Move your body and do ordinary things
Swap stillness for ordinary movement and everyday tasks — a brisk walk, cooking, tidying — at a normal pace.
Why it works
Long periods of stillness and inward attention are part of what intensive practice consists of, so ordinary movement is one of the most direct ways to change the conditions. Practitioners in the Lindahl study named lack of exercise as associated with destabilising experiences and getting exercise as a remedy. Physical, purposeful activity also fills attention with the outside world — where your feet go, what the onions need — rather than leaving it free to circle inward.
How to do it
- Go for a walk at your normal pace, outdoors if you can, looking at where you are going rather than at your inner experience.
- Choose physical tasks with a clear end: cook a simple meal, wash up, tidy one shelf, do some gardening.
- If you enjoy it and it is safe for you, try something with a bit more effort — cycling, swimming, a gentle run.
- Do not turn the walk into slow, step-by-step walking meditation with noting; for now the aim is ordinary movement, not more practice.
Evidence
Lindahl et al. (2017) report that lack of exercise tended to be associated with, or to precede, destabilising experiences, and that getting exercise was described as a remedy, alongside other grounding and embodying activities. (anecdotal)
This is drawn from what practitioners reported as helpful in a qualitative study; no trial has tested movement as a response to meditation-related difficulty specifically.
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. About this work
Common mistake
Swapping sitting meditation for ultra-slow walking meditation and believing that counts as easing off — it is still intensive inward practice in a different posture.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Meditation-Related Challenges: When Practice Makes You Feel Worse
- 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.
- Ground through the senses, with your eyes open
Bring attention outward to the room, your feet on the floor and the weight of your body — not further inward.
- Lean on sleep, food, routine and people
Treat regular sleep, proper meals, a simple daily rhythm and time with people you trust as part of what steadies you.
- Talk to a teacher who knows these experiences
Tell an experienced meditation teacher what is happening — ideally one who has helped students through difficulty before.
- Find a clinician who understands meditation-related difficulties
When it lingers or gets in the way of daily life, see a doctor or therapist — ideally one familiar with meditation — and know where urgent help is.
- Stop noting when things start dissolving and fear takes over
If close noting has turned into everything falling apart and terror, set the technique down and steady yourself first — the map can wait.
- Come back to solid ground when awareness practice makes things feel unreal
If looking for the mind or resting in open awareness leaves the world flat, dreamlike or far away, stop the inquiry and anchor in concrete, outward things first.
- Hold off on deciding what it means
Let the experience be unexplained for now, rather than forcing it into a story of spiritual breakthrough or of breakdown.
- Return to practice gradually, with guidance
If and when you feel steady, come back slowly — short, gentle sessions, agreed with a teacher, with a plan for stopping.
Related concepts
- Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, Made Practical
Adapting mindfulness so it regulates rather than reactivates
- Grounding Techniques for Acute Distress
Fast sensory skills to come back to the present when distress spikes
- The Progress of Insight: The Stages of Insight in Vipassana
The Burmese insight map of what meditators say they pass through — read as a map, not a ladder
- The Dark Night of the Soul: John of the Cross
John of the Cross’s map of spiritual desolation and the practices that navigate it
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