Does Meditation Give You a Headache?

When I wrote on meditation as a means to be happy, one of my Triond friends commented meditation gave him a headache; ‘being happy shouldn’t involve so much work’, he said. This is a question that must have occurred to many; that is why I thought I’d write a clarifying note on this.

If you haven’t exercised in a long time, and suddenly embarked on a new exercise regimen, you would, in all likelihood, get a body ache especially if you led a cushy desk-bound job. The best way to start  any exercise will be to warm up sufficiently, and go at a slower pace, listening and adjusting to body’s reactions. A similar approach is needed for practising meditation as well. Meditation is an exercise to the mind; it activates little used regions of the head, increasing the blood circulation and neuronal activity there. This may cause you to experience stress.

To derive the best results from any activity, it is important to follow the correct technique. People meditate in so many different ways, but some techniques may be more suitable for advanced practitioners only. Duration is important too; you should start with a shorter duration, and then increase it progressively.

I had gone to Chennai in 2001 to visit my daughter who was doing Masters in Business Management at Maharishi Institute of Management. This institute teaches meditation as part of the syllabus. I learnt meditation from one of the Professors who had been Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s disciple. Their technique is extremely simple: you are not required to concentrate at all. No staring at a candle or fixing your gaze at any object. No HEADACHE. You have to keep repeating a mantra— you can think of this mantra as a non-sensical sound— so your mind doesn’t wander. Try ‘om’ as a starter. If your mind wanders and you had stopped repeating the manta, gently bring it back and start once again. Within a few minutes, you will find the mind calming down. You can use a timer: ideally, the session is for twenty minutes only.

Please do not take the above instructions as a full-fledged DIY tutorial. But I have given the essence, so you know what I am speaking about. Probably, this technique looks too simple to be effective. But it is effective. Believe me. You may feel distracted for the first five minutes. But once you are past it, the breathing becomes more uniform, the mind seems progressively less fuddled. The recitation becomes automatic and you find yourself becoming a witness to the waves of sound permeating the entire body.

Now, to the other question: should something as simple as being happy require so much work? If you want to be healthy, you must exercise. Exercise gives you so many benefits besides a trim body. You can prevent so many diseases, delay aging, and so on. Similarly, meditation energizes the brain, so you can count prevention of Alzhimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases as some of the beneficial fall-outs. Of course, you need not meditate at all, and still be happy. Be kind to others, be compassionate, be accepting, be calm. Meditation simply builds the ground and makes all this easier. Without meditation, the process may be a little tougher: be prepared for the rough and tumble your mind may subject you on its own fancy roller-coaster ride.

You may be interested in the following articles on Happiness, meditation and mind control:

Can You Synthesize Happiness?

Push-button Happiness

Happiness Through Meditation and Mind Control