5 Alternatives to Traditional Meditation
Do you want to start a meditation practice but have trouble sitting still? Would you like to experience the benefits of meditation without practicing it the traditional way? Or are you looking for ways to supplement your meditation practice with other mind-calming activities?
Though meditation is the easiest way to teach yourself to calm the negative voices in your head, it’s definitely not the only way.
I realize how challenging meditation can be. The first time I tried to meditate, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. Just one minute of sitting still was torture for me. At that point in my life, I was working through severe depression and chronic anxiety. Being in silence with my thoughts was the last thing I wanted to do.
Still, I was searching for a way to calm my mind. Besides that, I kept hearing about the benefits of meditation. Study after study showed how meditation helped people manage stress, boost creativity, improve their health—and even change their brains for the better.
But what if you’re just not ready to meditate? Is there any way you can get these benefits without doing traditional sitting meditation? Yes!
The five alternatives I’ve outlined below are designed to help you experience the positive effects of meditation without doing it the traditional way. Just like with meditation, the more you practice them, the better you’ll feel.
Five Alternatives to Meditation
1. Joy-Generating Activities. Before I developed a meditation practice, the easiest way to connect to a sense of calm was to make time for the activities I loved. Snowboarding was one: being outside, breathing in the mountain air, and seeing what my body was capable of made me feel happy and strong. It also made me feel glad to be alive.
Cooking gave me a similar feeling. When I was chopping herbs or tasting as I went along, I wasn’t worrying about the future or obsessing about the past. Instead, I was literally savoring the moment, engaging my senses, and paying close attention to everything I was doing.
Your joy-generating activities don’t have to be as involved as cooking or snowboarding, though. They can be as simple as taking a walk in the park, spending time with a friend, or going to the movies. The point is to find things that inspire and relax you, and bring you into the moment.
Take it deeper: Make a list of your favorite activities. Then do your best to make time for at least one of them on a daily basis. Why? The more time you spend in a state of presence and joy, the easier it is for you to access these positive emotions when you need them. Think of it as creating emotional muscle memory. The more you exercise your positive emotions, the more resilient they become over time—and the more you can draw on them when life gets challenging.
2. Brain-Calming Games. In her book SuperBetter, game designer Jane McGonigal shares the story of how she used games to calm the suicidal feelings she experienced in the aftermath of a severe concussion.
Over the course of her recovery, she discovered that other people also felt the meditative effects of playing games. Besides building emotional resilience and optimism, playing games and doing puzzles (including but not limited to video games) can bring you into a state of flow and give you a break from negative thoughts.
What’s more, she found that certain games, like Tetris and Candy Crush, could even ease symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
3. The Pink Elephant. This is a meditation-simulating activity courtesy of Jane McGonigal. Besides games, she recommends a number of other techniques people can use to improve focus and increase calm, including this one.
Here’s how it works: Take one minute and try not to think about a pink elephant. Note how often you thought about the pink elephant during that minute. Now try again for one minute, but this time, list as many words as you can starting with “P” and “E.” Note how much listing the words helped take your mind off the pink elephant.
When you’re trying to ease depression or anxiety, or fight cravings, this technique can be especially helpful. Why? Because you’re training your mind to focus on one source of information at a time and ignore everything else—which can improve how you feel in that moment.
4. One-minute Breathing. Just one minute of deep breathing actually has the power to shift your nervous system from fight-or-flight into rest-or-digest mode. To focus during that minute, try breathing in for a count of four and breathing out for a count of eight.
Lengthening your exhales increases your heart-rate variability (one of the most important indicators of nervous system health) and soothes the nervous system in the short-term. It can also protect against stress, anxiety, pain, and inflammation over the long term.
5. Yoga. I was able to do yoga long before I was able to meditate. If you’re not ready to sit with your thoughts, yoga is a great place to start because it helps shift your attention away from negative thought patterns and onto your body and breath. It also moves stagnant energy in the body, which is one of the keys to releasing depression and other negative emotions.
Which type of yoga should you choose? The one you’re most attracted to. Even if you lean toward fitness-focused yoga versus more spiritually-oriented yoga, you’re still developing your ability to focus on your breath and be in the moment. Both of these skills are important in the process of learning to lower the volume on negative voices in your head—and find your calm.
Do you want to learn more about meditation, or alternatives to it? In my new book, Life Launch, I write about how to start—and stick with—a meditation practice, along with other practical yet profound ways to take care of your spirit. Download a sample chapter here.