Email usMeditation as a relaxation technique can produce some benefits. However, on its own it's not enough to bring about recovery from an anxiety disorder. The reason meditation produces a relaxation response is that for 20 minutes or so, the meditator has interrupted the normal, habituated thought process; the one which had produced anxiety on a daily basis. The problem is: once the person gets up from the meditative position, they enter into the same habituated thought patterns and soon the anxiety returns and the benefits of meditation are lost.
However meditation, when practiced as a means of self-awareness, can teach us much about ourselves. It shows us our difficulties in letting go; our need to be in control and our expectations and perfectionist attitudes. It shows us our resistance to giving time to ourselves and our fear of new experiences and change. If you fail to notice all the things meditation can show you because you were only wanting to feel relaxed, then you will miss so much of what meditation is all about. But if you meditate to cultivate awareness of who you are, then you begin to notice how pre-conceived ideas/beliefs stop you from achieving freedom. If you take what you learn in meditation and endeavour to link it to your every-day life experience, then you begin to understand many of the causes for your anxiety.
Meditation is most useful when combined with CBT and/or psychotherapy.
