This article is part of the ongoing Meditation for All challenge. Subscribers to the free newsletter receive weekly guidance and a daily practice.
Is Meditation a Placebo?
Meditation can often look like doing nothing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Meditation is very active. It is the act of being between highly alert and highly relaxed. Being between these two states trains our mind and body to later do all the things we do when we interact with the world around us, and yet remain in a very peaceful state.
Meditation is the literal training of our mind to be focused, patient, highly aware and highly peaceful. It trains our mind to tap into the inner peace and joy within. While it is not a placebo, placebos are actually a very powerful tool we can all use in our lives. Placebos are why a sugar pill can cure someone of their cancer. Simply believing something is helpful does make it so.
Is meditation a placebo? It can be easy to wonder that because whether you’re learning a language or a musical instrument, progress is slow. We can really be wondering if we’re making any progress at all, whether it’s dancing or making art. It can be a long time that passes, and we think to ourselves, have we gotten any better.
Then just a few days later, we might realize, “Wow, I just did something I never thought I’d be able to do.” Meditation is a lot like that. We spend most of our lives constantly thinking, constantly distracted by entertainment, or social media, or food, and hanging out with friends, and just always doing things that keep our mind racing and stimulated. We lose our ability to be at peace with stillness and quiet.
When we first start meditating, we’re not just learning a new thing.
We’re also unlearning, sometimes decades of habitual thinking and behavior.
It can be very discomforting at first. It’s a very unusual thing to practice being present, to practice being at peace, and finding that inner peace and inner joy, which we’ve been searching for outside of us our entire lives.
The mind, the racing, thinking mind, often fights us as we try to make it obsolete. So, it’ll say things like, “This isn’t doing anything, you should just quit. Why are we putting ourselves through this? Just check your phone.”
The question of whether meditation is a placebo comes from that thinking, racing mind. But in reality, what you are doing every single day you meditate is training your mind to be more present, more focused, more aware, and more peaceful.
Like training at the gym, reaching our ideal physical fitness level can take years, and it can take a long time before we even see results. Training the mind can also take a little while before we can look back and say, “Wow, my whole life has changed. I am so much happier.” Because when you realize that true happiness comes from within, there is deep peace and joy residing there.
Everything else that brings joy into your life becomes way more joyful, way more fun because you’re not attached to the experience. You’re not dependent on the experience. You simply can enjoy all of the varieties of experiences in your life.
Much of our lives, we suffer out of mere impatience, like a line at the DMV or being stuck in traffic.
But when you can sit, doing nothing for an extended period of time, a few minutes at the DMV or a few minutes in your car, or just being with peace and calm and joy within, you find that much of the suffering caused by impatience diminishes. While meditation has nothing to do with placebos, placebos, in and of themselves, can actually be very useful.
People have cured themselves of every kind of disease through placebos. It is a strange yet miraculous phenomenon that when a person believes they’re healing, their body starts to heal. People in scientific studies have even been told they’d been given a placebo, and they still take the placebo, and it still works. If they stop taking the placebo, their healing stops.
This is just proof that the mind is so powerful, that what you believe can completely change your reality.
Whether it’s believing that a sugar pill is a miracle treatment for some disease, or whether it’s putting all of your trust in the universe, your body, or God, that you will heal, you are more likely to heal. If you believe and trust in the universe or God, that everything happens for a reason, that everything is perfect and happening just the way it should, and that everything will work out, it can contribute positively to your healing process.
You will have less stress, be happier, and be more at peace. There’s nothing wrong with placebos; they are wonderful tools at our disposal and can drastically improve and save lives. However, meditation requires no belief, no faith, and you can still enjoy the amazing benefits.
Is Meditation a Religious Activity?
Along with meditation’s sudden rise in the West came a lack of information, a great deal of misinformation, and even some disinformation.
Meditation is a completely non-religious activity that requires no belief in anything. It’s not just for Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. Meditation is like dinner. Anyone can eat it and it is nourishing for all, regardless of what you think of it.
The two most common types of meditation are mantra and breath meditation. Mantra involves repeating a sound or word silently to yourself. It’s no different than silently humming. The sounds are often either meaningless or they may mean something like peace or love. Breath meditation is focusing on your breath.
No God ever said that it’s a sin to spend a few minutes a day focusing on your breath. Quite the contrary. God prefers us to be present, observe and appreciate all of God’s creation. That includes focusing on our breath and marveling at the miracle of life itself.
Meditation is no more religious than watching a sunset or looking deeply at a flower. It is merely practicing the act of observation and concentration.
By closing our eyes and sitting still, we’re able to turn our gaze inward and thus increase our understanding into the nature of our mind and body. We thereby remove all ignorances, cease habitual thinking and negativity, and increase our wisdom, peace, and joy.
Does Too Much Meditation Cause Side Effects?
With the rise in the popularity of meditation, many people are beginning to wonder if there is a downside to meditation. Some people have heard stories or read articles about people having side effects like panic attacks. Other people have heard stories about people withdrawing from their lives. Rumors of people becoming addicted to meditation have even been reported.
So, I would like to once and for all address each one of these as someone who has worked with thousands of meditators and seen all kinds of different reactions people have to meditation.
Meditation typically has no negative side effects. In very rare cases, people have reported crying, shaking, or experiencing tics during their initial attempts at meditation. This is not due to the meditation itself but rather because it’s the first time the person has ever sat down and just observed their own mind and body.
All of a sudden, many unconscious thoughts and feelings come to the surface for the first time. This process is actually an important part of healing and growth.
Is Meditation Just Sitting Still?
Meditation is much more than just sitting down with your eyes closed; it can be done while walking, eating, and even sleeping. During meditation, we bring our awareness into the present moment, acknowledging our mind’s tendency to dwell on the past or worry about the future. Importantly, we actively redirect our attention back to the present moment.
Some people do this by focusing on their breath, on a mantra, on their body, on the activity they’re doing in that moment, on a candle, a crystal, a statue of a God or Buddha, an image in their mind, or on the voice and sounds they’re hearing.
When done correctly, meditation is the training of the mind to focus on the present moment and become more aware of subtleties. By doing so, we can raise our level of awareness and consciousness, and increase our ability to focus and concentrate.
When we are more aware, able to concentrate better, allow time for our minds to process information, clear our heads of any distraction, understand the nature of our own mind, see and understand the impermanent nature of reality, and regularly practice recognizing how all things are connected, we become wiser, more thoughtful, more loving, more compassionate, more joyous, more grateful, and more peaceful.
Does Mindfulness Mean Suppressing My Thoughts?
Is mindfulness about controlling our thoughts or suppressing them? What is the difference? Are they even possible things to achieve? Are they even worthy of us trying? Because we know from experience that actually, you can’t control your thoughts. If someone says, “Don’t think of a purple elephant,” you think of a purple elephant.
While you can suppress your thoughts, we also know that it doesn’t really help. We’re just stuffing them down, but they’re still there, bubbling under the surface, waiting to explode, whether it’s anger and temper, depression and anxiety, a panic attack, or even heart disease, cancer, or some other illness.
From all of that unprocessed trauma and negativity that we have buried within us, it doesn’t disappear. We’re just burying it deeper and deeper, making it harder and harder to evolve and grow out of it.
So, I would never tell anyone they should try to control their thoughts or suppress their thoughts because both lead to bad outcomes. The best thing we can do is learn to focus our minds, focus our attention.
Think of it like this: you’re walking down the street, there is someone screaming hateful things on one side of the street, there is a violent man with a knife on the other side of the street, and in the middle of the street is a beautiful flower.
To control your thoughts would be to try to look away from the hateful person. However, you’re still hearing everything they’re screaming, you’re fixated on it, even though you’re desperately trying to look away because that is what is grabbing your attention.
You could try to stuff the guy wielding a knife into your pocket and try to ignore it in that way, but it’s just going to cut up your leg and do all sorts of damage. The only option is to learn how to focus your mind with intention, and we can do that by using the flower. We can choose what we focus on.
We can’t ignore what we’re focusing on. We can’t suppress what we’re focusing on. But we can choose what we focus on. This is the practice of meditation.
Learning to focus our mind, whether it’s on our breath, our body, or a mantra, meditation is the act of focus and training our mind in focus. So when scary thoughts come into our mind, we don’t ignore them. We don’t stuff them down. We don’t try to shut them up.
We simply bring our attention to our breath or our surroundings, and we become present, where thoughts just become the background. When we’re fully present, thoughts don’t take up so much of our brain space.
We can think of it like the ocean. If we just see the waves, and maybe they’re turbulent waves, maybe they’re crashing and they’re stormy waves. And if we only focus on that, then that’s all we know.
But if we expand our perspective and realize that there’s 99.9% of the ocean beneath the waves, and that this ocean depth is peaceful, calm, still, and quiet, then those crashing waves become insignificant. So the key is expanding our perspective and learning to control our focus, not our thoughts.
If It’s Not a Magical Experience, Then That Means I Am Not Doing Meditation Correctly?
Nuh-uh. Especially when just starting out meditating, a lot of disturbing, repressed thoughts and emotions may bubble up to the surface. It may be uncomfortable, but thank goodness it’s no longer bubbling beneath the surface waiting to explode in rage or manifest as disease or chronic pain.
Sometimes, meditation may be like beautiful fireworks and light shows. Other times it will be grueling. It does not matter. Meditation isn’t about the meditation itself. It’s about how to improve the rest of your day and your life.
Also, for people who have spent decades not meditating, always busy for most of their waking lives, suddenly shutting out the world and turning inward in meditation can be very jarring. You’re not used to it. We’ve grown impatient and entertainment-dependent since smartphones. But that’s all ok because it gets easier over time. The experience of meditation may not always be magical, but the results always are.
Is Meditation Doing Nothing?
No way! Meditation is a very active practice. It may look like nothing, but inside, deep concentration and sustained focus are taking place. Patience and discipline are being exercised. It is a state of heightened alertness yet calm peacefulness. It rewires the brain, boosts our happiness chemicals, lowers stress, and trains the mind to be more present and intentional.
Meditation is not at all sitting down and doing nothing. You are focusing on your breath, a mantra, or your body. So, you are practicing focus as you block out all the external distractions, and by raising your awareness of your thoughts, breath, mantra, or body, you are practicing raising your awareness.
The more you can sit still, with no distractions, no entertainment, no phones, and just be, you are practicing and developing patience, focus, and concentration. Finding peace within will drastically improve your life.
Is Meditation Just Wishful Thinking?
Yeah right! Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific journals have shown that meditation literally changes the size and shape of the brain. Parts of the brain associated with fear become smaller. The regions associated with regulating emotions and learning become larger. Even overall gray matter increases!?
Also, a little meditation has shown measurable increases in happiness, gratitude, a sense of oneness and connectedness, peace and joy. Not to mention a decrease in stress, blood pressure, chronic pain, anxiety and depression.
In the next article, we’ll look at what actually changes when you meditate every day, how it influences your relationships, and what meditation has to do with success.
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