Step back from formal sitting for now

Pause or sharply shorten formal meditation while things are unsettled — easing off is a legitimate response, not a failure.

Pourquoi ça marche

In the Lindahl study, the amount, intensity or consistency of practice was identified as a risk factor when intensive periods coincided with other factors, and one of the causality criteria the researchers used was whether an experience decreased when practice was reduced. Britton’s review argues that mindfulness-related processes can follow an inverted-U course, helpful up to a point and then not. If practice is feeding the difficulty, reducing the dose removes a driver while you steady — which is why many practitioners and teachers in the 2020 follow-up study responded to distress by changing or stopping practice.

Comment faire

1. For the next few days, stop long or intensive sittings entirely. If you want some contact with practice, keep it to a few minutes with your eyes open — or skip it.
2. Set aside any technique that intensifies inward attention (close noting, body sweeping, breath work, long silent sits) until you have talked it through with a teacher who knows these experiences.
3. If you are on retreat, tell the teacher or manager what is happening today; you are allowed to change your schedule, take a walk instead of a sitting, or leave.
4. Replace the time you would have sat with something ordinary and steadying: a walk, a meal with someone, a simple household task.
5. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, or you feel out of touch with reality, call or text 988 in the US (the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), find a line in your country at findahelpline.com, or call your local emergency number now.

Données probantes

Lindahl et al. (2017) interviewed 60 Western Buddhist practitioners — 20 each from Theravāda, Zen and Tibetan traditions — and 32 meditation teachers and clinicians. They identified the amount, intensity or consistency of practice as a risk factor when intensive periods converged with other factors, and assessed whether experiences decreased when practice was reduced. Lindahl et al. (2020) report that distress more often led practitioners to some intervention — such as changing meditation practice, stopping meditating, or engaging with grounding activities — than to treating it as an expected stage. Britton (2019) reviews signs that mindfulness-related processes can turn from helpful to unhelpful at higher doses or in some conditions. (observational)

These are qualitative and review studies. They show that reducing practice is a common, reasonable response reported by practitioners and teachers; no trial has tested how much to reduce, or for how long. The same study notes some teachers encourage steady practice for difficulties they expect to pass — which is a judgement for a teacher who knows you, not something to push through alone.

Sources

• Lindahl, J. R., Fisher, N. E., Cooper, D. J., Rosen, R. K., & Britton, W. B. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE, 12(5), e0176239.
• Lindahl, J. R., Cooper, D. J., Fisher, N. E., Kirmayer, L. J., & Britton, W. B. (2020). Progress or pathology? Differential diagnosis and intervention criteria for meditation-related challenges: Perspectives from Buddhist meditation teachers and practitioners. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1905.
• Britton, W. B. (2019). Can mindfulness be too much of a good thing? The value of a middle way. Current Opinion in Psychology, 28, 159–165.

Erreur fréquente

Sitting longer and harder to “get through it” because a book or a peer said this is a stage — when the experience is already telling you the current dose is too much.