and effects of meditation which are under-reported.
These experiences can sometimes be distressing, functionally impairing or require additional support.
Researchers from Brown’s University conducted a study to provide detailed descriptions of these other experiences and try and understand the myriad of ways they can be interpreted, why they occur and what teachers and meditators can do to deal with them.
A mixed-methods approach was used and featured qualitative interviews of 100 Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan traditions.
The research shows us that we are not alone in experiencing such feelings and challenges and it certainly challenges the assumption that it can only happen to people with a pre-existing conditions.
The practitioners were asked about their meditation experiences and influencing factors, including interpretations and management strategies. The answers were laboriously analysed and coded using qualitative research methodology.
The study also used standardised causality assessment methods like those used by U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure that meditation was the cause of the experiences which were reported.
Based on the interviews the researchers developed a taxonomy of 59 experiences organised over seven domains – cognitive, perceptual, affective (emotions and moods), somatic (relating to the body), conative (motivation or will), sense of self and social. They also identified 26 factors or conditions which may influence the intensity, duration or associated stress and impairment.
All meditators reported unexpected experiences across the seven domains such as sensitivity to light or sound, insomnia or involuntary body movements or challenging emotions such as fear, anxiety, panic or complete loss of emotions.
The duration of the experiences varied lasting from a few days to a decade in some.
Some experiences were desirable such as a feeling of unity and oneness but some meditators felt that it went too far or lasted too long or left them feeling violated, exposed or disorientated.
Other meditators felt positive during retreats but then they found that it interfered with their ability to function at work when they returned to normal life.
Because some meditators reported some experiences as challenging and then others reported the same experiences as positive, the researchers identified four domains of influencing factors which affected desirability, duration and intensity of these experiences. These were practitioner-related (the meditator’s personal attributes), practice-related (such as how they meditated), relationships (interpersonal factors) and health behaviours (such as diet, sleep or exercise).
For example, for some meditators the relationship with their instructor was stressful while for others it was a source of support. However, the researchers say that while the instructors practice intensity, trauma history and quality of supervision are important factors; the challenging experiences faced by meditators could not be attributed to these factors alone.
The research shows us that we are not alone in experiencing such feelings and challenges during meditation and it certainly challenges the assumption that it can only happen to people with a pre-existing conditions (psychiatric or trauma history) , who are on long or intensive retreats, who are poorly supervised, who are practicing incorrectly, or who have inadequate preparation.
With the findings of this research, further research is needed to understand why challenging experiences arise and with that information teachers and instructors can better design programs and support systems to help manage such experiences.
We know now that meditation results in all kinds of experiences for the individual practitioner – some of them are distressing and challenging but a whole lot of them are good and beneficial.
Source: PLOS One
