September: The month of meditation

Thank God for this month...! We are exhausted as a couple right now... we moved house and then countries last month, juggled parenting between both working full time, and some other hoops were necessarily jumped... so we are well overdue some meditative, restorative space! I am fully looking forward to embracing meditation. We will try and do some everyday - even if 5 minutes. We will explore the history and benefits of this practice, some of the different forms that are known about, and report back on how it helps us throughout this month. We hope you all join in too and find some of the links we will enevitably share useful!

12th Sept: The health benefits

Consensus between rigourous scientific study, ancient wisdom and personal experience (!) evidences that meditation is a great practice.

Here is a quick fire list of some of the reasons to adopt some form of meditation into our everyday:

Reduced Stress and anxiety (but note the last point in this update)

A recent scientific review (Kim et al. 2022) investigated mindfulness-based, yoga-based, and transcendental meditation practices that were tested in randomised control trials. These types of trials are considered a 'gold-standard' for generating critical data on the public health benefits of interventions for all sorts of social challenges. In the study noted, 7 symptoms or signs of 45 different disorders were frequently assessed: feeling anxious, depressive mood, stress, sleep, pain, quality of life, and fatigue. The systematic review of the RCTs reported some studies for each category that found statistically supported benefits to practicing some form of meditation, some studies found no statistical evidence. Fatigue was always improved, while over 50% of the trials measuring: relief of stress; improved quality of life; relief of post traumatic stress; better sleep, or; healthier blood pressure - found statically supported benefits.
Taylor et al (2022) did a review to look for adverse health outcomes for meditation. The study found some studies reporting increased anxiety - particularly with meditative interventions that were delivered face-to-face. So take care if you try any new types of meditation!

Better Sleep

Most of the science-y type reviews (that I could spot with a very rapid search so this is not well-researched!) indicated that sleep was rarely the main focus of trials testing the benefits of meditative practices. But, in lots of these types of studies, sleep was noted as a benefit (e.g. Neuendorf et al 2015). From a personal perspective, different meditations do tend to drift me off to lalaland... but not always.

Alleviating loneliness

A recent review from Saini et al. (2021) found 11 studies looking into the alleviation of loneliness - all reported positive outcomes. This makes some sense to me as meditation basically gives us the space to reconnect - to feel the energy of others, of the natural world - and takes us away from our own ego.
This makes some sense to me as connection is so important... and meditation gives us time to reconnect

[we will add more to this with time]

Here are some of the podcasts I have enjoyed in the last few weeks that are quite meditative:

Enjoy!

30th Sept: Final thoughts...

I have not done too well this month at this challenge! It is proving difficult to find time between being a present mum and working full time and juggling various living situations as we start to find a rhythm in the UK. Excuses aside, I thought I would note down my favourite couple of meditation journeys.

The healing

In one version, I go through the breathing zen bits until I feel really calm and then I start to imagine the Earth regenerating, I see the soils across empty fields crack and through these cracks emerge trees and woodlands, I see the plastics littered across the seas begin to get sucked away into whirl pools, the planes and concrete and buildings around crumble and disappear returning back to elemental dust, and these dusts are distributed far and wide. I see the lands transition from dusty, grey deserts to rich forests - like the videos capturing the deserts when the rains come and everything grows. I see everything slide into its own space and balance, and I feel calm and whole.

The connection

In this one, after becoming peaceful through breathing, I feel roots begin to grow from my feet, I have to be in contact with the soils, but then these roots extend to all the plant pots, all the trees and plants and fungi in our garden and beyond to the nearby forest, the roots run deep below the city and connect with places I have been (Kari Island, the Daintree Rainforest) and I spend some moments there washed in bird song. Then the roots run deep beneath the seas and emerge in places where friends and family live, I see my nieces and nephews, places in Wales where I grew up and spend time still, everything is connected and I can go anywhere this way.

The out of body one

The other one I can share is one where I focus on a central point, eyes shut but seeing a small light. I leave my body and rise into the skies and up further and people and animals who have passed on are sometimes there as a sort of energy, everything is energy without form. We stay here together resting, and then I go back and wake up.

These are strange dreams but afterward I feel a lovely peace.