We always hear about the benefits of mindfulness in our lives. Many people practice it because of its proven scientific benefits. But, can mindfulness be actually harmful? If so, when does it become harmful and how can it be prevented?
Mindfulness
According to the American Psychological Association (2012), it is “a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgement. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait.” Mindfulness brings focus on a person’s experience through being aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations when practicing it. It helps a person be one with the inner self and it brings peace in our chaotic lives.
We know that the goal of mindfulness is not only to make a person relax, but also to divert a person’s attention away from the stress and unpleasant thoughts that can be truly overwhelming sometimes. Mindfulness helps stimulate the emotional, mental and physical processes in our body.
Awareness and Acceptance
With the popularity of mindfulness practice in social media, many people seem to practice it. But people may not be doing it the right way. Mindfulness has two main components: Awareness and Acceptance. In order for you to truly be able to successfully practice mindfulness you need to consider these two. Awareness involves being aware and monitoring your experiences while acceptance means that you should be able to monitor your experience openly and without prior judgement. Implementing these two components are needed to better understand the practice of being mindful and get its benefits.
Study shows that people who practice mindfulness without the attitude of acceptance are not successful with it and has undesirable outcomes. People who paid attention to their experiences with a judgmental attitude has the poorest emotional outcomes. Research shows that they have high levels of depression, anxiety and even, emotional instability than those who practice it with proper awareness and non-judgmental attitude.
From this, we can surmise that without these two components, one can expect that mindfulness can lead to unwanted outcomes which can contribute in the development of emotional instability of a person.
Unwanted effects of Mindfulness
As much as there are many benefits of proper practice of meditation and mindfulness, there are also factors that can cause unwanted effects which we cannot prevent. Here are some of the unwanted effects of Mindfulness:
It may stimulate negative thinking
A lot of people have this misconception that meditation promotes positive thinking, it isn’t always the case. Studies shows that some of those who practiced meditation experienced negative emotions such as delusions, paranoia, and having irrational thoughts. They also reported that they are unable to control themselves and has a remarkable change in their executive function as well.
People who are not in a good place and practice meditation are prone to stimulating these negative thoughts that is harmful than beneficial. It may trigger so many unwanted emotions that can even aggravate the emotional lability a person is experiencing. Mindfulness has different effects on people.
Meditation can also trigger emotions and memories that has long been suppressed. This can lead to the appearance of negative emotions and can be hard to handle for some people. There were reports that some participants were able to re-live their previous traumatic experiences or have flashbacks when meditating.
Sensory perception may be altered
Since mindfulness makes use of the senses to further improve awareness, it can alter these sensations too. A study found out that participants who meditated were able to experience increased sensitivity to light and noise, hallucinations, illusions and visions that weren’t there.
Some people also have this wrong thinking that they will have visions – like seeing the white light or flying like a free spirit – when meditating. This is a wrong reason to meditate as it can cause frustration and unproductivity once it can’t be achieved.
Can cause lack of motivation
Who doesn’t procrastinate? I think everyone does. I bet you’ve done it more than once in a month. Unfortunately, there are studies that supports the fact that meditation can actually aggravate your lack of motivation. It can actually cause you to lose interest in activities that has been previously enjoyable for you.
Physical side effects
Aside from its effect emotionally, mindfulness has some unwanted effects on our body too. Some of the symptoms identified were pressure, involuntary movements of the body, headache, fatigue, body weakness, digestion problems, and dizziness.
Feel Lost
Everyone goes through being or feeling lost in their lives more than once. But this is an unexpected effect of mindfulness. Mindfulness can potentially cause you to negatively look at yourself and if you are already in this state, it can make it even worse. Meditation not only bring awareness of the positives but also the negative aspects of your life. It now depends on the person on how it will allow itself to be affected.