Why meditation and mindfulness are more than a wellness fad
Dr Jim Hegarty recalls a time when psychologists hid their books on meditation if they were expecting a visit from a colleague. Hegarty, a clinical psychologist based in Dunedin, dabbled in meditation during his 20s, having been inspired, like others of his generation, by the American television series, Kung Fu, to take up martial arts.
He'd lost interest in that "waffly, airy-fairy stuff" during his studies at university. If one was to be taken seriously as a "hardcore" scientist, he says, it was sort of seen as unacceptable. Hegarty's hiatus didn't last; he's been a regular practitioner of Zen Buddhist techniques since the early 2000s.
Project Happiness, a movement that arose from a 2011 documentary of the same name, differentiates between meditation and mindfulness: meditation refers to a "broader set of practices that produce positive effects like equilibrium, concentration and altruism", while mindfulness is "a way of being in any moment... bringing a further degree of intentionality and equanimity".
Hegarty uses mindfulness techniques with almost all of his patients, finding particular success with those suffering anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks. Among some with long-term, debilitating anxiety, he has witnessed what he considers "almost miraculous" improvement.
It's unlikely to solve all of your problems, he says, but it makes it easier to deal with them.
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"That's what most people notice – things don't wind me up as much. I still get upset, life is still hard, but I don't make it worse, and I bounce back quicker."
"You pay attention to what's happening, what you can feel, what you can hear, and you practise not getting pulled away into the fantasy world of your thinking. Most of us identify ourselves with our thinking. It's really quite a challenging thing to sort of realise: that you are not your thoughts."
Today, meditation and mindfulness are firmly established in the mainstream. Those interested in learning the techniques can turn to books, online courses, podcasts, apps, community groups and local yoga studios, and courses are run in work- places, schools, universities and prisons.
Mindfulness Works, New Zealand's largest mindfulness and meditation training organisation, began as an introductory course led by Karl Baker in Lower Hutt in 2013.
The commodification of traditions steeped in eastern religion has had mixed results. Some argue the proliferation of materials, and courses run by people lacking proper training in the techniques' underlying science, has diluted their authenticity.
Swami Yogamani Saraswati, an Auckland-based yogi with more than 30 years experience in yoga and meditation, agrees the quality of the teacher is important.
Yogamani Saraswati.
On the other hand, she says, the mainstreaming of meditation has made it more acceptable. And, whatever the experience level of the teacher, becoming more aware of breathing is always going to confer some benefit.
"I kind of liken it to an iPhone, the way we live our lives now. When there's no more space, something pops and the phone stops working.
"It's essential, crucial to even have three minutes of lying down and being aware of your breath – the breath affects everything."
People could be practising meditation without being aware of it, she adds.
"For example, if someone's surfing or playing tennis, they need to be single focused with their consciousness. If not, they will fall off the board, or miss the ball. This is mindfulness."
Sustained interest has meant meditation and mindfulness have surpassed the status of just another wellness trend. Worldwide, Google searches for "mindfulness" have steadily increased since early 2012 and have remained consistently high since January 2015. Searches for meditation, too, continue to rise. Australians and New Zealanders jostle for seventh and eighth places as citizens most likely to Google either term. Kiwis in Nelson are most interested in the practices.
There's data to back up the anecdotal benefits. A meta analysis of MRI scan results on the brains of meditators showed they had increased grey matter compared to control groups. A Harvard-led study in 2011 showed these differences could be measured after eight weeks of practice.
The meta analysis authors say, despite differences in techniques and underlying cognitive processes, meditation techniques share a common goal: inducing relaxation, regulating attention and detaching from one's own thoughts.
"I think that's why a lot of people really like mindfulness," Hegarty says.
"If you're doing sports – surfing, playing football, riding your bike – or when people go on holiday and hang out at the beach, they just lay there in the sun. There are little moments where you're just 'there',"
"It's those little moments that people really like.
"And I think mindfulness is a way of getting that more often."
Lotta Dann, 45, is a writer, mother and wife based in Wellington. Her popular blog and subsequent memoir, Mrs D is Going Without documented her recovery from alcoholism. Her journey exploring mindfulness is chronicled in her second book, Mrs D Goes Within, to be released in June.
Lotta Dann.
My drinking was very steady and heavy for over 20 years. It left me with no proper coping mechanisms. Alcohol was my go-to thing. So I took it away and it was hard as hell, and then it was amazing and I felt great.
My online community - other people who had gotten sober - and 'sober treats' - treating yourself kindly by buying yourself a magazine or fresh flowers, for example - were my only coping strategies. Three years after I got sober, I found they weren't really working any more.
I was starting to get low-grade anxiety - butterflies in my tummy a lot of the time. My stepfather dying was my big point where I was like, I'm really not coping with these emotions. I thought, 'Shit I need something else - what?' And everyone was banging the drum about mindfulness and meditation - it's bloody everywhere. Finally I went, 'OK, fine, I'm going to learn about it.'
I got books out of the library, I did an eight-week course through a book, I did a month-long mindfulness summit online. I did lots of guided meditations, too, where you listen to people talk you through it. In the end, what I found works for me is having an informal practice - where I do the mindfulness exercises.
Mindfulness exercises are like a bicep curl. You could be standing at the kitchen sink, lost in thought about an email. And then you go,' I'm lost in thought about this email, I'm getting wound up, I need to stop that, I'm going to focus on the water as it runs over the dishes. I'm going to look at my bright green rubber gloves. I'm going to ground myself in the moment. I'm going to distance myself from these thoughts, because they're not helpful.'
Meditating is like going to the gym and doing a work out. If you go to the gym every morning and you do a workout, i.e. you sit and you spend 20 minute meditating - focusing on your thoughts when they arise, pushing them to the side, bringing yourself back to the breath - it's much easier to live mindfully throughout your day.
If you don't have thoughts while you're meditating, it's like going to a gym with no equipment. You need the thoughts in order to practise recognising them.
A lot of our thoughts are not just inane but really unhelpful - they're all about the past or all about the future. Since I started practising mindfulness, I've discovered that a large proportion of my life is very simple and calm, and it's just what's going on in my head that's creating the angst or the worry.
Mark Vette, 61, is a world-renowned animal psychologist and zoologist based in Waimauku outside Auckland. He has been practising meditation for about 40 years, and hosts monthly group meditation sessions at his rural property. He has been ordained with zen buddhist master Thích Nhất Hạnh since 1994.
Mark Vette.
Doing martial arts - judo, kung fu and karate - throughout my childhood was kind of my introduction to an Eastern approach to the world.
When you're learning martial arts, it's very much about your breath and cultivating your chi energy. That's a form of mindfulness. I suppose I was doing it without knowing I was doing it for many years.
I always had a great interest in the human mind and the human being, so I studied psychology and philosophy as well as zoology at university. That's when I really started meditating. As most people do growing up, they strike their issues, with separations of families and those kinds of things. You're looking for tools to work through issues in life.
Meditation for me is a way of living rather than a philosophy or a psychology, It's about living deeply in the present moment. I watched myself and I saw how I was dwelling in the past or the future, and it took me a while to realise that's what caused me the suffering that I was experiencing.
Meditation to me is whatever techniques and tools you use to bring you back to the present moment. I wear a mala [Buddhist prayer beads] on my wrist. As I pass a bead through my fingers, I take an in breath and an out breath, and follow that breath consciously.
Following your breath brings you back into your body, brings you back into the present moment, where there are no real problems. Most problems are worrying about the future, or worrying about the past.
I do walking and sitting meditation daily, two or three times depending on my opportunities. I do mindfulness practise through the day. I've got a little beeper on my watch - I set it more or less regularly depending on my day. That just gives me a little reminder to come back to my breath.
When you're present with what you're doing and the people around you, the quality of life is much different, it's much fuller.
The zen approach has served me beautifully, but it doesn't really matter where you come to meditation from. What matters is that you're doing it and you're beginning to feel and understand its effect on your life.
When you start to see a qualitative difference - your relationships are improving, you're dealing with anger more constructively, you're starting to manifest increased happiness overall - you know you're on track. It's like anything - you can go and lift weight 'till you're blue in the face or play the piano - if you don't practise you're not going to become good at it. Some research has shown even eight weeks of practise makes a difference to your brain in measurable levels. It doesn't take much. But once you get started you won't normally turn back.
Sian Palmer, 26, grew up in Australia and moved to Auckland for university. She works in retail and has been practising meditation for three years.
Sian Palmer.
After uni, I kind of went through a rough patch, depression I guess is what you'd call it. When you go through something like that, you look for ways to get yourself out of it.
I'd had family friends who were really into meditation. That might be where the idea to look into it came from.
At the time I was looking after some dogs in Sandringham and [Auckland-based yogi] Yogamani [Saraswati] had classes above Little Bird Organics, which I love. I did an introductory yoga and meditation course. The classes bring so many lovely people together. It's a little tribe, a little community that's really amazing and really supportive.
There was a time when I'd get up nearly an hour early and I'd do some yoga and I'd do some mantras and it sets you up for the day. But even when I'm not practising every day, it's always there in the back of my head. If I'm having an off day, I try some deep breathing or calm my mind - go inside a bit and be like, 'OK, so why am I actually feeling this way?' And I feel like I can do something about it.
For depression, the negative thoughts are the worst thing - you just get lost in this big dark hole that's so hard to get out of and just drains your energy. Since starting practising, I'm aware of those thoughts being there but instead of being engulfed by them, I can detach a bit and look at them and think about what they are and deal with them.
After six months I ended up going to India with Yogamani and others from The Centre. We spent two weeks at the ashram where where her guru is. We also went up into to the Himalayas where we did a retreat. At the ashram we were helping in an eye clinic and doing what's called karma yoga - serving. At the retreat we did yoga and meditation every day.
When you think about spirituality, you think about religion and going to church and that kind of stuff. I did a bit of that when I was in a Catholic primary school. Now I kind of actually kind of like it - not extreme versions which do cause problems - but I see how people do go to church every week and do that stuff, because there's good things that flow from it. I've got a friend who I've been to church with a few times, and I can tell that's her version of what I do. It's all got its roots in the same place.
Dr Henry Naylor, 26, is a psychiatric registrar based in Wellington. He began meditating in his first year of university.
Dr Henry Naylor.
I started meditating seven years ago. I was doing Health Sciences and getting a bit stressed out. I'd tried exercise and stuff, but nothing worked for me nearly as well as meditation. The anxiety almost completely disappeared after I started. I think probably because it's so good at putting things in perspective. I would catastrophise like, 'Oh this exam is such a big deal, I can't fail.' But after you do even just a little bit of meditation, it's like, 'Ah well, it's just an exam - what's the worst that can happen? I fail it. Life will go on.'
I started listening to some app that I downloaded - I went through a few. After I'd been doing it for a certain period of time, I got sick of listening to people and started to do it with white noise or silence. Once you've had a bit of practise, you don't need someone telling you to stay focused, you just do it yourself.
I still meditate regularly. I do it more now because I really enjoy it. I do it most days - it can be anywhere from five minutes to an hour or two. You don't need very long to get in a mindful head space.
If I can manage to focus on the present moment for long enough, the thoughts just slow down and essentially stop. And once you're aware of them, the thoughts seem to hold a lot less weight. I don't control them in the sense that I change what they are - I change the way I view them and the degree of impact they have on me.
Whenever I'm making an important decision, I always make sure that I meditate beforehand. Obviously you can never be unbiased, but you make decisions based objectively on what you think it going to be better for you rather than taking into account some grudge or some crush or whatever it is that's kind of colouring your judgement.
You don't have to have any problems with anxiety or low mood to benefit from meditation, in my view. Having an awareness of your thoughts and exercising a degree of control over them can't be a bad thing.
Savitri Ishaya, 47, is a writer and meditation teacher based in Wellington. She has been practising ascension meditation since 2008 and teaching it since 2013, including in schools and prisons.
Savitri Ishaya.
I saw an ad in the newspaper about a talk that was happening in Wellington one night. New Zealand historian Barry Brailsford was speaking. I thought I'd go along and listen to him. When I got there, it turned out Barry was sick and instead there was this American dude, Maharishi Krishnananda Ishaya, talking. I thought I may as well stay and listen.
He was talking about what is known in psychology as a 'peak experience', which occur in our lives when we're doing something we really love. This is the sort of experience we seek without realising it - when you stop thinking about things and you're fully present with whatever you're doing.I recognised that when I was writing, sometimes it was like I was in that flow. You could read it back and go 'Wow, where did that come from?' But other times it felt like pulling teeth. When Maharishi said you can use these meditation techniques so that you can be experiencing that flow at any time - that's what made me really excited.
So I signed up to a weekend course in ascension meditation with the Bright Path. The effect is to make you very present, so you're not in your head, in the past or in the future. You're just exactly where you are, letting everything be as it is.
These techniques you can use with your eyes open. But you also practise two or three times a day, for about 20 minutes with your eyes closed, and it helps dissolve that stress that we hold in our nervous system from various experiences. When that stress dissolves, you do actually feel a lot lighter and can see more clearly what needs to be done.
Often our subconscious thoughts are the ones that are running our lives, without us really realising it. We can use these techniques to see what's going on internally and then make a choice about how we want to be: stuck in those thoughts and controlled by them, or choosing to let them go and returning to being present.
The value for me in this meditation teaching was that it provided me with a tool that I could use - I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to try to do it. I just used the technique and instantly was present.
I learned in 2008 and gradually my perspective started to change. Other people started to notice that I was a bit different as well - much calmer, more peaceful and joyful. I went to a retreat and when I came back it was like I was bulletproof. When my partner saw the difference in me he went, 'Ooh I want a bit of that', so he learned as well.
We ended up going over to Spain for a six-month training course. When we came back as qualified teachers we started to run courses. When you become a teacher you're given a name by the Maharishi. There's a Sanskrit basis to these techniques, so as part of this tradition when you become a teacher you're given a Sanskrit name and you begin to teach from that - it's about not teaching from your ordinary ego. Ishaya is a Sanskrit word and it basically means, 'for consciousness'. Whoever teaches these techniques, they are committing themselves to promote consciousness.
It's not a belief-based system. We've taught Buddhists and Muslims and Christians and atheists - anyone at all can learn it. We go into schools and teach children, we go into prisons and teach inmates. The techniques are great at dissolving their stress and helping them cope with their circumstances. Some of the staff have learned as well. It's amazing to see guys who've really been suffering begin to lighten up and realise that peace is possible.
- Sunday Magazine
