[treevoice]

Hiii

I've meditated on and off throughout my life and only recently am beginning to find a correlation between times when I'm meditating a lot and episodes of severe depression. I did a little research online and found that depression is not an uncommon side effect of long term meditation, especially in those with predisposition to mental illness. But on the contrast, there's also tons of evidence that it can be beneficial to those who suffer from anxiety and depression. I can't be 100% sure if I'm seeking out meditation because of increased depression/anxiety symptoms, or if the meditation is making it worse. There's so much conflicting evidence I'm not sure what to believe. Has anyone here had any experience with using meditation to cope with their mental illness? What was your experience like? Has anyone else noticed that meditation practice has contributed to their mental illness? One other odd thing is that I've suffered from sleep paralysis on and off throughout my life, and the first time I ever had an episode was during a meditation practice. Has anyone else had that experience? I can't figure out if I'm on the right track by continuing this practice or if I'm shooting myself in the foot...

Thank you for your feedback. <3

I've found meditation helpful for my anxiety issues, I have not used it for depression. Perhaps some find it makes them feel worse when depressed because meditation makes them look inward and it just increases the focus on those depressed feelings and amplifies them. That would be my best guess. It's definitely not for everyone, but it can be super helpful with anxiety.

[Skeezyks]

I've practiced meditation on-&-off over the years. It's something I always thought I should do. But somehow I could never really sustain it. One thing I found was that whenever my depression would deepen, my meditation practice would be one of the first things to go by the wayside. I never really felt as though it either helped or worsened my depression or my anxiety.

In my own case, I actually find that I prefer doing walking meditation or mindfulness yoga to sitting. Physical health professionals all tell us that most of us sit way too much anyway. And sitting is apparently not good for us. So I figure that even if I'm not getting anything out of the meditation or mindfulness aspects of walking or doing yoga, at least I'm moving!

[Gus1234U]

meditation was a great help to me. it ended my depression. now i have stopped practicing i find myself becoming less and less energetic. everyone is different, tho, so asking others what it did for them won't tell you much about yourself. best wishes~

[Teddy Bear]

When I tried meditation it didn't affect my mental illness.

[seeker33]

I feel that in my case meditation makes depression worse. In fact I believe starting a meditation /Chakra work was the trigger for my first depression and cptsd flashback.
Mindfulness and somatic experiencing are much more helpful, without side effects.