Meditation: The Natural Healer

By Elena Golubovich

A glimpse into the world of meditation and how it’s being used to treat different illnesses.

The Athens KTC Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center is not what a traditional Buddhist temple looks like. It’s a house renovated to be a dance studio, but every Sunday at 10 a.m., there are Tibetan prayer flags flying over the lawn, signaling the time for group meditation. The airy studio inside is sparsely decorated, with small cushions arranged in a circle and a temporary Buddhist altar to the far left. A group of people are spread around the room, sitting on their legs or cross-legged. The space is almost silent; the only sound is the pitter-patter of rain against the concrete outside the open windows. Breathing becomes more relaxed and slows down as people lose themselves in the guided meditation.

Meditation is the practice of contemplation and mindfulness. Beginning thousands of years ago in East Asia, its exact origin is unclear. Earliest records suggest that tribes practiced meditation and it was orally passed down as a form of medicine. It became popularized after the Buddha carried it into religion as a means of achieving nirvana, an enlightened state of mind where there is no suffering or sense of self. Meditation evolved into a form of prayer from the basic origins of holistic medicine that those tribes practiced.

Sue Erlewine, a resident of Athens, Ohio and a practitioner of the Buddhist religion, is not your typical image of a Buddhist. She’s an older woman with short, copper-tinted gray hair and lotus earrings dangling by her neck. Initially raised Presbyterian, Erlewine was not exposed to the Buddhist religion until her late 40s, after exploring many other religious and spiritual options. She’s been practicing Buddhism and meditation for almost twenty years while also helping lead group meditations at the Athens KTC Tibetan Buddhist Center.

“I did a lot of seeking: I looked into Native American spirituality, I looked into Hinduism, I looked into Catholicism, I eventually became Episcopalian at one point,” she says. “Nothing really seemed to fit.”

After finding a Buddhist center in Columbus, Erlewine committed herself to the Buddhist religion and its main practice, meditation. She helped begin the Buddhist temple in Athens and it has slowly grown into a consistent group of visitors every Sunday that meditate for an hour and a half, followed by a discussion of different Buddhist teachings. Erlewine says that taking ten minutes out of any day has helped her establish a routine for meditation.

Meditation melds the mind and body together to help an overexerted or stressed body, which cannot feed the mind in a consistent or healthy way. Today’s society puts pressure on working long hours instead of emphasis on mental health. As a result, the mind and body are exhausted and many people do not treat their mind with the same priority of taking care of their body. Exercising the mind can result in a healthier and calmer pattern of thinking, which can actually boost performances at a job as well as social life and problem-solving.

Meditation is primarily associated with the Buddhist religion as a form of prayer. Through these practices of prayer, dieting and teachings, monks and devout followers attempt to achieve enlightenment by meditating throughout the day. They do not pray to a god or higher being, but rather to achieve a heightened mindset in which the mind and body are in perfect sync. Traditional meditation follows the form of sitting cross-legged with open palms in the lap, like the statues of Buddha that are used as prayer idols. This is known as lotus position and it is widely recognized as the symbol associated with meditation. The next step is to focus on the breathing patterns as well as shutting out distractions. Meditation is not a quickly mastered practice when used to achieve nirvana; It takes focused determination, commitment and daily practice to even begin to understand its effects. The most common requirements to begin practicing include a quiet space in which to meditate and an open attitude. Impatience is not something that will make the process go faster. However, meditation can start affecting the mind and body as early as a couple weeks of practicing – it all depends on the person and their mindset.

As a result of its continued health benefits, therapists have begun to switch over to meditation for treatment for more extreme mental and emotional issues. The most prominent effects from this therapy is noticeable in people diagnosed with anxiety, especially because they have difficulty with distractions in their environment. Meditation helps shut out those distractions without shutting down the surrounding environment, and instead uses it as an anchor to return to a calmer state of mind.

A 2012 study by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health showed the results in the comparisons of brain scans among 100 adults. Half of the adults who regularly practiced meditation showed more folds on the outer layer of their brains as opposed to the other half who did not practice meditation. The survey concluded that those adults with more folds had brain activity that could increase the process of information.

While meditation is still practiced in its original religious form, it has another branch that today’s younger generations take advantage of. Using guided meditations to control anxiety or other mental health issues, young adults have turned to meditation as a quick, affordable and reliable form of treatment.

Laura Hardy, a 28-year-old working at a Cut+Run editorial agency in San Francisco, is no stranger to stress. Working long days and interacting with clients while managing the office’s day-to-day activities leaves little time for relaxation. Hardy uses meditation as a way to de-stress after a long day, employing the practice before bed a couple of times a week. She was introduced to meditation by her mother, who practiced it, but began meditating herself at 16 after a back injury took her to physical therapy. Her therapist suggested the use of meditation in addition to the craniosacral therapy she was receiving to help heal her mind as well as her body. Hardy now uses meditation in her daily life and finds that the benefits have helped her in strength of mind and body.

Hardy follows guided meditations on apps and YouTube channels to help give her a pathway to follow. Creating a routine for meditation is not simple and can sometimes take years of practice to master even the guided practices.

“A lot of people think that it doesn’t work because it takes a while to learn how to do it,” Hardy says. “But it takes years to learn how to turn off your brain like that. There are times it doesn’t work at all.”

However, meditation is associated with Buddhism, cornering it into the box of religion. Catholic guided meditations have made an appearance in the App Store and on the internet. Misconceptions about meditation stem from the stigma that only devout followers can participate in this type of prayer, without thinking about it as a form of medicine.

“90% of the people who come here [the center] are not Buddhist,” says Erlewine. “They come for the meditation and because there is a support with people around you that are doing the same thing. Then it’s just building the habit.”

Meditation in all its forms has proved useful in modern society. Hardy mentions that she’s seen meditation rooms in airports and clubs meant to provide a space for group meditations. Ohio University’s library created a space for its students to take a step back from the stress of schoolwork. Located on the fifth floor of the library, the meditation room, formally known as the United Meditation Room, offers a quiet and dark space for students to use meditation to moderate their emotions. However, librarian Joseph Walden says that students use the room for a variety of reasons.

“I see people go into the room, people of the Muslim faith, around their prayer times and use it as a safe and quiet space,” Walden says. “A lot of people use it.”

Public meditation rooms have begun to spring up in high stress environments. The meditation room at Ohio University received support from the students and surrounding community. It’s a small, square room with a curtain separating the middle for individual meditation or prayers, and the lights are shut off with no windows – the only light source is the doorframe leading to the study areas. Already located on a quieter floor of the library, the United Meditation room provides a calm and safe space for students to relax their minds and de-stress from their environments.

Kelly Broughton, the Assistant Dean for Research at Ohio University’s library, says that the United Meditation Room began with a student request for a prayer space. Finding the balance between different types of prayer, like Muslim prayers and meditation, resulted in a nondenominational space that was available to students for reflective practices.

“Research shows that students are in the library studying for longer stretches of time than they used to,” Broughton says. “But is that really the best thing for your health and wellness?”

Broughton and other organizations on campus partnered to create the United Meditation room. Ohio University began taking measures to support the students’ mental health over perfect grades and a relaxing space was the first step. By having the United Meditation Room in the library, students can pull themselves away from their assignments to rest their mind and body without having to relocate their study spot. Another option they afford their students is access to the WellTrack app, which is paid for by the university and allows its students to track their moods and follow guided meditations.

Ultimately, the benefits of meditation result in heightened concentration and inner stillness, which can be translated into everyday life and the stresses that accompany it. The more intense results seen among devout practitioners like monks are unwavering stillness, both inner and outer. In shorter time frames with more unorthodox practices through apps or videos, meditation has become a way for people to disconnect from the busy and demanding smartphone and technology. It’s a way to return to a calm and peaceful headspace while boosting mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

Meditation doesn’t just boost mental health but also the way people perceive the world. It opens the mind to new pathways of thinking and solving problems. Practicing meditation several times a week for even five minutes can begin to build muscle memory and improve brain activity.

“It’s all about how to work with those distressing thoughts and feelings that come up,” says Erlewine. “There’s no exclusivity here.”