Meditation has always been viewed as something that’s beneficial and one that can help you focus and concentrate better. While the hype has always been about the positive effects of meditation, not much has been done to review some of the associated negative side effects. It is hard to contemplate that an ancient practice that has been studied and practiced for millennia has associated side effects but that seems to be the case here. This is why it is pertinent to go into the positive and negative effects of meditation in detail.
Positive effects of meditation:
Of all the various exercise, physical and otherwise, meditation takes the top billing in any health and wellness center for its beneficial health effects. Here’re a few that makes meditation worth your time.
Stress: Meditation has long been practiced as part of a religious ideology for thousands of years but there’s no denying the fact that the various breathing exercise associated with meditation actually helps to calm you down. Apart from this is the fact that meditation is a way of teaching your brain to become more aware of what’s going on around you and in the process, it effectively de-stresses you. Research has shown that deep meditation rather than breathing exercises alone can help improve your anxiety levels and can bring the stress down to rational levels.
Alzheimer’s and dementia: No one is yet claiming that meditation is the cure for Alzheimer’s and resulting dementia, but new studies have indicated that long periods of meditation can help you focus and concentrate better. Moreover, it has been found that patients who have been meditating for long periods of time have better-preserved brains and as a result, are less at risk of developing dementia. This may have something to do with the fact that meditation helps to change the brain structure and even help it increase in volume.
Concentration: A recent study conducted by Harvard determined that continual meditation actually can help you focus better on the task ahead. This is why most meditation experts tell you to meditate anytime you contemplate a difficult issue.
Negative aspects of meditation:
Meditation it seems comes with its own baggage of side effects.
Past trauma: Usually meditation is about you sitting down and contemplating your life; the problem though is that this often makes you relive past traumas that you had managed to successfully bury deep down. Most meditation experts do not have the requisite skill to help you deal with any associated trauma. As a result, you are forced to confront your own worst nightmare when all you were looking was for a peaceful meditation period, resulting in distress and pain.
Personal health: It is always advisable to seek out your health care worker in case of a health issue. Meditation is not a “cure all” pill for all health issues; granted that most of the hype paints it as one but just opting for meditation is not going to make your health issue disappear. Whether you suffer from a dissociative disorder or an epileptic, you would still need to consult your doctor and take the required medication to lead a normal life. The same goes for sprains, fractures and any other health issue; meditation is more about introspection than it is a palliative for all medical problems.
Insomnia: Meditation, despite the fact that it has been practiced for thousands of years, is still little understood. It has been found to increase insomnia in some, but this could be on account of reliving past trauma when in deep meditation.
Appetite: It is for the same reason listed above, that a select few practicing meditations also experience a loss of appetite. This is why you need to be careful when choosing your meditation guru/teacher so that you get to learn all about meditation but from the very best.
These are some of the associated positive and negative effects of meditation. So before enrolling in a course, you may want to check online for some of the best mediation experts and learn the right way to meditate. Do remember to keep an eye out for some of the associated side effects but the common consensus holds that meditation is indeed good for you, both socially and emotionally.