Many people live hectic and busy lives, resulting in high levels of stress and an increase in health problems. For these reasons, meditation and yoga are popular practices for some who seek to find stress relief or alternative methods of healing. Meditation and yoga may have many benefits, both physically and psychologically, but there are some hidden dangers with both practices.
Meditation
Meditation is an act of focusing and centering your being on one particular thought or idea. It is different from concentration, which distractions and other thoughts can easily disrupt. Meditation transcends concentration to the point that you have uninterrupted attention focused on your idea. Your mind is so centered that you can set aside distractions to fully connect with the concept over which you are meditating, bringing fuller understanding.
Meditation Dangers
Meditation can bring such benefits as reducing stress and improving concentration, which may work well for some people who need time to rest. However, some types of meditation, particularly when done in large amounts, can have negative side effects such as repeatedly entering a meditative state or dwelling in an altered state of consciousness. Some can also have physical or emotional side effects due to meditation, particularly with performing Transcendental Meditation, according to John Knapp, LCSW, Knapp Family Counseling. Some examples of negative effects that Knapp has treated include insomnia, chronic headaches, muscle spasms, fear, depression or delusional thinking.
Yoga
Yoga is a lifestyle practice said to lead to spiritual enlightenment, when performed regularly and correctly. The word yoga means "union" and is meant to unite the mind, body and the breath to find balance for a person. Many people also practice yoga as a form of exercise and for stress control. Yoga emphasizes the use of various postures, and participants focus on breathing and thought control during the moves. Pushing negative or distracting thoughts from the mind is said to provide better concentration and stress reduction.
Yoga Drawbacks
Some resort to yoga to alleviate common diseases or illnesses, while others employ it as a form of therapeutic intervention for their health. However, yoga is not considered to be spiritually neutral, as many people practice it to pursue spiritual enlightenment. The danger is that yoga's foundation is in Eastern religions or philosophies to which many people may not normally subscribe; thus, this could lead to confusion about personal beliefs. People with religious convictions that differ from yoga's may begin to challenge their own viewpoints. While this could be beneficial, it could also lead to an identity crisis, anxiety or depression because some could now doubt what they once believed completely true. On the other hand, people with strong personal beliefs they have determined are true may become upset at the discovery of yoga's belief system and abandon the practice, thus disrupting their peace.
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