Why don’t more people meditate?

There is so much evidence- scientific evidence- that a meditation practice can help reduce stress, lower anxiety, lower blood pressure, increase compassion toward oneself and others, improve sleep, manage pain, increase our attention span and our memory, and enhance self-awareness. It can also help with addictions. There are multiple studies on all these issues.

So, why don’t more people meditate regularly? I have been thinking about this. Of course, there is a bit of a stigma around it…for those who have never done yoga or been involved in a subculture where meditation is commonly practised. Meditation is becoming more mainstream, which is a good thing and I hope its benefits reach far and wide.

I think however that sitting in a meditation practice is the opposite direction to which our culture is taking us. That is why it is of so much benefit but also why it is so challenging to take on. Even though sitting and doing nothing for a little while each day should be the easiest thing in the world, right? It isn’t, and most people avoid it assiduously.

Our world has become so excitatory, so overstimulating. Not only do most people tend to be very busy trying to both work and fit in all the activities that make up modern life…..we also cannot even stand in a queue, or stop at the traffic lights, without looking at our phones. Attention spans are shrinking, people are distracted and we are bombarded with information that is often irrelevant to us but which our brains still need to process and filter.

There is plenty of information out there about attention disorders and the connections with phone dependency, social media addictions, gaming etc. What I want to focus on are the many personal benefits of taking regular time to do nothing, to sit with ourselves, to watch the thoughts in the mind rather than be totally caught up in them. Yes, it can be a bit uncomfortable, especially at first, as all the things we are pushing away from our awareness come up to be seen and felt. There will be some resistance.

But life gets better when we do that. It gets richer. Deeper. We get to know ourselves better, to be more in touch with ourselves. We relax. It has huge psychological benefits, as well as physical ones. It’s a bit like jumping in the ocean…the cold water is a shock at first, but we feel so much better when we do it.

There are many, many guides to teach you how to meditate (and there are many methods, but I am referring to the simpler methods such as watching the breath) and that is not the point of this writing. I would like to encourage you to give a regular meditation practice a go, because I believe it will benefit you! And not just you. By just being who you are, living your life, not so caught up in your thoughts, more able to relax and have more perspective, more present and able to give yourself a little more compassion…. the world will be a better place.

And we could do with that right now…a little more calm, a little more peace, a little less stress, a little less caught up in the craziness.