Meditation Exercises for People Who Hate Meditation
Stressed? Anxious? Feel like the world is falling apart?
Over years of expressing displeasure about my anxiety level, every therapist, mindfulness coach, friend, colleague, and listener off the street has jumped to tell me that meditation is the best solution.
But I hate meditation. Ever since my first college course over a decade ago, sitting down to meditate has increased my stress level until I got frustrated and gave up. But in 2015, I finally found out that meditative activities don’t have to involve sitting cross-legged and focusing on your breathe. For those of us who are more active, finding ways to meditate while moving can provide a smoother path to calm.
So here are a few activities that worked for me. One of the things I’ve learned is to tailor exercises to fit your particular needs, so adapt away, and if other activities help you, please share in the comments! I’d love to hear what has worked for other people.
Tai Chi and/or Qi Gong
Tai Chi was the first mindful activity that actually worked for me. The movements were slow and flowy enough to be relaxing, but they required such precision from all parts of the body that my mind was too occupied to wander. And if it did, having something to do with my limbs helped me reign it back in. Yoga, dance, stretching/strengthening, walking (or jogging), or any other slow-paced movements should work too.
Here are a few online resources to get you started:
Chen Family Taijiquan (the Tai Chi form I use, but any form will do)
7-Minute Qi Gong Video Exercise by Qigong for Vitality
20-Minute Qi Gong Video Exercise by Lee Holden Qi Gong
Improv and Play
Never in my life would I have thought doing improv could be a destressing exercise for me, but Ted DesMaisons’s Playful Mindfulness course completely changed the way I think about mindful activities. By combining simple improv games and exercises, concepts from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), group discussion, and more traditional meditation, the course helps students focus on the present while delighting in how joyfully curious everyday life can be. Ted’s book, Playful Mindfulness: A Joyful Journey to Everyday Confidence, Calm, and Connection, is also well-worth a read and is a good reference for information and exercises. Some exercises can be done alone, but it often helps to grab a friend or two, and many are kid-friendly.
Do the Dishes
Or scrub the floors. Or fold laundry. Or any repetitive household chore. Sound too easy? There’s a reason people pay thousands of dollars to attend retreats where they end up cooking and cleaning for hours every day. According to Buddhist monk Shoukei Matsumoto, “if you practise cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning, you will eventually know that you have been cleaning your inner world along with the outer one.” The repetitive and productive nature of these tasks helps me focus on the present without adding another thing I have to do each day.
Get a (Mindful) Hobby
Do you like adult coloring books? Drawing? Painting? Sculpting? Or perhaps a tea ceremony is more your speed. Or writing in a journal. Gardening. Knitting. Building with LEGOs. As you’re probably noticing, the key is to find slow-paced, repetitive movement that focuses your mind without creating unnecessary stress. A creative element seems to help too, and hobbies like these create opportunities for movement while still sitting down.
Gratitude Journal
Have those therapists, mindfulness coaches, and meditation junkies also recommended you write down what you’re thankful for every day? More mindful than meditative, I eventually broke down and started doing this exercise. During my first few attempts, I would be diligently record my gratitudes for the first week and then start forgetting and then give up. Eventually, I asked for help. I started sending 3 things I was grateful for to my brother every day and asked him to keep me on track. But then he started forgetting to remind me, so I started posting them to a group text. That worked much better because I had three other girls to keep me accountable. One of them was bound to remember. Even on depressing days when the outside world was filled with smog and noise and traffic, and my husband and I were fighting indoors, this has been a good way to remember that things could always be worse and that you can choose to see the beauty in the world.
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Don’t have time to meditate? If you dread sitting still for an hour, this 15-second daily pause from the Mindfulness in Schools Project might be more your speed. This is a more traditional meditation, but the length made it manageable for me, and it’s a great way to destress at work without cutting into productivity.
You’ll need a partner. Every day, each of you will text “.b” to the other at some point during the day. When you receive the text, stop what you’re doing. Find a position in which you can be undisturbed for a minute. Feel your feet. Are they warm? What are they touching? Can you feel the ground underneath you? What sensations does it provide for your feet? Concentrate on how your feet feel without judging those feelings (this is where I usually break down, just do your best). Then focus on your breathing (my nemesis in traditional meditation, but it’s just for a few seconds). Think about the ins and outs without trying to change anything. These two pieces ground your mind in the present. Then just be for a minute. Don’t think about those 26 new emails. Or if you do, let them make an appearance and then float away. Take a few seconds to focus on you and your needs and your right to have a minute to yourself.
I hope this helps! Please do add any exercises that have worked for you in the comments, and I’m happy to answer any questions.
