What Is Meditation?

 

By Kendra Cherry  (about.com)

There are a number of different things that people can do to alter their states of consciousness, from practicing hypnosis to using psychoactive drugs to taking a nap. While some methods (like drug use) can be harmful, others (including hypnosis, sleep, and meditation) can have a positive impact on health. Meditation is also a consciousness-changing technique that has been shown to have a wide number of benefits on psychological well-being.

Question: So what exactly is meditation?

Answer:

Meditation can be defined as a set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of awareness and focused attention.

Some key things to note about meditation:

• Meditation has been practiced in cultures all over the world for thousands of years
• Nearly every religion, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, has a tradition of using meditative practices
• While meditation is often used for religious purposes, many people practice it independently of any religious or spiritual practices
• Meditation can also be used as a psychotherapeutic technique
• There any many different types of meditation

Types of Meditation

Meditation can take on many different forms, but there are two main types: concentrative meditation and non-directive meditation.

How do these two forms of meditation differ?

• "In all types of concentrative meditation, there is an attempt to restrict awareness by focusing attention on a single object. The practitioner attempts to ignore other stimuli in the environment and focus complete attention on the object of meditation. Attention is focused in a non-analytical, unemotional way, in order to directly experience the object of meditation, which can be located in either the external or the internal environment. Examples of the object include the breath, a mantra, a single word, or specific sounds."
  (Shapiro, Schwartz, & Santerre, 2002)
• "In nondirective meditation practices, a relaxed focus of attention is established by effortless, mental repetition of a short sequence of syllables, which may either be a traditional mantra or a non-semantic meditation sound. Whenever the meditator becomes aware that the focus of attention has shifted to mainly being occupied with spontaneously occurring thoughts, images, sensations, memories, or emotions, attention is gently and non-judgmentally redirected to the repetition of the meditation sound. The aim of the practice is to increase the ability to accept and tolerate stressful and emotional experiences as a normal part of meditation as well as everyday life."
  (Xu, et al., 2014)

The Effects of Meditation

Research has shown that meditation can have both physiological and psychological effects. Some of the positive physiological effects include a lowered state of physical arousal, reduced respiration rate, decreased heart rate, changes in brain wave patterns, and lowered stress.

Some of the other psychological, emotional, and health-related benefits of meditation include:

• Increased self-awareness
• Better stress management skills
• Improved emotional well-being
• Better management of symptoms of conditions including anxiety disorders, depression, sleep disorders, pain issues, and high blood pressure
• Improvement in working memory and fluid intelligence
• Changes in different aspects of attention

Consciousness is often likened to a stream, shifting and changing smoothly as it passes over the terrain. Meditation is one deliberate means of changing the course of this stream, and in turn, altering how you perceive and respond to the world around you. While experts do not yet fully understand exactly how meditation works, research has clearly demonstrated that meditative techniques can have a range of positive effects on overall health and psychological well-being.