But I was meditating every day, so I didn’t understand why I was so stressed out. I’d read enough about it in magazines and books that I thought the practice would render me calm and collected at all times. When I mentioned this to Allan Lokos, the founder and guiding teacher of the Community Meditation Center in New York City, he chuckled. “Meditation is not necessarily about stress reduction,” he said. “If one experiences a reduction of stress in practicing meditation that’s great, but it’s not really the purpose.” He went on to explain that the traditional, classic perspective of meditation has nothing to do with stress reduction or relaxation. You’ll never find those words or concepts in the original teachings, he told me. “Meditation was taught by the Buddha as a way for people to gain insight into what life is really about and to gain wisdom, which will lead to a cessation of the way people cause themselves unhappiness,” he said. “What is left with the cessation of the creation of unhappiness is a life without stress.” It was an interesting perspective, one that was at odds with my quick-fix attitude. “So then why should I continue to meditate if it’s not giving me the sought after by-product,” I asked? “That’s just part of the process,” Lokos said. He explained how people tend to think that if they have positive thoughts during a meditation sitting it is good, and if they have negative thoughts during a sitting it is bad. “That’s not true,” he said. “What’s good is to sit and practice.” I took Lokos’s advice and continued on my journey to enlightenment, content with the way things were in the moment. Although stress reduction might not be the main goal of meditation, enough research supports the idea that the practice of mindfulness can relieve emotional or mental strain. A study published in March 2018 in the journal Brain and Cognition found that individuals who practiced Transcendental Meditation, a form of silent mantra meditation, over a four-month period experienced reduced levels of psychological stress in the workplace. Another study, presented at the Experimental Biology 2018 conference in San Diego, found a reduction in anxiety after a single one-hour introductory meditation session. There’s even a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. The program was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, the founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, to help chronically ill patients who were not responding to traditional treatment. Since its inception in the 1970s, the program has spread to medical schools and mindfulness facilities across the country. Mounting research demonstrates other benefits of meditation, including pain reduction and improvements in memory and concentration. Of 122 people living with chronic musculoskeletal conditions who participated in the Pain and Stress Management program implemented in 2017 at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, more than half said that mindful breathing helped them manage chronic pain and stress. The research was presented at the American College of Rheumatology and Association of Rheumatology Annual Meeting on October 24, 2018, in Chicago. Research published in March 2018 in the journal Brain Imaging and Behavior found that individuals undergoing mindfulness training experienced improvements in memory performance, which was also linked with volume increases in the left hippocampus, a region of the brain associated with memory. This sounded great and cheaper than any other stress-reduction technique I could think of — massage, yoga, reiki. I decided to give it a try. Here’s what I learned about meditation after trying it for a month, and how it helped me.
1. You Can Meditate Anywhere
When I started, I would set my alarm five minutes earlier than usual and wake up and listen to a guided meditation on Calm, the meditation app (free on the App Store and Google Play, with in-app purchases). But a few days into the new habit, I overslept. I had no time to meditate and rushed through my morning routine to get myself and my daughter out the door. When I was sitting on the subway headed to the office, it started to weigh on me: How am I ever going to keep this up for a month? I don’t have time to meditate, even when I try to make the time. Then it struck me: I could meditate on the train. I stuck in my headphones and located the app on my phone to get five minutes of stillness before I started the workday. Although Lokos suggested that it’s better to have a set time and location for a meditation practice, these are not hard and fast rules. In fact, there really are no rules when it comes to meditation, especially when you’re starting out. Lokos reassured me of this point when he ran down the dos and don’ts of meditation: “You don’t have to sit with your legs crossed and you don’t have to close your eyes,” he said. “You don’t even need the app.” According to Lokos, all you have to do is follow the sensations of the breath. “In the early part of training, it’s about the development of concentration,” he said. “Select one place and time where it’s easiest to follow the sensations of the breath.” For me, that place wasn’t always the same. I’ve meditated on the subway, in a quiet office at work, in the steam room at the gym, even in a meditation van that fortunately parks near my office on a regular basis. But for those of you, like Lokos, who thrive on discipline, he suggests that meditating in the mornings works better than later in the day.
2. A Meditation by Any Other Name Is … Meditation
When I announced my intent to meditate to my colleagues and friends, I was inundated with suggestions on how to get started: try this app, get that book, go to this class. It was great to know that there were so many options available to me, and I tried each one out. I personally found a guided loving-kindness meditation to be the most enjoyable. Also, it helped to have a voice to follow because I found it easier to refocus whenever my mind wandered (which it did often). There are many different kinds of meditation to choose from, and research shows that different meditation types can have different effects on the brain. In a study published in October 2017 in the journal Science Advances, researchers looked at the effects of three different types of meditation practiced for three months on the brains of more than 300 volunteers. The first group practiced focusing on their breath, and bringing their mind back to that focus whenever it wandered. The second group practiced a loving-kindness meditation to enhance one’s compassion. And the third meditation group was instructed to observe their thoughts in a nonjudgmental manner. MRI scans of participants after each three-month course was completed showed that each of the different trainings led to volume increases in the corresponding brain areas: Focused meditation led to increased volume in parts of the brain that deal with attention, compassion meditation was linked to enhancement in brain regions associated with empathy, and nonjudgmental meditation was associated with changes in the part of the brain involved in theory of mind, or understanding the perspective of others. When starting your practice, Lokos suggests trying out different things until you find what’s right for you. “Read some books, read what might make sense, and go and try different things,” he said. And it’s important not to get discouraged if you don’t reap expected benefits right away. Richard J. Davidson, PhD, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin in Madison told me that as you become more familiar with the nature of your mind, things may seem worse. That’s good because you’re actually noticing what’s happening in the mind and you’re still progressing. Dr. Davidson also stressed that meditation will not benefit everyone in the exact same way. “What amount of practice can be of benefit to one person will be different to another person and will differ by the kinds of meditation being practiced,” he said.
3. Meditation Helped Me to Stay Focused
Though keep in mind this wasn’t a scientific study, and I didn’t control for all confounding factors — for example, I quit using social media — two-thirds of the way into my practice I noticed that I was remembering things more easily and felt more productive during the daytime. A growing body of research supports the notion that meditation can improve memory and concentration. In a study published in March 2018 in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, researchers followed individuals for seven years after they completed a three-month retreat at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. The retreat involved daily meditations designed to focus attention and develop compassion and loving-kindness for themselves and others. Participants who continued their practice after the retreat showed the same improvements in mental health — better focus and attention — as they had right after completing the retreat seven years prior.
4. The Practice Helped Me Remain Calm in Otherwise Stressful Situations
Remember how I mentioned that guided meditation suited me best? The one I did most frequently was called a loving-kindness meditation, also known as a metta meditation. It is a practice of cultivating compassion for others. While focusing on my breath I would listen to a voice as it guided me through sending goodwill and kindness to others — people I loved, my acquaintances, and even people with whom I was having difficulty. Practicing this type of meditation, helped me to feel more compassion for the people I found otherwise annoying and I was able to relinquish any ill will. By calming the mind I was able to gain a new perspective, see things more clearly and have compassion for others. I was also able to more calmly handle discussions with my landlord about the renovations taking place in my building. I wasn’t confrontational, accusatory, or mean. Instead I remained calm and spoke thoughtfully, and was able to walk away from conversations with him feeling proud rather than ashamed. “The gaining of clarity is a significant benefit of meditation,” Lokos told me. “It’s the opposite of delusion." Although my “30-day challenge” has ended, I still practice meditation on a fairly regular basis. When I find myself getting angry or anxious or stressed out, that little voice inside of me gently asks, “have you meditated today?”
