Meditation or Relaxation?

written by YeShey on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Yesterday Simone and I were doing meditation presentation for two great groups of heath professionals.  Interestingly; the same comments came up at both seminars.

“I use meditation to help me to relax and fall asleep and during the meditation practice today I fell asleep”.

It is important to understand that there techniques geared toward relaxation and techniques for meditation.  Indeed there are similarities in the techniques but there are marked differences such as what we do with our mind during the practice and the goal of the practice.

Mediation techniques actively influence the mind to help change how we think and what we think of. In mediation we work to have constant observation and awareness of the mind. We would like to be vividly present, clear and focused, and strive to be conscious and aware. Indeed, one of the outcomes is a feeling of relaxation and ease; however it is not the purpose.

Relaxation techniques passively influence the mind help to relieve tension.

There are similar techniques for meditation and relaxation, like diaphragmatic breathing (breathing through your nose, making your stomach, versus your chest, rise and fall) which can be a source of confusion.  When the purpose is relaxation, we seek to release tension, when the purpose is meditation, we seek to make the mind sharper and sharper.

In the beginning, many of us fall asleep during meditation practice. We often have some sort of external stimulation to entertain us – like the TV or the radio or the telephone, internet, a book, etc. It is a rare occasion for us when we are sitting quietly and not trying to fall asleep. The mind is conditioned to relate quiet to time with time to sleep.

It takes a bit of diligent effort to overcome this obstacle, but it is absolutely possible.   Once the meditation practice matures, the mediation is quite fascinating and sleep will not even be a consideration for the mind.

YeShey