Meditation: The Seat Belt Of Mental Health

I once heard a world-renowned psychiatrist pose a question to a room full of mental health experts. He asked, "What is the 'seat belt' of mental health? Seat belts save lives, they are a simple thing people can do to protect themselves from physical harm, but what is the comparable tool to protect us from the mental hazards of life? What is the seat belt to protect against the risks for unhappiness, depression, anxiety, pain, and suffering?"

We all know that the road of life is bumpy with unexpected drop-offs, accidents, and only the occasional smooth-sailing highway. I believe that meditation -- a practice for increasing awareness -- is truly a seat belt of mental health, a protection for us on the hazardous road of life. Meditation doesn't mean sitting and reciting a mantra , although one could practice that way. Meditation is a mental exercise that heightens your awareness to experience. We have a center at UCLA where we teach meditation to the public as well as investigate the science behind it. I often look at our work promoting meditation and think that it's like the early days of seat belts -- only a few people thought it was a good idea, and most people didn't want to be bothered with it.

I remember when cars started coming with seat belts, and I remember that no one wore them. In fact, I remember consciously choosing not to wear a seatbelt. Over time, more and more people started to "buckle up," then cars had to have them, and finally the laws required us to wear them. I'm not advocating that we have laws requiring us to meditate (but I wouldn't mind if all schools and workplaces offered meditation and places for people to find a little peace and quiet). The biggest shift would be that we as a society started to see the value of meditation, in taking time to discover our inner sense of awareness, to heighten awareness of our experiences.

To get there, we will likely need the science of meditation to be disseminated by some PR firm with a large scale marketing campaign, like "Buckle up for Safety, Buckle Up" was back in the day. The science is pretty convincing -- meditation can improve your health (boost your immunity) and lead to happier and more compassionate living (it is strongly associated with happiness and well-being). Given the simplicity of meditation-- it's free, easy to do, and available to everyone--I think it is likely merely a matter of time before it becomes as routine as putting on a seat belt.

Until then, take note of the little things you already do that heighten your awareness, like paying attention to a breath or two, and consider practicing a little meditation every day. Try it and see for yourself. Meditation alone won't protect you from all things hazardous to your mind, but like a seat belt, it can help!

Comments

[kirkland]

I think that it would be incredibly facillitative *first* if people simply learned how to breathe properly. Most people walk around oxygen deprived and don't have the developed muscles ( diaphragm and other small muscles surrounding) to get a full breath. All yogis , meditators here know that a full breath pushes the belly out while the lungs expand , flooding the body with o2. To see the effects that o2 can have on your body...take a deep breath in on a count of 5 - hold it for 5 , release it on a count of 5 . do this 3 times. Your body/tissues will re-energize.
People seem to connect spiritually , right away , after they develop the ability to take a proper breath. Surely it would then facilliate learning to meditate which can be incredibly simple. Or, complex , depending upon approach. The benefit comes from achieving alpha/beta or even theta , while awake. It syncs the brain and creates new pathways neurologically - all to our benefit in waking life. Our interior organ systems and many say , the cells themself relax. During these deep states natural HGH is released which renews our body and its systems. ( it does this as profoundly in meditation as occurs within 8 hours of sleep )
I think that meditation has more benefit for our body/mind system than anything else that I might imagine. Clearly a spiritual benefit exists for many as well.

[olivine]

I don't know...do you think Shakespeare, Leonardo de Vinci,Michaelangelo, Benjamin Franklin, all those kinds of guys, meditated? My breath interests me only to a certain degree, and that mainly involves just breathing.Nothing beats vegging out in a hammock under a tree, blue skies with a hint of clouds above, light breeze blowing, book close by just in case...and if that is far from present reality, then imagination comes in handy.I have all of eternity to bliss out, so why take up valuable time thinking of nothing, now?

[sabocat]

I'm happy to see a blog on the health benefits of meditation. I came to my seat as a result of ptsd from activist work in El Salvador during the '80's. My first ten day vipassana retreat was undoubtedly the most difficult, physically and emotionally grueling experience of my life, and also the most rewarding. It's amazing how much tension and stress can be built up and held in the body-mind complex without our awareness. I realized very quickly that my mind was out of control, and that in fact most if not all people without the experience of an extended retreat were pretty much in the same boat as myself.

The problem with a clinical approach to meditation is precisely the lack of clinical experience in the extended retreat setting, where most of the positive benefits actually spring forth.

Over on this side of the country, folks like Jon Kabat-Zinn have been doing clinical research on meditation for decades, and they actually refer people for ten day retreats. I'm wondering if you guys do the same. I would also like to see a bibliography of your research. I teach meditation and pranayama at a health resort, so any new info. is always greatly appreciated.

[tbone99]

meditation helps you to not sweat the small stuff and if you don't kick the dog cuz you had a bad day you're less likely to fall of the porch doing so,knocking over your kid on the bottom step whose screaming brings out your wife stirring a pan of hot gravy... well lets just say it makes life a lot less complicated

[tjfxh]

Scientific research now abounds on the physiological and psychological effects of certain popular types of meditation where there is a sufficient research base, including Transcendental Meditation and Insight Meditation. Check out the research and decide whether the investment of time and tuition is worth it for you. I did decades ago and started TM in 1971, and I'm pleased with the results.

[democracydiva]

That's quite an exposition, fairwitness, and I agree with you but for the beginner just getting them to unplug from this overloaded, narcissistic world of ours is the first step. To derail americans from 'me, me, me' would be a profound change. Apparently in Tibet, early on, it was a warrior nation and had conquered everyone in the neighborhood. Then they started meditating, and besides being trampled on currently, they are a loving and compassionate people. How can we protect love and compassion?

I digress. Another benefit of meditation is good sleep. It must be something about getting that attack dog of a mind off your back. I was in a meditation group with a woman who had been an insomniac for 30 years and with meditation, she started sleeping well. My sleep improved as well.

The mind is definitely problematic as you say, it's often the ego; it's also just a tool for e.g. solving problems. But it shouldn't be in charge, for sure. The US is soo run on ego, just witness. One meditation teacher taught "don't believe everything your mind tells you" - good advice.

I hope meditation does become as common as seatbelts.

[Pandu]

I've studied hundreds of books on yoga and meditation to guide my own practice, and I've taught hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, and bhakti yoga.

Formerly meditation was a technique for the individual soul to find the Supersoul (paramatma) or Personality of Godhead within the heart. Now it's reduced to a way of reducing stress by forgetting our problems. In this way it's similar to taking drugs; the problems don't go away.

There is always a subject-object-knowing relationship. It does not go away by any kind of practice. The mind takes one's awareness from one object to another until by practice of concentration (dharana - the sixth step of the hatha-raja yoga system) fixes it on a single object.

The question, then, is what to choose as the object to concentrate upon. This subject is extensively addressed in Bhagavad-gita http://bhagavadgitaasitis.com/enn), wherein Sri Krishna explains (verse 12.5, for example) that impersonal meditation is very difficult for embodied souls.

Not only is it difficult, but the result is temporary because it is unsatisfying. What we crave, whether we know it or not, is pure love, and such love can only be felt in relation with God. God has innumerable forms according to His various pastimes, but those who understand the conclusion of the Vedas accept the speaker of Bhagavad-gita, Sri Krishna, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the ultimate object of meditation.

It is difficult to imagine the form of the Lord, even after hearing of His transcendental bodily features. However, if one accepts the absolute nature of the Personality of Godhead, the process becomes easy. There is no difference between the various features of the Lord -- His name, form, pastimes, and entourage are all equally transcendental. In consideration of this, the best method for attaining the supreme state of awareness is to constantly hear and chant the holy names of the Lord. Among all the Lord's names, the most effective for promoting spiritual consciousness is the chanting of Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

[bethinCary]

Meditation should be requitred. I'd go a step further and say we need to teach our kids too.

My belief in meditation goes along with trying to practice Rosiecrucian beliefs (NOT a religion.)
Becasue we need to realize we have a spiritual self which needs to be fed,along with our physical self (ego,emotion)-we need to strike the right balance between them.
We tend to stay in the physical-emotional self-and let emotions dominate our actions. Sometimes we can't' help it.
News, comments, others' emotions,hormones, stress...can all manifest itself as ill-health or negative thinking if we don't.
So learning to tackle those emotions-to be able to control our own mind-is key to be able to meditate.
You can go through smaller exercizes like multiplying 2-digit numbers in your head (no paper),memorizing 4 lines of poetry daily,looking at peoples' faces-looking away and holding thier expressions inyour mind for a minute (to better understand emotion and connectedness).
You have to gain a certain amount of focus before you can attempt to meditate-so do some exercizes on focus first for a few weeks. Work out your emotions. Don't let others emotions affect you-remember you have the right NOT to let them affect you.

[cktirumalai]

I have done no formal meditation but I try to punctuate my day with brief periods of reflection, which allow me to see through, around, and past events, personalities, accidental happenings. Sometimes I reflect on my personal past, ranging, say, from a year to a decade; new patterns of understanding emerge, so that what I saw in one perspective five years ago I now see in another. In the early part of one's life, things happen; in later years, one has a clearer idea of how and why they happened.

[fairwitness]

It seems meditation is "in the eye of the beholder"--prescribing meditation as you define it (a mental exercise done to gain mental benefits) allows it to be just another selfish pursuit of personal benefits (and/or escape from personal sufferings), albeit relatively benign. Of course, something relatively benign, in a culture full of pervasive, daily sensory and mental assaults on each and every person, is, well, relatively a good thing.

But a prescription for meditation as prophylactic should, first, define exactly which activity is recommended (since, as you allude, there are many "takes" on the broad category of activities that come under the ruberic "meditation", many of which are mutually exclusive and have vastly different assumptions about human consciousness and so different methods and goals) and, second, should mention that, in the specific fields (religious, primarily) from which meditation practices derive, it is a practice (or, better, a natural function of the human mind) which, in essence, transcends, rather than enhances, the "ego-self" which might enjoy health benefits as a result of "doing meditation" (as if consciousness is something the ego "does" of its own volition for its own enjoyment).

If not couched in its greater, specifically self-transcendent, dimension, meditation can be just another way for the ego to grasp at itself, build itself up, tell itself a new and beter story about itself, another greedy lunge for the illusion of self-enhancement and self-fulfillment in temporal experience--and ultimately a perpetuation of the illusion of separateness which is the root of our desperate fear of being and the suffering inherent to the individual "I".

But then again, maybe that is the genius of "benefits-based" meditation--even if provisionally successful at calming the mind's crazy cacophony or intensifying sensory experience, it will fail to satisfy the greed of the ego for "more!" and so bring about the crisis of disillusionment which can be precursor to enlightenment.

Perhaps the ultimate point of human existence isn't to become More but Less.