Choosing a style of meditation--A Guide for Beginners

Choosing a style of meditation--A Guide for Beginners

In some sense, it does not matter what type of meditation you choose--all types of meditation will likely make you at least a little happier in general and give you at least some of the important benefits.

We can speculate that any form of meditation is likely to have at least some scientifically supported and anecdotal benefits for five reasons:

1. Most forms of meditation techniques have the same intention which is to break habitual thought patterns.

2. Many studies of different forms of meditation overlap in their physiological benefits. For example, many styles of meditation have the effects of lowering one’s respiration and breathing rate, oxygen consumption, and blood pressure.

3. Anecdotally people generally report the same benefits, such as feelings of calmness and inner peace, for different kinds of meditation.

4. It is the consensus of meditation experts that any form of meditation is likely to have at least some scientifically supported and anecdotal benefits.

5. When meditation styles are studied, they all look the same externally. The subjects of the study are sitting still and quietly with their eyes closed and staying awake for a prescribed period of time. We really do not know what the people being studied are doing with their minds. Presumably some are practicing the form of meditation they have been taught and which is being evaluated in the study. Maybe some are practicing another form of meditation or no meditation at all. Some people in the study might think they are practicing just as they were instructed to, but the instructor, if they could know what was happening in the subject’s mind, might not think they are.

For these five reasons, we can be confident that any form of meditation is likely to have at least some scientifically supported and anecdotal benefits.