June 2010 Newsletter
June 1, 2010
What’s The Big Deal About Meditation?
~ Susan Reuling Furness
Overheard at the gym last week: “What’s the big deal about meditation? You won’t catch me doing it – meditation is for yogis in Nepal.”
I wanted to correct the man’s misperception about meditation, but since I was more or less eavesdropping on his conversation, I decided to write this article instead.
Meditation is not for everyone. Neither is scuba diving or fly-fishing. For that matter neither is marriage or ballroom dancing. Many people cannot sit still and meditate for more than a nanosecond. They tell me they get uncomfortable, bored, or both.
So what is meditation and why would you bother? Traditional sitting meditation, defined as continuous and profound contemplation or musing, was originally viewed as part of Eastern spiritual traditions. Much like prayer, except with no petition to a deity, meditation is a quiet time for focusing your mind.
Over time Western societies have learned that being mindful (often used synonymously with the word meditation) reduces stress and alleviates pain. The practice of meditation is known to improve the quality of relationships and the overall quality of life for busy and stressed people. Western medical practitioners now incorporate meditation as part of comprehensive treatment for people with debilitating, even terminal, conditions.
But what if you are someone who simply cannot sit still to meditate? You may not realize that it is possible to meditate daily without posing like a cross-legged Buddha at a mountain-top retreat. There are other ways to realize the benefit of a meditative practice. As the saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat.
Contemporary neuroscience helps us understand that musing, contemplation, and meditation are states of a quiet mind. Quiet mind is defined in terms of the length of active brain waves, which can be measured on an EEG. When one meditates, contemplates or muses, brain waves move from those rapid thinking beta waves to softer, more fluid alpha waves.
Alpha waves can be mapped while someone is daydreaming, pondering, zoning out, and about to fall asleep. Alpha waves are present during creative activities such as free drawing, uninhibited play and stream-of-consciousness writing. Likewise, this is your state of mind when you are quietly sitting by a steam. For that matter, if you take a long shower, you may slip into alpha-wave-thought. Indeed, when we are alone with our thoughts, we often drift naturally into a meditative state.
The idea of meditation is to make your contemplative trances purposeful and intentional. If you prefer to be more active and upright, you can still take advantage of the healing powers of quiet mind musing.
To begin, plan a regular time to be quiet and alone. Take up fly fishing or walking. Block out time for a twenty-minute bubble bath without interruption. Leave your books, computers, and cell phones behind and establish a routine contemplative hike or walk. Pick up a journal and follow the train of your thought for fifteen-minutes. Even mowing the lawn can serve as meditative time. In short, give yourself time to be alone with your thoughts.
These non-traditional practices do not possess the same exotic qualities as a sitting yogi meditation. In truth, however, you can achieve much of the benefit the yogi finds if you make your alone time intentional, quiet, and free of expectations.
Make a plan to quiet your mind. It’s really not that difficult and the benefits are truly profound.