Hello Friends,

Meditation - not a one-size-fits-all situation.

Meditation has been promoted as a nervous system regulation tool. A means to stranglehold your nervous system into submission. Oops, I mean, calm oneself to inner peace. A form of mental training designed to cultivate attention and equanimity, to slow the heart rate, allowing for deeper breaths, and bringing about a parasympathetic state.

Let’s consider this from the perspective of the Valve System:

The valve system consists of a series of diaphragms that function to facilitate broader movement (such as that of the skeleton), distribute pressure (such as blood, water, or air) throughout the body, and create motility within the organs. While there is no set speed for its function, we can't measure it like tire pressure, it operates faster in a parasympathetic state and slows down in a sympathetic state. Its speed is also adaptable based on activity, moving faster during high-energy activities and slower during rest, such as when sleeping.

For ease, let's use heart rate as an example: Right now my heart rate is 78 BPM according to my watch. I am just sitting here typing. According to my structural indicators I am parasympathetic. An average resting heart rate is 60-100 BPM.

When I am in an active sympathetic state (fight, flight, freeze), my heart rate increases, blood pressure increases, but my valve system slows. My demand for air increases to meet the demands of the actions of fight, flight and freeze. If I am in this state, meditation may indeed be helpful.

But do you know when to stop? Do you know, not based on the feeling of calm but the physiological state of parasympathetic, when you have accomplished your goal of bringing about homeostasis? Or did you blow right by it and take yourself into the conservation of energy stages?

But what if you are in the conservation of energy stages of the sympathetic response to start? This state is often, but not always, experienced as calm (the feeling, not the physiological state). This is where your heart rate and blood pressure are below normal, and now you want to slow it down more? You will likely take your nervous system further into a state of collapse.

What if you meditate, because not all meditation practices are the same, starting from those conservation of energy stages, and get yourself back to the active stages? This is generally accepted as a better place to be. But if your heart rate was below 60 (and some of my clients are in the rages of 30-50), and now my heart is "racing" to 65+ BPM - this probably doesn't feel calm.

See where I am going with this?

Cheetah House is an organization dedicated to researching meditation practices and supporting those who have experienced negative effects from meditation. The story begins with its founder, a neuroscientist, who set out to understand why meditation works. While uncovering many benefits, she also discovered significant detrimental effects, leading her to establish a community focused on recovery from and prevention of meditation-related adversities. You can read an interesting story here.

On the other hand, there is a certain classification of meditation called "active attention." This is an informal practice that fosters mindful awareness of internal and external experiences of everyday life. Further, mindfulness in defined as directing your awareness to being in the present moment, without calling it good or bad and without needing it to change. Sound familiar?

Onwards, Amy