Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation
Long term meditation &quot;enthusiast&quot; who has been around many meditation traditions and also done retreats from 3 days to 3 weeks.<p>Meditation is definitely <i>not</i> relaxation. In the language of Yoga (which meditative traditions share), long meditation sessions move the focus (prana) to certains parts of the body where long sustained focus can create &quot;imbalances&quot; and lead to breaks and other side effects (psychosis or related). Further description risks going into woo-woo land without a shared language.<p>Meditation carries with it the most definite risk of people experiencing a break. I would put the at-risk population in the low-to-mid single digits. I have seen folks go into long meditation retreats and experience breaks where they have an experience much like Megan in the article - they have to be admitted and most of them are never the same ever after. Very solid grounded people develop migraines, insomnia, loss of appetite, or start hallucinating.<p>Meditation and Pranayama are both neither innocuous nor mere placebo effects. There is a very strong mechanism at work which we do not understand in a modern scientific context. However, the majority of practitioners do not do long intense retreats and will get away without any serious consequences.<p>A good tradition will devote serious time on how to combat the effects of long meditation retreats. They will talk about it almost as much as the technique itself. The biggest antidotes are - getting good sleep, not overdoing it, physical exercise, long walks and getting enough food. The inversion - onset of insomnia or anxiety or loss of appetite - is a very bad sign and you should stop meditating immediately.<p>Please do not do take either practice lightly or you could risk effing up something internally for which we have no cure. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat more.