Can you meditate too much?
June 5, 2009
Unfortunately I have to disagree with Mae West who said “too much of a good thing is wonderful”. When it comes to meditation, as well as almost every other “good thing” in life, there can be too much. Food, water, sunshine, exercise, rest — everything in life — needs to be in balance. As wonderful as good as meditation may seem, too much is not wonderful at all, but may cause discomfort and interfere with our functioning.
LoraC left a comment today saying that since starting meditation, she finds herself crying more easily and also has become clumsy and has been tripping and even fell. She loves the relaxation of meditation, but these things concern her. Of course, I didn’t have enough information to know for sure what is happening with her, but it is certainly possible that she is meditating too much.
Too much meditation can make you “spacey” and ungrounded. It can weaken your mind-body coordination. This could be why LoraC is feeling clumsy and tripping. As for her crying more readily, it’s just possible that some emotions are being released as a result of the deep relaxation in the meditation. Usually emotional releases would happen during meditation time and not create any concern. But if there starts to be a lot of release or intense emotional processing outside of meditation, it could be that too much is happening too fast. Since these things seem to have started after LoraC began “meditating in earnest”, an easy way to find out if it’s from meditation is to stop meditating for awhile or cut back on the meditation time or frequency. If the clumsiness and crying go away, then clearly too much meditation is the culprit and the time and frequency of meditation can be adjusted accordingly.
What is the right amount of meditation? How often and how long should you meditate? The answer is it depends. It depends on you — your constitution, lifestyle, goals for meditation and many other factors. It also depends on the type of meditation. For most people and most meditation styles, usually once or twice a day for 15 - 30 minutes, would work well. Unless you have the personal guidance of a teacher, you will need to experiment and find out what works best for you.
If meditation is enhancing your life, you’ve found a good balance. If it seems to be creating problems, it may be that you are meditating too much or that you might need to be doing a different kind of meditation. LoraC might find that if she does the grounding meditation or body awareness meditation, she would feel less clumsy as these meditations can help strengthen mind-body coordination.
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Spaciness could be a problem, though I haven’t faced it while meditating.
I think in the beginning, when one starts meditating a lot of clearing happens within the body and mind. For me, I had a lot of involuntary body movements like rotation of my torso, etc. They have reduced in intensity and frequency since I began meditating a year back.
I also had to face some of my fears and get done with it.
But once that clearing was done, my meditation was much smoother. I actually enjoy the meditations where I go up to 45 or 50 minutes.
Thanks for sharing your experience, karthik. It sounds like your journey with meditation has been quite profound (I enjoyed visiting your blog). It can certainly happen that a lot of clearing takes place when first meditating, and then it can get smoother. I imagine that happens more often than the other way around, where meditation would get more intense with time.
The human body is designed to be active in the day with all brainwaves in harmony with each other and relaxed and slower in the evening (more alpha waves) then down into sleep (theta to delta).
I believe meditation is best in the evening as its a transition from being in “the zone” to more relaxed where focus / attention may not be as good but that blissed up feeling is allowed to become more prominent.
Likewise Qigong is an excellent practice for the morning as it works as a stepping stone from sleep to daytime (the zone). In Qigong we are doing meditation but in an active manner. The movements are relaxing and gentle which bridges the states of sleep and “the zone”.
All states can be done in the now. Therefore they are all meditations, some are active, others and inward. The is ying yang, life is about balance. Too much inward meditation is going against the balance. Those who spend their day meditating such as Buddhists are limiting themselves of the dance that is life. Many are chasing enlightenment but ironically enlightenment most often comes to those who don’t chase. I believe those who follow a balanced life are more likely to wake up and are less likely to want to. Life could already be very enjoyable. When you sacrifice for something greater the need for that greater thing must be ever presant.
Regardless of this there is much to learn from the Buddhists, they are truly experts in meditation. On the same token though there is much to learn from Einstein however this does not mean that how he lived his life is an example we should follow. Einstein completely invested in thought to the detriment of everything else life had to offer.
Thank you so much, Alex, for this thoughtful comment. It’s so full of interesting observations and I really resonate with much of what you say. It is all about balance and the timing and nature of our activities create balance or imbalance.
I’m especially struck by your saying “When you sacrifice for something greater the need for that greater thing must be ever present”. That does take us away from enjoying what is already present!
I agree with Alex and Mary. Balance, that has also be an important lesson in my life…
Thanks for visiting my blog, Mary. It’s been an exciting journey so far and I now see my life as a series of lessons or themes that I address through experiences. It’s easy to understand it intellectually, but meditation helps me put it into practice. Meditation helps me see circumstances as lessons that I can learn from instead of as taxing or painful circumstances.
Hi guys, thanks for the comments.
I had a little freeflow so it wasn’t 100% regarding meditation as focus / attention may not be as good but that blissed up feeling stronger.
I think the focus / attention is excellent in a closed eyes meditative state but the focus is either open, i.e experiencing the space or inward, internal focus / attention. All meditation produces a predominance of alpha simply because eyes closed automatically produce that frequency but also often an increase in theta. So, although attention / awareness may be very good you’re going to move much more gently or slowly and no doubt your voice will follow suit. Some meditation practices describe the “zone” as a predominance of alpha such as TM. Really what you want is a harmony / equal measure of all brainwaves, this is the real “zone”. Calm still mind, yet alert and ready like a cat quietly sitting there one moment and then chasing a mouse the next. This is the ideal state for day time.
If I could recommend my opinion of the ideal day it would like this:
Qigong a session any time between 5am & 7am.
Active morning
A 20 to 40 min closed eyes meditation shortly after lunch. This is siesta time but science has proven a meditation works better. Not essential to do this but this is just ideal scenario.
Active afternoon
Maybe 30 to 60 mins evening meditation and or something relaxing like give / recieve massage, chilled music etc.
Naturally the ying yang applies if you did something very active like a long run, then its reasonable to have an enjoyable rest if its needed.
Obviously weekends can vary. In an ideal world I think we would have more clubs to go dance / party but during the day, here in London we actually have quite a few parties during the day which is great. I used to love clubbing through the night but these days I can see how out of balance that is. I still love the music and the freedom of partying so I sometimes go to a day party, either outside or in a nightclubl. Once you’re in, it’s dark, you have the lasers, you can’t tell plus you have the energy to party without needing to drink which is another bonus as although I enjoy the odd beer I really don’t like getting drunk which is often the case during the evening as people need the fuel to stay awake. When you look at it like this you can see this is a funny example of how out of balance clubbing through the night can be. Mind you every now and then it’s still lots of fun. If it’s a regular occurance it can cause quite a bit of imbalance.
Yes on a spiritual note, we are all God’s children. I had a little inspiration last night when I was making dinner. I was making mash potato, I pre cooked a big bake potato but then decided I wanted to mash it. Bit of a random thing to draw inspiration from I know but I’m that kind of cat. So I plunged the potato plunger over the potato and lots of potato oozed through all the little holes. I noticed that under the plunger the potato was one big solid expression and the other side of the plunger there was many unique expressions. That is when it hit me. We are all the potato but we are all having our unique expression. If it was just the potato, who is conscious of the potato, where is the beauty, where is the dance? Subjectively the expressions can dance and play with each other in the space that exists between each expression. We are all god’s children, we are babies.
I here people say, what is the meaning of life? I find this very funny, I love skiing. Imagine the same urgent question was asked, what is the meaning of you putting planks on your feet and sliding down a hill? I would laugh, I would say there is no meaning, but if I had to give an awnser, I would say humorously, the meaning is joy, fun, to play & to love every second of it. Likewise this same answer can be applied to life.
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