New to meditation and you’re already thinking about quitting? You may have simply chosen the wrong method.

Meditation is a wonderful way to reduce stress. Done regularly, meditation produces an inner sense of calm, peace and balance that benefits both emotional and physical well-being. But with so many different meditation techniques available, how do you choose the right one? 

According to a new study published in EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, individuals new to meditation should choose a method with which they feel most comfortable – not necessarily the most popular one. 

According to Dr. Adam Burke, by choosing the most comfortable method, people are likely to stick with it.  If not, there is a higher chance they may abandon meditation altogether, losing out on its myriad personal and medical benefits. Dr. Burke is a professor of Health Education at San Francisco State University. 

“Because of the increase in both general and clinical use of meditation, you want to make sure you’re finding the right method for each person,” he said. Although meditation has become significantly more popular, there have been very few studies comparing multiple methods head to head to examine individual preference or specific clinical benefits.

To better understand user preference, Burke compared four popular meditation methods — Mantra, Mindfulness, Zen and Qigong Visualization — to see if novice meditation practitioners favored one over the others. The two simpler methods, Mindfulness and Mantra, were preferred by 31% of study participants. Zen and Qigong had smaller but still sizable contingents of adherents.

It’s A Matter of Personal Taste

The results show the value of simpler, more accessible method of meditation. But the researchers emphasized that no one technique is best for everyone, and even less common methods are preferred by certain people. 

“It was interesting that Mantra and Mindfulness were found to be equally compelling by participants despite the fact that they are fundamentally different techniques,” Burke said. Mindfulness meditation is the most recent technique to gain widespread popularity, he added, and is often the only one with which a novice practitioner or health professional is familiar. Not surprisingly, Mindfulness was the method most preferred by the youngest participants.

“If someone is exposed to a particular technique through the media or a healthcare provider, they might assume because it’s popular it’s the best for everyone,” Burke said. “In truth, different people like different things. One size does not fit all.”

Burke hopes to see more comparative meditation studies, especially to determine if particular methods are better at addressing specific health issues, such as addiction. If that’s the case, he said, healthcare professionals would be able to guide patients toward techniques that will be most effective for them. Additional studies are also needed to determine if there is a way to predict which method will be best suited for any particular individual, he said.

July 6, 2012
The Healthy Mind Network
 

 Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by San Francisco State University and EurekAlerts. 

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